gc fouling?

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Ross Smith posted this 26 June 2020

This is almost an extension of shootin the barrel clean.I'm with seargent 69, I don't clean alot. But here goes. I've witnessed the long range boys cleaning copper out of their barrels every 5 or so shots. Do we as cast shooters get any copper fouling from the gc's ? Enough to worry about? Those loutenboomer-kickenharder boys are absolutley anal about it.

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RicinYakima posted this 26 June 2020

One year I shot an entire benchrest season without cleaning. At the end of the season I was having to shoot five foulers rather than three before the first match. The last ten years or so, I run one damp patch of Ed's Red down the bore and one dry patch at the end of the day. At the end of the season, I brush the bore with a nylon brush wet with Ed's Red mostly to remove the primer fouling in front of the throat. FWIW, I have never seen copper fouling from gas checks, but I never looked very hard either.

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Eutectic posted this 26 June 2020

I have never seen it in any 30-30, 30.06 or 308 CB load.

Theory #1 Lubricant also protects from GC fouling.

Actual practice: Tin foil is put in large caliber howitzer and cannon ammunition to eliminate the copper fouling from the driving bands. Tin forms a metallic compound with copper, the tin/copper compound is brittle, lower melting point and is blown out.

The active ingredient in the "new" copper fouling eraser powders is tin oxide.

Theory #2 There is enough tin in our alloys to get rid of any GC copper fouling.

No worry mon,
Steve

 

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John Alexander posted this 26 June 2020

Judging from my experiments a year or so ago (reported here and in TFS) Even copper fouling from 20 rounds of jacketed loads does not affect the accuracy of CB loads fired afterward.  Even some weak indication that a bit of jacketed fouling may improve CB accuracy.

Of course this refutes the advice repeated for 100 years that shooting jacketed bullet ruins CB accuracy afterwards. So the actual experimental results are already forgotten and we have reverted to the myth that copper fouling ruins CB accuracy.

I am not optimistic about any future progress in CB knowledge or practice. Like Kansas City (in "Oklahoma") "We have gone about as fur as we can go."   Cast bullet shooters seem to be comfortable with that.

Sigh.

John

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Ross Smith posted this 26 June 2020

Thanks all. Pretty much what I expected.

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billwnr posted this 26 June 2020

Back when I shot the .30/06 in military competition my POI would drop one bullet hole at a time after 25 shots.  It would hold that POI from around shot 6 to shot 25.  Before that it was high and after that it would drop one bullet hole at a time.

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RicinYakima posted this 26 June 2020

John,

I think you are right, in that some things are so ingrained that nobody wants to believe the contrary.

It is worth, maybe, de-coppering a military rifle that has thousands of rounds and never really cleaned of fouling. While breaking in Savage 308 barrel, alternating between jacketed and lead groups between cleanings, to see when to quit. Growing tired of that, I shot five rounds of Armor Piercing bullets and then a lead bullet group. That was the best group of two afternoons of shooting.

A seasoned lead bullet barrel shouldn't have any, or much, copper fouling that will not wipe out with a patch. A cleaned to the steel barrel just uses the copper to fill in the milling marks. My days of using the Outer's Foul Out electronic machine are long gone.

Ric

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Bud Hyett posted this 26 June 2020

I was asked by John if Ed Doonan had ever tested this. This is the reply that I feel should be added to the discussion. Reading Ric's latest thoughts, I think Ric, Ed and I are on the same page. 

Scenario: My uncle Laverne Hudson shot high-power matches with his kids. One daughter and one son were Illinois Junior High-Power champions several years running. He shot the Lyman 311413 at 200 and 300 yards, then the Sierra 180 grain Match King at 600 yards. He claimed the two sighter shots at 600 yards would clean the fouling from the cast loads and the sighters for 200 yards would foul the bore enough for cast loads. He was a strong advocate of J&B which he used between matches to clean the bore.

