Do you ever really get ALL the carbon out?

D

DirtyHarold

New member
I have been having the constant problem of not being able to get all of the carbon out of my barrel (and by all i mean like 92-95% or so). Specifically in the chrome lined barrel of my Beretta 96, there is still a small to fair amount of carbon in the sides of the grooves of the barrel by the lands. not just in the corners, but it seems only the center of the grooves get free of carbon after a good amount of bronze brushing and patches.

the lands are all pretty much fine.

Do you manage to get most of your carbon out, or is there always some left? if so, what is your routine you follow to get most of it out?
 
What jttk said - you'll never get it all out, and it doesn't matter at all. Though more so with rifles than with handguns, it is possible to clean a firearm barrel to death.
 
how would one "clean a barrel to death"? besides using things like JB/Iosso.

I will say, before I knew any better i did do the absolute worst thing you possibly could to the barrel on my very first gun which was a GP100; put the cleaning rod with a brush attached into a power drill and unleashed hell on the barrel.....and as soon as i "knew better"......well, lets just say i have a different GP100 now.
 
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The best way to clean a barrel is to leave it alone until accuracy starts to drop off and then run a few patches down it with a good solvent, run a few dry patches down it, oil it and you're done. There's no need to get it spotless. Clean the rest of the gun as often as you like but there's no need to clean the barrel all that often.
 
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I haven't run a brush through a barrel in 20 years. I use Hoppes, Shooter's Choice judiciously and Wipe Out, followed by patches. I also don't clean much, no need to.

For example, my deer hunting rifle is a .308. Sometime around August/September I'll start shooting it and, by time the season opens (Thanksgiving), I'll have run +/- 150 rounds through it. No cleaning other than running a patch full of Hoppes between sessions. Just before the opener, I'll spend a couple of days cleaning with chemicals only. Then I fire 5/6 foulers and it's ready to go; nothing goes in the barrel except bullets until the season's over. Then another deep clean before the rifle's put up 'till August.

This gun shoots consistent sub 3/4" five-shot groups all day long. Works for me.

As to hand guns, I run a couple of patches with Hoppes, let it sit 'till the next day, dry patch and call it good.
 
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I run #9 on a patch or 2 every time I shoot . boresnake soaked in #9 if I shoot over 50 rounds. Brush and heavy clean about every 150 rounds... Works for me
 
If you really want to clean a handgun barrel back to bare metal, say in preparation for applying some sort of bore treatment, or maybe just to prove you can, here's how.

Alternate a good foaming bore solvent (like BreakFree's product) & patches with a good nitro solvent and a bronze brush until it looks clean. Depending on how dirty the bore is, that will take a number of alternating cycles where you let it sit with the foaming bore cleaner for several minutes, then patch it out, then brush with the nitro solvent and patch it out before going back to the foaming bore cleaner.

Then use an abrasive product like RemClean or one of the bore pastes to finish up and remove the last traces of fouling.

It's going to take quite awhile to complete the process. Unless you really like cleaning, you probably won't do it more than once.
 
"You aren't following that solvent with any sort of protectant?
I know chromed was mntioned, but I still do."

I live in the desert, 10/20% humidity. "Between sessions" is a week and, with a coating of Hoppes (not really a protectant, but still..), I'm not concerned about rust.

I didn't say anything about chrome. The rifle's a Browning X-Bolt.
 
I've had my day with tangling with milsurp rifle barrels thinking that a million patches of Hoppes #9 and CLP might eventually get them shiny inside. It does not. I will run one to two patches of #9, then dry patch, then follow with CLP and one more dry patch. It's a done deal after that no matter what the bore looks like. You're good to go.

Most of my handgun barrels clean up nicely so I've never really worried about it. It's some of my rifles and maybe one or two handguns that never get squeaky clean. I try not to let it bother me. It won't hurt anything.
 
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