Copper won't come out

If the deterioration in accuracy is due to throat erosion, you could try reloading your ammo to a longer overall length to engage the rifling sooner upon firing. Of course, it still needs to be short enough for reliable functioning through the magazine.
 
I wouldn't use an abrasive yet.
Overnight soaks with Wipe-Out foam. Never seen it fail yet.
Since you had it borescoped and it was confirmed copper is the issue- and not carbon ring or throat erosion or something else- I can't see going down another path.
 
Janitorial grade ammonia, I find it at hardware stores. Make sure it's janitorial grade 10% or more. You will get the prettiest blue flowers that went in as patches.
 
I would go with the Bore Tech Eliminator.

There may be equals out there but I doubt better.

Its a modern cleaner designed to do the job vs a brute force approach (aka Ammonia)

Environmental: Non toxic

Smell: None.

Effective: Its combination cleaner with emphasis on copper but also takes out carbon. That way layers of carbon don't hide the copper.

I just got done cleaning up a WWII barrel, not awful but the usual hazy looking thing. Gleams like a Stainless Steel barrel now.

Shoots more consistently as well. Bad light, 75 yds with old eyes and the peeps got 1 7/8 x 6 and that had 3 on the 3 inch Black Roundel I was aiming at. Normally out of 5 shots I would get pretty good 1.5 inch and then a wild one.

This one went 6 and none of them jumped out of the group average after 3.

The rod thing is no longer available.
 
At the same time,you can do more to wear out a barrel cleaning it than shooting it.
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I am going off topic so smack me if you feel its out of line.

I am seriously tired of hearing that line, amongst other things we are not using steel rods these days.

So you whip copper bullets down a barrel in this case at something around 3000 fpm, and then a rod that is moving at snails pace made out of vastly softer material than a Chrome Moly or Stainless is going to wear it out?

A GI in WWI or WWII with a steel rod might wear out a barrel (or offset it) in a year of cleaning because he had nothing better to do, someone using a modern rod and materials no.
 
RC20, I don't want to argue.You do whatever makes YOU happy.
And I support your right to express your opinions.
I'm curious what your trade or professional experience is to support your opinion.
I am not a barrelmaker. Are you? Do you hand lap barrels to tolerances of .0001 or .0002? I don't have that experience.(OK,I lead lapped a cheap BPCR barrel once)If you do,I'll sit up and listen.
There are tungsten carbide mirrors flying in satellites that I hand polished to a total tolerance (flatness) of .0001.They use the light to transmit data.Feedback to my boss,they were the best ever received.
As a plastic injection moldmaker,my company sent me to understudy a Master Mold and Die finisher in Downer's Grove,Il.They were working on coining dies for a mint when I arrived.
I have an idea what makes and destroys highly finished steel.
I suggest reading the sticky"The Wisdom of Gale McMillan"(He was one of those barrelmakers)
I suggest you read the link from the post you quoted. That Jim Borden guy from Precision Shooting (and the benchrest world) might be worth paying attention to.
Way back in the 60's,folks figured out that soft cleaning rods,like brass and aluminum,were hard on barrels because microgrit embeds in the softer metal like a file tooth.Always in the softer material.
I want a hardened(I'd prefer nitride hard) one piece,straight rigid,polished cleaning rod.Harder than barrel steel.
Using a bore guide minimizes friction.But what is best?
Minimizing the number of strokes of a cleaning rod through the bore.

FWIW,in my experience,the problem fouling barrelsI have run across were production guns and econo barrels.

Not so much a Krieger,Lilja,etc.I have not had a problem Douglas or Shilen.

Remington? Yes. Midway or Brownells drop in $125 barrels? Yes ! Some firelapping fixed one(mold polish diamond compound,9 micron)

Some barrels,such as a 7mm Rem mag production barrel,may require defouling regularly.

But,for MY barrel,number of strokes with a cleaning rod will be minimized.

Some chemical products are effective,but among those are chemicals that are harsh to steel.
If a solvent tells me on the label it will etch the bore after 15 minutes???
It starts eating the bore after 15 seconds.
I don't use it.
The suggestion I am most intrigued by is Deaf Smith's.I have no experience with CFE powder. I know it is designed to reduce metal fouling.It sounds too good to be true,but if 10 or 15 rounds will significantly defoul a barrel(I don't think Deaf made that claim) it would be pretty great.
 
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Way back in the 60's,folks figured out that soft cleaning rods,like brass and aluminum,were hard on barrels because microgrit embeds in the softer metal like a file tooth.Always in the softer material.
I want a hardened(I'd prefer nitride hard) one piece,straight rigid,polished cleaning rod.Harder than barrel steel.
Using a bore guide minimizes friction.But what is best?
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Like barrel break-in (or not), and a gazillion other topics- particularly related to handloading- there's no "right" or "wrong". Each has it's advantage, and disadvantage.