Discussing Verne's use of the Lyman 311413, we set out to discover what was happening. Neither Ed or I could get that bullet to shoot above 1200 fps. We did not have a bore scope, we used blue traces on the patch after cleaning with Sweet's 7.62 as evidence of copper.

We shot the 311413 at 200 and 300 yards and finally achieved groups that would have cleaned the target on the 5-point "V" target. These were 1700+ fps loads which amazed us. This was using a scope and not iron sights. The bullet is advertised as a low velocity practice bullet.

We next fired ten cast loads, then two jacketed, to see if the fouling was gone. It was in the sense that patches were black and no trace of lead. We then cleaned with Sweet's 7.62 that gave no evidence of copper. Finding this, we went to other rifles that we knew had a long string of cast loads and fired five jacketed loads without cleaning. These showed similar results, no evidence of lead in the bore in most rifles. The two exceptions were Springfields with issue barrels and slightly rough bores.

Discussion afterwards:

  • Verne shot the Orbendorf 98 Mauser with Douglas Supreme XX barrels, smooth barrels.
  • The old "V" target was easy to shoot a clean score.
  • Verne cleaned religiously with J&B, the bores had to be slick.
  • The physical condition of the bore was important.
  • The urban legend of jacketed bullets cleaning the bore was false in the sense the slick bore did not have appreciable fouling from either cast or jacketed.
  • Slickness of the bore is never a factor discussed.

 

Farm boy from Illinois, living in the magical Pacific Northwest

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Ross Smith posted this 26 June 2020

Once again I figgered this was a non factor. Just that some are so paranoid that some copper fouling will nock them off target at 1000 yds, so I had to ask. I've worn out more barrels from cleaning than shooting. I'm aint a gonna do that again.

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sergeant69 posted this 05 July 2020

i don't consider this jacking a post since you brought it up, but exactly how do you ruin a bbl by cleaning it? again, i grew up "knowing" that leaving harsh (ammonia based,? i dunno) solvent like sweets in a bbl a long time would crater the bbl, and cleaning from front to back would gouge the muzzle. but everytime it was brought up, some old timer ( you know the 40 yr olds and up) would claim BS and the fight was on. it was kinda like telling the wife " are you really gonna wear that"? anyway, turning 70 next year, if i had a nickle for everytime i heard someone ruined a bbl by cleaning it, i could afford my own "orgy pasture". bill clinton would have to bring his own sheep though.

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Wineman posted this 05 July 2020

Gary "Onadaga" (RIP) always pushed "Slickness" and had a method using Chrome Polish and a Bore Snake to "slick" up a barrel. His thoughts were that the now "slicked" bore shot better. The down side is that the experiment is hard to reproduce. The treatment changes the barrel and you only have a before and after but can't go back. I have not yet learned enough (or copied enough) cast bullet knowledge to know if something I change actually results in increases in accuracy. I guess the fun is in the chase, but there is a long way to go for me though. I think I do everything right but my tools are not precise enough to get me the accuracy that a jacketed bullet will give me. That said, I can get enough accuracy with a couple of loads to keep me in contention for CMP type matches.

Happy Belated Birthday America.

Dave

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Ross Smith posted this 05 July 2020

Sergeant69: The two barrels I have "shot out" were worn at the muzzlefrom the cleaning rod. One a Muzzle loader and one a 30-06. I have another muzzleloader that is in need of its second re-crown, nothing serious, just par for the course with muzzleloaders. That is one of the reasons old m/l target rifles have a false muzzle, it takes all the guff of the ram- cleaning rod along with aligning the bullet. No arguments- just my experience.

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RicinYakima posted this 05 July 2020

It is fairly common around here, where it is dusty, to find 10-20 year old sporters with the lands worn off from cleaning with plastic coated rods. Without wiping every stroke, or using a bore guide, it just becomes an abrasive tube. And worse when using a .22 caliber rod to try to clean a .30 caliber bore. Guns weren't unuseable, but not as good as they could have been.

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sergeant69 posted this 06 July 2020

ok. thanks. answers that.

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