A couple cleaning questions!

[Axis II]

I just tried butches bore shine and sweets on my 223rem bolt action that hasn't been cleaned for awhile and shot a lot and I'm kind of at a loss.

First I bore mopped it with butches about 5 passes and then ran a jag with old t shirt patches I cut up and they were tight and after 2 patches they were white but the first 2 pretty brown/black. I ran about 10 patches and I could smell the butches on them a little but still white. Brushed it with a nylon brush and swabbed and clean patches.

Let bore dry and switched to sweets and followed directions and pushed a patch holder with old t shirt patches and it pushed a white froth out of the muzzle with some black stuff and after 3 patches it was white but I kept getting sweets on the patches cause they were wet after about 12 patches they were dry. I followed up with hopps to kill the sweets and those patches were clean.

Any idea why I got clean patches so quick? Any downside to using an old cut up cotton t shirt?

 

[doubleh]

I have no idea about why you got clean patches so quick. I would just be pleased with the results. As to using old cotton tee shirts: I have been recycling them for many years as patches and cleaning rags and haven't found a downside yet. Just free patches after I stole a pair of scissors from my wife and I don't pay for rags either. My wife's a quilter and she was grumbling about the scissors being a little dull so I didn't get into trouble about the theft either.

 

[GunnyUSMC]

It could be that your barrel is very smooth.

 

[Axis II]

It could be that your barrel is very smooth.

Could you clarify what you mean please?

 

[GunnyUSMC]

Depending on how the bore was cut, the bore could have smoother surfaces.

 

[ontarget]

A smoother bore would not hold onto the fouling like one that has pits or chatter marks from machining. This is one of the reasons some people are super anal about barrel break in procedures. It is also one of the reasons some people rarely clean their bores thoroughly as the fouling fills in those imperfections.

 

[Axis II]

A smoother bore would not hold onto the fouling like one that has pits or chatter marks from machining. This is one of the reasons some people are super anal about barrel break in procedures. It is also one of the reasons some people rarely clean their bores thoroughly as the fouling fills in those imperfections.

you know I never knew about break in procedures until about 3 days ago I seen it elsewhere and got to reading and said yeah, that didn't happen! I just grabbed 2-3 boxes of wolf FMJ and rough sighted in until the 3rd rounds wouldn't eject I gave them away and went to all Vmax. I think I fired 50-100 rounds before cleaning it.

 

[JO JO]

just out of curiosity are you running factory ammo or reloads ?

 

[Axis II]

just out of curiosity are you running factory ammo or reloads ?

The rifle I cleaned today has seen mostly factory 200rds max and about 20rds of reloads. The rifle I'm going to clean Wednesday with boretech eliminator has seen about 150-200rds factory and 250ish rounds of reloads. Why if I may ask?

 

[JO JO]

with so many of the newer powders advertising built in fouling eraser and super clean burning I was curious if that had anything to do with it,
I bought a new 308 last year and have only shot my reloads in it with the newer powder IMR 4166 Enduron , advertised as a clean burning temp stable with a fouling eraser and to me it has made a difference that rifle cleans up really easy,

 

[BigBore44]

Some people think barrel break in matters. Some don’t. But when I was 18 a friend of mine who is a long range shooter took me out and broke in my M70 with Sweets. Took an entire box of ammo to do it. But I can take that rifle out today and put a hundred rounds through it and it only takes a couple patches to be clean. Was it a fluke? I don’t know. But I do know how easy that rifle is to clean.

 

[rskent]

Any downside to using an old cut up cotton t shirt?

I like the synthetic patches better. On my 223’s I cut a 3” into four 1 ½” patches that fit perfectly.

With cotton scraps I can never get the fit that I want. They are either too lose or too tight.

 

[Axis II]

I like the synthetic patches better. On my 223’s I cut a 3” into four 1 ½” patches that fit perfectly.

With cotton scraps I can never get the fit that I want. They are either too lose or too tight.

I would understand the loose patch being an issue but how would a tight patch as long as it goes down the barrel be an issue? Not arguing just trying to learn.

 

[Bbear]

Re: cleaning - a tight patch fits into the grooves and imperfections better than a loose patch. Some synthetic patches can react with some types of chemicals in cleaning solutions to cause a caustic substance to form. Cleaning regimens vary depending upon how a shooter learned. Some clean after every trip to the range or after each hunt. Some clean once a year, if ever. And, some clean only when they begin to see accuracy drop off. (as the barrel gets dirty from shooting it, at some point the fouling builds up enough to start to have an affect on the grouping of shots). There isn't any 'right' way and many more 'wrong' ways to do it.
Re: breaking in a barrel -
1. break-in ALL barrels - various versions of this but basically; shoot x time(s) then clean down to the bare metal. repeat a certain number of times then go for 3-5 shot groups cleaning after each group. Big Bore's post (#11) touches on this version.
2. don't break-in ANY barrels - clean the new rifle's bore of any shipping gunk (that's a technical term ya know) and go shoot.
3. break-in factory barrels but not 'custom' barrels. - whether button-rifled or how the rifling is put into the bore, the process of drilling the original hole leaves 'chatter' marks in the bore. Rifling it doesn't do anything to those chatter marks. (scroll down to see pics of the chatter or tooling marks - http://www.rimfirecentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=658833 ). The theory of breaking-in a bore is to fill in the tooling/chatter marks a bit with each shot and knock down or round off any sharp edges. Note in the picture, the tooling marks are perpendicular to the path a bullet would take down the bore.
When you purchase an after-market barrel - say Pac-nor or Douglas etc - one of the final steps is to hand lap the barrels. This is a process of running a device through the bore with grit on it to smooth out any of the tooling marks. This leaves a barrel that is smoother and thus, holds less debris from each round. It also allows for easier cleaning. (follow the link and scroll down a good picture of before and after: http://www.rimfirecentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=599688 ).
These lapped barrels are thought to need little to no break-in. (In my personal experience, even hand-lapped barrels will need anywhere from as little as 10 rounds to as many as 50 rounds to 'settle in' and give you your best accuracy. Factory barrels that you do a break-in process on may go 20 to as many as 75 rounds to 'settle-in' and one of my rifles, a 264 WM, took just over 100 [I just cleaned the bore and started shooting, I could tell pretty quickly when the bore settled in.])
All is not lost though if you have a factory rifle that needs or could use some version of bore-lapping. You can purchase all of the tools and hand lap your bore yourself - very time consuming - or, pick up some of the Final Finish bullets from David Tubbs - have a friend load them for you or load them yourself and follow his directions. This will help remove the tooling marks from a bore. It will also help clean up the leade of a rifle that's nearing being shot out.

