Is this barrel copper fouled?

If accuracy isn't affected, leave it alone. If your groups open up, I'd clean it.

If you find that it fouls up with copper alot, you might need to work on the barrel a bit. I've never done it myself, so I would start by asking someone with more experience.

You're gonna get all sorts of feedback on this:

It might be rust and not copper.
It might be copper and not rust.
Just clean it.
If accuracy isn't affected, don't clean it.

If it were my rifle and I saw something in the bore that doesn't belong, I would clean it. Then I would check to see if my accuracy had fallen off. If it had, I would increase my cleaning interval to 150 or so rounds and do it all over. If it hadn't I would leave my cleaning interval alone and not clean it any more than necessary.

Greetings
Run a tight patch through it and see what comes out.
Last thing you want to do is discover that some hideous rust monster was at work in there. If it is jacket fouling a tight patch will snag some but will not get it all. No harm done if it shoots great fouled.
Hoppes #9 is a good friend for jacket fouling. Any bore cleaner with amonia in it will eat out jacket material. Read the directions as some products are very active and will eat on the steel barrel if left working over many hours.
Rust.. I would start with hot water just in case there is some corrosive salts at work. Then whatever barrel cleaning product you have with lots off bronze brush or copper chore boy. Use a muzzle protector if working from the muzzle. Get the rust out. Then well oil it and repeat the cleaning and oiling for 3 days.
Mike in Peru

I posted something similar when I shot my M1903 for the first time.

At the end of the barrel was streaks / lines that were orange colored. They weren't there before. The guy I bought the rifle from never shot it and it has an HS barrel from 1944. Probably when it was rebuilt at RA. It appeared to be a barely used barrel, if at all.

What I was told is that it's the copper from the FMJ ammo will leave some deposits each time you shoot. The rifle will actually settle down in its accuracy after the deposits kind of fill in things. The fact that the streaks go to the end of the barrel could mean that the barrel is good and tight and very little wear.

You can clean it until most of it is out, but it will just fill up again next time.
So just do the usual cleaning and don't worry about getting every little speck of orange out.

If anyone agrees or disagrees, I'm definitely willing to learn too. This is what I got as responses.

The solvent you are using may not be effective on copper. What kind is it? A bronze bore brush isn't really necessary on a rifle that doesn't see much lead. Copper fouling is as mysterious as accuracy and ammo diets. Some rifles just foul more than others. A slight change in cleaning product or method may be necessary to get the copper out.

Ever try the Hoppes Elite Gun Oil? I use to oil with Rem Oil. Then I switched to Hoppes (after experimenting with others, including ATF). Hoppes has been the best I've used yet.

That's the idea I was getting from some of the responses I was reading. Your pictures show it on the rifling. Is it a new barrel and rifle? Shooting copper jacketed ammo?

Before I shot my rifle, I had completely torn it down and got all the little bits of cosmoline out of everything, so I would hope I would have noticed if it had been in there before.

I noticed the streaks after I finished cleaning mine after shooting it for the first time and only saw the streaks when I happened to use a bright, white light.

My M1's don't show it, but they have definitely used barrels, lol.

From what I read and use, I'll stick with Hoppe's #9 and or Wipeout, but I won't worry about the color. It seems to be somewhat common.

It may be Copper deposits but I wouldn't call it fouling. When a barrel becomes Copper fouled the grooves are usually filled enough to prevent the bullet from being grabbed by the rifling. Also like said above, it might be a touch of rust too.

Soak a mop with a good rust removing oil and run it through the barrel a few times and then run a dry patch or two through. If the yellow goes away or is greatly reduced it was rust, if not probably Copper. Also like said above, if accuracy isn't being effected I wouldn't worry about it.

A while back I switched from #9 to a gunslik foaming bore cleaner. I wasn't happy with Hoppes and was shopping around for a new cleaner. A few months later i was wanting to clean an S&W 586. I was out of gunslik and all I had on hand was the same bottle of Hoppes i had given up on. So I wiped out the bore and charge holes and set it aside to soak. Before, I had wiped the bore, waited a few minutes and then used a jag to punch the both. This time however, I got busy with something else and it was almost two hours before I returned to finish up. I was amazed at the veritable rainbow of colors showing on my first patch. I hadn't been letting it soak long enough! The Hoppes works fine if I let it sit long enough.

So I think Hoppes is good, but you might want to let it soak a little longer.

On the other and I recommend that you ditch the Remoil. It evaporates to quickly to offer any sort of protection and the PTFE it leaves behind doesn't either. I use it on small low stress parts that i want to keep dry lubed. Despite what Remington says, I think it's the wrong stuff for bores.I think you'll find a heavier oil will stick around longer. And be cheaper. I'm still working my way through a couple bottles of kleen-bore oil that came with some cleaning kits. It doesn't evaporate very quickly and stays where I put it. Smells good too. Shop around and find one you like.

Also, what color are your patches after cleaning?

That's rust. copper comes out blue-greenish. Rust comes red-brown. Carbon comes black. And lead comes out greyish. Scrub the neck out of till your patches come out the same color as it went in. Then wipe your bore down with a good oil.

I have a couple of rifles with bores that tend to rust very very easily.

My solution - after cleaning, run a couple of patches saturated with grease through the bore. My two picky rifles will rust after a couple of days even with an oiled bore but if I use grease it really does the trick. Before going to the range, I simply clean the bore and then repeat the whole process again once I get home.

My suggestion? Get some JB Bore Bright ! Put a small amount on a patch, run it from the breech to the muzzle, then run it back and forth through the barrel about 10 times. When you pull the patch out, you'll be dumbstruck ! Then I'd suggest going on-line to Midway USA and getting some bore cleaner called "Witch's Brew", this stuff will clean your barrel, after shooting, like you've never seen before. A smith friend of mine told me about this WB product, he uses it all the time. This smith builds rifles for several PD's in the state, and benchrest shooters, this stuff works. YMMV

The pictures of the muzzle are clearly copper fouling in the rifling. You may have both copper fouling and rust. A barrel with rough tooling marks in the leade will copper foul easily. If it were my gun I would get it bore scoped.

I agree regarding some JB bore cleaning products. They are nonembedding, and make easy work of barrel cleaning.

Geno

Looks like copper fouling. If your barrel is stainless I would be careful about using an aggressive ammonia based copper remover. Work a patch or two with a little JB's bore cleaner paste back and forth, clean the JB out, and then wet the bore with Hoppe's 9 and let it soak over night.

I've given this treatment to an older Savage that was neglected before I bought it. Works like a charm.

Run a couple of patches soaked in Kroil through the bore to get under and loosen barrel fouling, then wipe away most of the crud with a dry patch. Follow with J-B Compound to dig deep and remove the most stubborn moly residue, powder, and copper jacket fouling. A final pass with Kroil coats the bore with a rust preventive film.

Click to expand...

http://www.brownells.com/gun-cleaning-chemicals/solvents-degreasers/bore-cleaning-paste/j-b-bore-compound-kroil-prod1159.aspx

I stay away from JB compound, it micro polishes the metal in your bore. This means that its removing metal and that's not a good thing. Plus if you're smearing it on a bore brush wrapped with a patch, how do you think you're getting an even coating down the full length of your barrel?

The patch you pulled out looks like rust and as pointed out, copper deposits come out blueish green to dark blue. You need a copper solvent, if you don't want one with ammonia in it try Boretechs Eliminator. It's a surfectant and will get under the copper and lift it off the barrel steel. Follow the directions and it works great, plus it leaves a protective film to help keep further copper deposits from sticking in the barrel. It also makes further cleanings a lot easier.