I didn't know that Windex was the best bore cleaner

I guess that I’m out of the loop. I’ve been cleaning lead and copper fouling out of my bores for years with a chunk of lead rag cut to make a patch. The bores always come out shiny and clean with no problems and no drippy mess. Does a fast and neat job on stainless and plated cylinder faces also.
 
"The ammonia cuts copper fouling and neutralizes corrosive primer residue."

Well, sort of.

Ammonia will attack copper fouling.

However, it does nothing about corrosive primer residue. It's what the ammonia is dissolved in - water - that removes corrosive primer fouling by dissolving it in the same way that water dissolves table salt.

But, just as you can't really "neutralize" table salt without some incredibly harsh chemicals that will either combine with the salt to form non hygroscopic compounds, or actually unzip the bonds that join the Na and Cl. And then you get free chlorine gas, which is never a good thing.

As for the ammonia, there's been a fair amount written (and a lot of debate) about ammonia's role in hydrogen embrittlement of barrel steel.
 
"don't listen to butchs.

Oil in the barrel while firing is an extremely bad idea."


Don't listen to Butch? I'm sorry, but who are you to say such a thing and what are your accomplishments? A drop of oil in the bore might cause the problems you mention, but otherwise it's a non-issue if it's a thin film.

John
 
Darn it. Just last week I bought a big bottle of Butch's Bore Shine. I never thought it was any better than Shooter's Choice, but was as good. Now I am placing orders for the Boretech Eliminator and the Slip 2000 products. I might as well get the good stuff. That barrel cleaning article was extremely convincing. I have to wonder how much carbon and copper are still in the barrels of my 220, 223, 308, 260 and 270. I guess the good news is that I can clear out some space in my gun cleaning box. It's full of various potions and lotions for cleaning. I'll demote some to use for 22 LR cleaning.

I'm glad that nutcase at the gun store was pushing the use of Windex. Listening to him almost made me crosseyed, but it did cause me to start this chat.
 
While I do have Gunzilla at home, the GF hates the smell of anything else, I'm going to be making some changes myself based on the article. Thanks Unclenick for once again providing in-depth information for us unwashed masses to consume.
 
Following the advice of Unclenick and the article he attached to his note, I got some of the water based (surfactant type) copper remover. I mentioned that earlier. Well today I got serious with it on two rifles that I thought were mostly free of copper. I was way wrong. The 220 Swift and my Sako 270 dribbled an awful lot of blue from the ends of their barrels, and it wasn't a light blue either. It was a dark blue. I was very surprised, since I would've told you yesterday that they were both clean as a whistle. I don't think I even got all of the copper, but will wait for that Boretech Eliminator and go at it again. Who'd a thunk it?:D
 
603Country said:
It's full of various potions and lotions for cleaning. I'll demote some to use for 22 LR cleaning.
Click to expand...

You're going to curse me, but Bore Tech makes a special .22 rimfire mix, too.

Nick
 
I have been using just Hoppe's #9 after shooting my Mosin with corrosive primers and to date have not noticed any adverse effects from the primers. No water, windex, ammonia just Hoppe's #9
 
Hope's was developed for corrosive primed cartridges. It only has 4 or 5 of the 9 original ingredients now, with toxicity and carcinogenic concerns having done for the others, but it still has some polar solvents so it can act on the potassium chloride left by the combustion of potassium chlorate in the corrosive priming mix. So does Ed's Red, by the way, if corrosive priming is your only concern, and that's a good bit cheaper to make for yourself. Just follow Hatcher's old advice to clean immediately after shooting and again the next day, and you will be good to go with either one.

Water is still the most strongly polar solvent there is, though, and will remove the potassium chloride faster and more easily than any others. With surfactants added it will get under the carbon layers best, and so need the least time and effort to do that particular job. That's how the Bore Tech products work.