Hope this is some help.

 

[entropy]

Any idea why I got clean patches so quick? Any downside to using an old cut up cotton t shirt?

1.) You use very, very clean shooting powders.
or,
2.) Your jag is undersized/patches too thin
or
3.) Your patches don't absorb at all. (highly unlikely if they are cotton.)

Try BreakFree CLP; it will get carbon fouling out of even a never-fired barrel, and do it continuously for days on end.

I save the Sweet's for cleaning milsurps fired with corrosive ammo. It eliminates the step of running hot water or Windex down the barrel.

All is not lost though if you have a factory rifle that needs or could use some version of bore-lapping. You can purchase all of the tools and hand lap your bore yourself - very time consuming - or, pick up some of the Final Finish bullets from David Tubbs - have a friend load them for you or load them yourself and follow his directions. This will help remove the tooling marks from a bore. It will also help clean up the leade of a rifle that's nearing being shot out.

Best way to break a barrel in.

 

[Jim Watson]

Try BreakFree CLP; it will get carbon fouling out of even a never-fired barrel, and do it continuously for days on end.

Where do you figure that carbon come from? Leached out of the steel alloy itself?

Solvents are rather selective. You can take a barrel cleaned with Brand X and get more fouling out with Acme. Great. But use Acme for a while and you will probably find that Brand X will now drag out some additional fouling.

 

[entropy]

Slight hyperbole, with a hint of truth. Guns are often test fired at the factory. It was my humorously intended way of saying Break Free is very effective at pulling carbon fouling out of barrels. As an Armorer, I would clean the rifles turned in after cleaning (even after my rigorous inspection) a day or two later, and the patches came out just as bad as from just off the firing line.

 

[Axis II]

1.) You use very, very clean shooting powders.
or,
2.) Your jag is undersized/patches too thin
or
3.) Your patches don't absorb at all. (highly unlikely if they are cotton.)

Try BreakFree CLP; it will get carbon fouling out of even a never-fired barrel, and do it continuously for days on end.

I save the Sweet's for cleaning milsurps fired with corrosive ammo. It eliminates the step of running hot water or Windex down the barrel.



Best way to break a barrel in.

I use benchmark and h322 most the time but this rifle has seen a lot of factory mainly wolf, AE and some v max.

Yep, cotton t shirts cut into patches. it was sometimes a mother to get the rod through the barrel some were so tight.

Ill give it a try I have a bottle but the little straw snapped off inside of it and it sometimes doesn't want to come out.

 

[Axis II]

do you guys do any chamber cleaning? My buddy gave me one of those AR15 brushes and I turned it slowly in a drill with a hint of butches and then some large patches and they came out black! I said the dang chamber is dirtier than the barrel!

 

[rskent]

how would a tight patch as long as it goes down the barrel be an issue?

Exactly, sometimes they go through the bore guide and the chamber fine and then they want to get stuck as they go into the barrel. So, you pull out your rod, and the patch stays behind. Then you get to pull out the bore guide and run the rod in from the muzzle end to push it out. Not a life ending problem, just a pain.

 

[entropy]

do you guys do any chamber cleaning? My buddy gave me one of those AR15 brushes and I turned it slowly in a drill with a hint of butches and then some large patches and they came out black! I said the dang chamber is dirtier than the barrel!

Yes, chambers need to be brushed out regularly with a brush bigger than bore size, and the AR really benefits from the special brush for it. The cog-shaped patches used to clean the lock-up area behind the chamber are really handy....

 

[Axis II]

Well I guess it wasn't just butches and sweets that gave me super quick clean patches. I ordered boretech eliminator and tried it on another rifle tonight and got about 4 blue patches and they went clean. I ran a wet mop down the bore again and let it sit and 2-3 more lightly blue patches and then all clean after that.

 

[Axis II]

Yes, chambers need to be brushed out regularly with a brush bigger than bore size, and the AR really benefits from the special brush for it. The cog-shaped patches used to clean the lock-up area behind the chamber are really handy....

I ran some wet patches of eliminator on the chamber and then used an AR brush and then dry patches to clean the chamber out and it wasn't that bad. My other rifle that's not shot that much was filthy! Anyone know why a rifle with less rounds had a dirtier chamber?

 

[JO JO]

same brand ammo shot in both rifles ?

 

[Demi-human]

Chamber size.
Whether a stouter neck that allows bypass or more voluminous body reducing pressure. Throat and leade will change pressure as well.
Different powders will leave varying amounts of soot.

A semi auto's timing is a variable too.

I am under the impression they are the same caliber.