Couldn't it have just been copper fouling? All I'm shooting are copper bullets….
Yes, and it most likely was, I no longer shoot as much as I once did, I shot my first prairie dogs and rock chucks over 50 years ago I would make annual trips to Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, Colorado, Nebraska and the Dakota's. Each year to do so, I'm not sure if one can realilisticly fire more shoots in one place at one time than a good prairie dog town, back in the 90's and early turn of the 21st century, gun writer chuck cornett put together what was called the prairie dog conference. 72 shooters in all, 60 registered paying shooters 12 gun writers, shooters from as far as franch and Italy attended, gun writers such as bill jordan, Lyne Simpson, Jon sundra, Craig boddington, and bob jordan, to name a few. Industry people like lex webbernek from rifles inc, Ross spagrud from prairie gun works, john lazzeroni, JB hodgdon, and others, as well representatives Burris and lieca savage and sierra, people that know they're stuff, these shoots took place on reservations in Montana or Nebraska, it was a 3 day event with two days of shooting, if one is properly prepared you can shoot a couple thousand rounds on a good prairt dog shoot, at the end of each day we would gather in the motel parking lot and have gun cleaning contest, between sips of scotch and wiffs of hoppies many things would be discussed, from the old timers it might be how much Elmer Keith and jack 0'conner disliked each other to what's more fun, shooting prairie dogs or monkeys in Africa, to who made the longest shot, the geovid had just hit the market and was very popular with the prairie dog crowd, lord they were big heavy and expensive. But proper gun cleaning always came up, much was to be learned during such events, hyper velocity vs high bc hard to over look the red mist affect, how often should one clean, What to clean with, Molly coated bullets, how hot do you let the barrel get, in the end we all had a good time, and always learned something new and made friends, when it come to cleaning each gun is different, some loose accuracy after only 20 rds, so depending on the guns intended propose this may be fine, but certainly not very desirable, a favorite gun of mine is a sako in 17 Remington, I had 154 rounds thru it befor it became to hot to continue so I let it cool, I never got back to this gun on that trip, upon returning and before cleaning I fired a 5 shot group that came in under 7/10ths not much larger than when the barrel was clean, most of what you hear about the 17 is that it fouls quickly, not necessarily true, so for varmint shooting when you start missing the easy shots its time clean, or change rifles, if you can't Grab and hold onto your barrel for more than a second or two its to hot to keep shooting, time to slow way down or stop, on a good shoot that's hard to do, carbon build up may or may not have been part of the problem with your rifle, but copper most certainly was, carbon can be a real problem, the fix is to not let it build up again hard to do or tell, hot barrels carbon fowl quicker and worse than cool barrels, not knowing how you plan to use this rifle, but since you are shooting a x bullet likely big game, so a over heated barrel may be fairly easy to avoid, so try resist the urge to keep shooting when the barrel is hot, clean often, most won't shoot enough rounds thru a big game rifle in a single season for fowling to be a issue, most of my rifles I will clean if time allows if more than ten rounds have been fired down the bore, one never knows what the next trip will bring so I like to always start with a clean barrel, invest in good bore brushes patches and bore jags, you need more than one solvent, I like hoppies bench rest number 9, and Barnes CR10, I like sweets as well, I used to be on the Barnes bullets advisory board and been using x bullets since they became available I might be a little bias, when I clean I start with the hoppies saturate a bronze brush with solvent and run in thru the bore 10 or 12 times and let sit for 10 to 15 minutes, this works well to remove powder residue light carbon and allows the CR10 to work on the copper, clean the brush with acetone or alcohol, take a snug fitting patch on a bore jag and patch dry, run a saturated patch of acetone or alcohol, then patch the bore dry again, now attack the bore with a patch saturated with the CR10 just push thru and let set about 15 minute you may have to repeat this several times, hoppies used to be advertised as hoppies#9 nitro bore cleaner, however someone decided the nitrobenzene was to harmful so it was removed, this worked well on carbon, I still have a limited supply so only use it occasionally, so if one ever runs across a old bottle check the label it may be the good stuff, Another product to keep on hand is break free CLP, cleaner lubricant and protection, the cleaner cuts carbon well, it also might be the best rust protectant on the market, if you suspect a carbon problem plug the chamber and pour enough into the bore to attack the problem area, then stand in a corner overnight, clean and patch dry, with all the varmint shooting I've done carbon has never been a issue for me, having shotout a number of barrels and even border line abused with some of them I was able to squeak out 6 to 8 thousand rounds before I called it quits, again heat is the enemy most large center fire rifles could be ruined in 200 rounds if fired fast enough,