I suspect your preference(though being unconventional- I've not read of any empirical evidence), being of harder material, risks "damage" to the throat and rifling given it's hardness . No matter how hard or stiff- seems there would be risk of contact with the leade (as you state, if a bore guide is used as it should there would be no contact with the leade) , and flex pushing a tight patch down a long tube would contact the rifling.

Vinyl coated rods- like the Dewey's I use- can do exactly what you mention, collect grit and act like an abrasive when in contact with the rifling. Best to just replace them every so often to mimimize that risk.

You present an interesting theory with a hardened rod- but seems that if that were preferable, we'd see them being used by BR shooters and available commercially. Perhaps they are- and if so I'd be interested in taking a look.

Minimizing the number of strokes- bingo. No one can argue with that logic.

For me, I don't even use brushes because I don't like them. Wipe-Out foam, and patches. Nothing wrong with the correct brushes, just my preference. But using them incorrectly (which I see frequently at the range) by running them out- then pulling them over the crown and back into the bore is a no-no.

Anyway, back OT- since the OP says his smith borescoped it, and says it's copper; and the OP says he can see the copper streaks sounds like that's certainly the issue to be addressed first. KG sent me KG-12 to test out, but I've been so "sold" on Wipe-Out for many years I haven't tried it yet, but need to.
 
At the same time,you can do more to wear out a barrel cleaning it than shooting it.
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HiBC, I agree. How do I know, I've done it. My first centerfire rifle was a hi velocity varmint round. I was always running JB bore paste down that bore. Yes, I had the cleanest bore but it wore out fairly quickly.

I had a new barrel installed and now just brush and use wet patches after 25 rounds. When I start to see copper I'll use Sweets. Never takes more then 2 patches before they stop coming out green. Then I run Hoppes thru it and oil the barrel. Never leave Sweets in for any length of time.

Old tech? Maybe, but it works well.
 
I would cut a lot of steel plastic injection mold cavities with an EDM machine.
In oversimplified terms,EDM cuts with sparks,like little lightning bolts.Each of these leaves a tiny crater.The steel looks sort of like sandblasted.That steel skin is called the "recast" layer.Its very hard,as it is the alloy steel that has been instantly melted and quenched.Generally,it gets polished off.We would actually plan a dimension for the result of polishing the EDM finish off.
The bulk of work would be done with a toolcalled a profiler,or "jigger".Its a pistol shaped cable driven reciprocal tool that makes 0-14,000 strokes per minute.
That tool would drive either a stone or a lap.The laps were simply small ,less than 1/2 in square,bits of cast iron or brass.The cutting was done with diamond paste.The function of the lap was to be SOFTER than the mold cavity.Why? Because the diamond grit would embed in the softer metal,and so be driven to cut the harder metal.

The old school(1930's book) method of lapping the finish of a barrel involved attaching a tapered brass wood screw to the lapping rod.This was put inside the bore,then alead slug was cast inside the bore around the brass screw.

Without removing this lead lap from the bore,it was allowed to protrude a bit.It would be charged with grit,and some olive oil/lard concoction,and the grit charged lead lap would be used to hand stroke the bore to uniformity and finish.(By turning the tapered screw in a bit,the lap would be expanded)

As tool marks generally would be across the path of the bullet,they foul.The cutting lines of the grit on the lap are aligned with the path of the bullet.The cut action takes the peaks off the cutter marks until the marks are polished off.

Its dead soft lead that is the "rod" that is used to cut the barrel.

A hard,smooth,polished cleaning rod has no "teeth"and grit will not cling or embed on its surface.It can skate over the barrel steel without cutting.
No,its not perfect.

Quality fishing rod guides are made of agate or ceramic.The are still worn or cut by grit that embeds in or on fishing line.
Even a string pull through can cut a crown if allowed to drag over the edge.

An immaculately clean bronze brush is one thing,but a dirty brush? It has claws.It cuts steel.
Actually,in mold polishing to very high finish,a rotary toollikea Foredom is used with a soft camel hair brush,much like a water color paintbrush for a Dremel.The soft camel hair drives the abrasive.

Another application for this concept is to realize that brass needs to be clean before it touches dies.
It helps to keep 22 LR bullets clean,etc
 
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There is now a separate thread to discuss this, we can let Wendy get back to her copper issue (and my apologies Wendy, I didn't think it would go off track so much)
 
I appreciate all the input. I got most out using less harmful chemicals but am going to let well enough alone until I can send a lot of fouling rounds downrange and see if accuracy comes back. Thanks for a list of all the products out there that I didn't even know existed. We will see how bad it fouls up again.
 
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