Hogbuster,

Watch out for overuse of the lead wipes. I read the patent when Fr. Frog was looking for information on how to make his own. It turns out they contain aluminum oxide abrasive. That's what scuffs the lead off. It's about 400 to 500 grit as near as I could tell.

Polish some aluminum up with Flitz or Gunbrite or Maas or something like that, then run your lead wipe over the polished part and you'll see the scuff. I compared that scuff to some aluminum oxide lapping compounds I have by rubbing on polished aluminum to estimate the abrasive grade (it wasn't specified in the patent). Anyway, you are very slowly lapping your bore wider with it. Aluminum oxide isn't especially sharp, so it takes a long time, but metal is gradually coming off.
 
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Nick

Interesting. After years of use I have found no effects. Of course I only clean my guns about once or twice a year, after hunting season. In years past, when I shot competition, my pistols and rifles got cleaned much more often, but still saw no difference in groups.

I’ll have to try your test, but with something harder than aluminum, you can scratch it by just rubbing it with your dry finger. I’ve got some varying types of steel and a couple of old S&W cylinders I’’ll buff up and see what happens.
 
I'd like to hear what you find. Aluminum oxide is slow cutting because it's not sharp like silicone carbide. It may be, too, that bluing (magnetite) is as hard as the aluminum oxide. Anodizing on aluminum is aluminum oxide, so it should be equally hard, if porous, and not easily bothered, but a lacquered finish on aluminum would not be so resistant.

Keep in mind that I'm a fellow who firelaps barrels, so I know it takes a good bit of effort by abrasives to remove much metal this way and a little bit actually helps smooth it and reduce the tendency to accumulate metal fouling. I just can't tell you where the aluminum oxide in cloth will cross a line. Some .22 rimfire barrels are soft steel and the have lands that are only a couple thousandths tall, but may last a couple hundred thousand rounds with normal care. If they got that abrasive treatment after every firing session, I can see how it might reduce their life expectancy, though. But a highpower rifle barrel that's going to be shot out in 3500 rounds anyway; that may never last long enough to be significantly affected.

You could slug your bores that got the most exposure and see if you can tell anything?
 
Nick

I’m ahead of you on that. I slugged the barrel on an old 30/06 Remington Sportsman 78, the oldest that I have and found no change. I have many, many rounds thru it, but the exact number I have no idea. You can rub the bluing off a gun with a lead rag, but then again too aggressive rubbing with just about anything will remove some bluing.

Yeah, I would think that it would take a lot of elbow grease to do much cutting with a lead rag patch. Who knows, maybe I’ve been improving my barrels for years unknowingly. I notice very little copper or lead fouling in any of my guns.

I’ll have to dig out the buffing wheels and rouge, polish up a chunk of something and see what the lead rag does to it.
 
I already reported (in The Smithy) on the use of the new chemicals, but I'll restate that they worked great. I took my dirty barreled 260 and used the Slip2000 carbon killer on it, and in 3 patches it appeared that the carbon was gone. Then I used the Boretech Eliminator (supposedly good for carbon and copper) and immediately started getting plenty of blue dripping out the muzzle and some evidence of carbon. I nylon brushed as was suggested and then put a few more wet patches through the barrel till no more blue on the patches. Then I went to clean patches and could find no trace of any sort of fouling, which is somewhat of a personal record for my gun cleaning. And then...just to see what I'd find, I started over on the bore with my 'old' chemicals. I didn't find any carbon and not a smidge of evidence of copper. It certainly appears that the Slip2000 Carbon Killer and the Boretech Eliminator got everything out of the barrel but the occasional flyers.

And for the record, it was much faster to clean with the new chemicals. So much faster in fact that I was concerned that maybe it didn't work - which is why I pulled out and used the old chemicals just to make sure. I never cleaned a real dirty bore that quickly prior to this. Next I'll do the 223, which usually gets the dirtiest of all my rifles. You'd think it'd be the Swift, but I think the high dollar aftermarket barrel on the Swift has the smoothest bore surface and slower twist and doesn't pick up fouling as badly.
 
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