copper cleaner use

[RTownsend]

I use Sweets to clean the copper out of my rifles after every session.

Is the 15 Min. rule about leaving the solvent in the barrel per application or per cleaning session?

What happens to the solvent that is bad for the barrel during the time span?

How do you tell when your bore is clean? As in "if the third patch after brushing comes out clean" or "a patch used to scrub the bore with solvent comes out clean".

After the carbon is cleaned out I have been getting out the copper by scrubbing with Butches after soaking the bore with Sweets for a few minutes until a scrubing patch came out fairly clean. Yesterday I cleaned with the butches until the carbon fouling was gone and the switched to Sweets only. I scrubbed the bore with a brush three 10 stroke sessions and never did get a really clean scrubbing patch out of the bore. I did notice a blue buildup on the brush that I never got while mixing the cleaners in the bore.

 

[M2HMGHB]

What kind of brush are you using?

 

[RTownsend]

Pro-Shot bronze

 

[M2HMGHB]

I use Barnes copper remover and it gives me a false positive when I use a bronze brush, it also says on it to use a nylon bore brush. Could it be the same with your Sweets? Just wondering.

 

[uglymofo]

NEVER mix Sweet's with anything else in the barrel. Sweet's is 15 minutes per "session", if it is accepted that X strokes w/ Sweet's, until the time the barrel is dried by the cloth swabbing process is considered a "session". X number of "sessions" equal a "cleaning".

The blue goo that you see is the copper 'liquified'. After letting a Sweet's-soaking barrel soak for no longer than 12 minutes, I then run 2 Sweet's-soaked patches through from breech to muzzle and discard (point XX). If either of these patches shows up blue, the barrel still needs cleaning, BUT it "must be neutralized" before the Sweet's process is started again. I. E., swab the barrel at this point (XX) with two dry patches, then clean it with Butch's, Hoppe's, or Shooter's Choice. Now start the Sweet's process over again, until 2 Sweet's-soaked patches rinsed through the barrel come out neutral, w/o any blue. Then dry the barrel, and clean again with one of the other cleaners. The animal fat (or ammonia depending on whom you believe) in the Sweet's compound becomes acidic (through some chemical process as I recall )and will etch the barrel.

Leaving Sweet's in a barrel longer than 15 minutes can etch the bore; chasing a Sweet's-soaked bore with another chemical cleaner will do that too, but even faster, depending on the chemical reaction.

A barrel shouldn't be cleaned with Sweet's after every outing; copper should be stripped out of the barrel only if accuracy is decreasing, or if your copper-fouling is excessive. There's a product out there called "Spooge". It's way more expensive, but just as good, but it's great advantage is soaking time needn't be monitored; you can forget it overnight and no harm will come to your barrel like it would if you forget past 15 minutes with Sweet's. See http://216.219.200.59/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=4&t=000459 for more on copper-cleaning regimen.

Lapping a factory barrel (not a custom barrel) with David Tubb's Final Finish can result in better accuracy and much less copper-fouling. Most shooters swear by it; it reduced copper-fouling in my Rem 700 by 70%, and my group sizes went from 1 MOA to .8MOA.

 

[Jim K]

Wanna bet that that rigorous cleaning with an acid-based cleaner is doing more harm to the barrel than just a patch with G96 or something like that?

The copper wash is very thin and builds up only to a point. It takes thousands of rounds to make a difference. I used to use toothpaste to remove it when I felt I needed to.

Jim

 

[RTownsend]

Thanks M2HMGHB and thanks uglymofo for the link and cleaning directions. You and the link explained alot to me. I never left the two chemicals in together for longer than one 10 stroke scrubbing session. My thoughts was that the Sweets would loosen the copper and then I would scrub it out with a brush with Butches on it. I won't be doing that anymore. Man, things were simpler when I didn't know I was supposed to clean the bore of my rifles.

Jim Keenan, I am now sure I've been overcleaning for the performance that I expect out of the rifle.

Hopefully I have'nt hurt it too bad yet. I did shoot a 1.062" group of 5 at 200 yards Saturday with a couple more around 1.250".

If I could get my problem with follow through fixed I may finally learn how to really shoot. I'm working on it with the natural point of aim being my next thing to try to get right.

 

[cheygriz]

If you feel the need to completely remove copper fouling from your bore at every cleaning (as I do with some of my super accurate rifles) get an Outer's Foul Out electrochemical bore cleaning system.

Perfectly safe, and works even better than Sweet's. Takes a little longer, but less effort. (And I'm lazy)

 

[John Galt]

Sweets is one of the strongest cleaners around. Without careful use it will do harm. I have it but don't use it.

I use Butch's Bore Shine. It is stronger than the more common ones, but not nearly as strong as Sweets. It is the top choice of BenchRest shooters & those guys by far know the most.

After using the Butch's cleaner, I dry the bore with clean patches & then swab once with BreakFree for storage.

Brass is best, but will show some false positive & will wear out. After a couple clean patches, any copper from the brush should be gone.

ps: I know nothing... Did hang out at benchrest.com for awhile.