Does Solvent Soaking Help?

[Louca]

I see several posts where they say they have soaked the inside of a barrel with solvent for several minutes or longer to get the barrel clean faster, or better, or something. What is your experience? I am not trying to argue one way or the other, I am just curious if others have found it generally effective or not, and if it makes a big difference or just a little.

 

[GBExpat]

If I am removing "copper" bullet jacket material, a soak improves the result as it gives the solvent time dissolve the material.

 

[k4swb]

I use a 50%-50% mixture of Shooter's Choice and Kano Kroil and sometimes let the bbl soak while doing other cleaning or just something else for a bit. Seems to help somewhat over just scrubbing.

 

[Jim Watson]

I have a tall skinny olive jar of that mix.
Three days makes a fouled barrel a lot easier to clean.

 

[edwardware]

For carbon fouling, I'm sure it does. For lead, I'm not sure.

For copper fouling, I soak for hours in Montana Xtreme Copper Killer, and patch every 4-8 hours until clean; it can take 48 hours. After about 50-100 such cleanings (1000-1500 rounds) copper fouling is very minimal, since break-in is complete, and it only takes an hour.

 

[Slamfire]

Hard to know really how much copper is removed by soaking. I purchased a case of Iraqi made 303 British ball ammunition and the stuff had cupro nickel bullets. They fouled something awful. Unless you have ever seen cupro nickel fouling, you have no idea how bad cupro nickle jackets were. The stuff leaves a lumpy fouling and it tooks weeks of soaking with Sweets to reduce the lumps but I never was able to totally remove the things. After that, I dipped the bullets of that Iraqi ball in grease and that absolutely prevented further cupronickel fouling. But, I was really disappointed with the rate and amount of copper removal with all of the so called copper solvents on the market. Yes, they will turn a patch black, or blue, but that does not mean a lot of copper is being removed. Heck, it could be food coloring for all I know, something there to make me feel good.

What does remove fouling is J.B Bore paste, and I only use that stuff sparingly. It is an abrasive and I don't care how many times the maker claims the stuff won't hurt the bore, I can't see how it does not. So, I use it once in a while, but it does remove copper fouling.

 

[cheygriz]

I often soak overnight in Hoppe's.

I have been told not to let Sweet's 7.62 soak over 15 minutes.

 

[edwardware]

I
I have been told not to let Sweet's 7.62 soak over 15 minutes.

I've been told the same, and after smelling it I believe it. The Montana Xtreme products are more useful since you can soak while you're away; even if it takes longer you spend less time and fewer rod strokes down the bore.

 

[Louca]

OK. So it seems soaking is a good thing for copper fouling. Is there as much advantage to using it when only carbon fouling is present? edwardware seems to think it should. In my ARs, I use K12 and the barrel seems to get cleaned with just a few patches. For my pistols, I shoot plated bullets and don't seem to have much copper fouling, however the chambers get fairly dirty from carbon fouling.

Thanks for all the reports!

 

[cheygriz]

I find that after a couple of patches wet with solvent and a few strokes with a bronze brush, running a clean patch through and then a couple wet with solvent and letting the solvent soak for 15-20 minutes will get out the last of the powder fouling.

 

[Ks5shooter]

This.....

 

[Varminterror]

It depends on the solvent chosen. If it’s highly volatile, letting it sit a long time does nothing. For example - Hornady One Short, fantastic cleaner, but if it doesn’t come off after a couple seconds, waiting longer won’t do anything.

 

[JohnKSa]

I made up a soaking solution from acetone, ATF and Kroil (and maybe some other ingredients I can't remember now) and used it to soak pistol barrels. It had to be in a container that could be sealed so that the acetone didn't evaporate and in a container that wouldn't come apart from the action of the various ingredients.

I've soaked barrels in it for a month or more. If it made it significantly easier/quicker to clean them, I couldn't really tell.

 

[Rembrandt]

Along the soaking line of thought, my issue was plastic sabot residue left in black powder rifles. Found this at Brownells, its a jellied product that chemically melts the plastic. I then follow up with stainless steel brushes to mechanically dislodge any left over material in the lands and grooves. Gotta be careful, instructions claim it'll remove finish from stocks....must be something to it, comes in a metal container.

 

[nettlle]

If the bore solvent I am trying requires soaking I will buy something better. I simply don't have enough time for the soak cycle.

 

[Col. Harrumph]

Sure wish the old Outer's "Foul-Out" was still made. It just worked! I still have the unit but the chemicals haven't been available for years.

 

[25-20 WCF]

Be careful with soft BP barrels, stainless steel brushes can and do cause barrel wear. Read the description in Brownell’s link below.

https://www.brownells.com/gun-clean...ne-stainless-steel-bore-brushes-prod1283.aspx

.

 

[Plain Old Bill]

One can make their own "foul-out" with a welding rod, a couple of small rubber spacers, 2 "D" batteries and some wire and alligator clips. It's on the web somewhere.

 

[Plain Old Bill]

Sorry, I missed the reference to chemicals. I use pure ammonia. Works great, especially on surplus rifles.

 

[Jim Watson]

I bet it does.

 

[boom boom]

Sure wish the old Outer's "Foul-Out" was still made. It just worked! I still have the unit but the chemicals haven't been available for years.

Formulas for copper and lead removal solutions for the Foul Out 2 system (not the last one) is below. I stumbled across postings of it when looking for something else. The patents by the way have expired and these formulas were derived from this (this is not the Foul Out 3 version btw but the older, slower, version).

https://www.marlinowners.com/forum/...ul-out-cop-out-plus-lead-out-plus-recipe.html
(look for Zed Bobble post about near the end of the first page of comments).

There is also the homemade version of the outers system which is made for about $10-15 bucks which I have used for old milsurp barrels that does pretty well.

Links and descriptions of this and also general homemade bore cleaners including Ed's Red posted on this link. http://www.frfrogspad.com/homemade.htm