Major copper fouling?

[GLTaylor]

My son came home with a new Savage in 6.5 CM. He was so happy and proud of his new rifle! It shot very well, which pleased him even more. I asked if he had cleaned it and followed break in procedure. "I cleaned it with Hoppes after i shot 2 boxes of shells through it".
We had a long discussion. After which l let him look at it with a borescope. Another long discussion. He went home disgusted and with a shopping list for proper brushes, solvents and patches. He read on the internet where cleaning was not really necessary and that suited him just fine! Nuff said....

 

[Jon Bischof]

My son came home with a new Savage in 6.5 CM. He was so happy and proud of his new rifle! It shot very well, which pleased him even more. I asked if he had cleaned it and followed break in procedure. "I cleaned it with Hoppes after i shot 2 boxes of shells through it".
We had a long discussion. After which l let him look at it with a borescope. Another long discussion. He went home disgusted and with a shopping list for proper brushes, solvents and patches. He read on the internet where cleaning was not really necessary and that suited him just fine! Nuff said....

Ok, that does it. I'm going to go scrub the last of the faint copper streaks out of my Creedmoor right now--no joking. Hey, before I go in there, can someone check on me in a couple of weeks just to make sure I'm OK?

 

[Privi457]

First thing buy a borescope from Amazon.
Of your 300 is as rough as my 308 (which soots submoa as made) you may want to fire lap it.
I've cured several copper foulers with the kit sold on Amazon. Contrary to instructions, start with finest grit, lap clean and shoot to see how much it still fouls. You can always take more metal out but you can't put it back.

 

[vancewalker007]

Long time reader, first time poster. I just bought a brand new savage apex 110 300 win mag. i put 70 rounds through it this weekend, federal non-typical 180 grain soft points, from academy. I put about 50 patches, some dry, some damp, and some soaked in hoppes no. 9. however my barrel still has this fouling. is this abnormal? I ordered bore tech cu 2. should be here wednesday.

The Bore Tech will get it out, its the only cleaner brand I use in my rifles. Hoppes #9 will barely touch copper. Make sure you either don't use a brush or if you do use a nylon brush because copper cleaner will destroy bronze brushes and leave it in the bore.

 

[brguide]

Wipeout accelerator then patch out with a patch. After that if I still have carbon I use KG2 bore polish with the vfg bore pellets (only need a few strokes). Then wipeout patchout with nylon brush to get remains of KG2 out of barrel.

 

[jedimonkey]

Tubb Dust will solve your problem.

 

[PartsJr.]

My factory Winchester 70 (.270) and Remington 700 (.270) copper foul fairly quickly. I think in part because I never broke my barrels in.
My custom guns (.243 AI & .280 AI) with quality barrels (Lilja and Brux) that were carefully broke in hardly copper foul at all. I can shoot 20 or 30 rounds (slowly), go home and clean and get very, very little to no copper.
I recently picked up a (cheap) 24" heavy AR barrel in .223 Wylde. I loaded 50 of the Tubbs final finish bullets following their cleaning recommendations. After going through the process it cleans up beautifully with no copper fouling, and it shoots darn good as well.
Just be sure to get a quality bore guide and a quality cleaning rod.

 

[javman]

GunSlick, Great stuff! Let it sit overnight and scrub with nylon brush and pretty much done!

 

[twister]

wipe out foam is your friend for this mess.

 

[keithcandler]

Wipe out, KG-12, Sweets 7.62, Montana Extreme Copper killer, and others are very good with copper fouling....do nothing for carbon.

 

[azarcher10x]

A bore scope is probably beneficial for most people. But not for Bob. Bob used to be the high scoring shooter at local matches. He put almost $5,000 into one of his target rifles. But then one day he bought a bore scope. He hurried home from the range mumbling something like "cracks n craters". We didn't see him for a while after that, so we asked his wife "What about Bob?" She just shook her head and said, "He's been spending a lot of time in the gun cleaning room with the door locked." After a couple more weeks of not seeing Bob at the range we heard that his wife had moved out and some other relatives went over to check on him and found Bob smoking JB Bore paste from a water bong. His hands were bleeding; he had turned his target rifle into a smoothbore.

We hope Bob gets the help he needs for his addiction. Bore scopes are useful tools, but some folks just can't deal with what they reveal.

If the above story bears any resemblance to you or anyone else named Bob, get professional help while you still can.

Ignorance is bliss! I made 50 years without one. Went ahead and bought one. Now life sucks!

 

[Scott E Ames]

Read up on them as some people swear by them and others swear at them but Tubbs lapping bullets are hand loaded by you then fired in sequence to progressively lap rough tool marks out of you barrel. You can usually get them through Brownells or Midway.

Tubb Final Finish Bore Lapping System

Tubb Final Finish Bore Lapping System 308 Cal 7.62mm

The Tubb Final Finish Bore Polishing System is composed of a series of 50 bullets that are impregnated with 5 different progressively finer compounds. ...

www.midwayusa.com

 

[Jon Bischof]

Ignorance is bliss! I made 50 years without one. Went ahead and bought one. Now life sucks!

So, are you cleaning your rifles a lot more since you got the bore scope? Did you see any difference in your targets--that would tell you for sure whether the extra angst has been worth it. If your groups improved then it is all good. If they actually got worse then you are probably ready to ask yourself a similar question to "What about Bob?"

 

[lobo56]

And it's not rust? Not an expert but I have seen some rust like this at times~!

Borescope pics would be nice.