Magnaporting and Copper Fouling

L

LBussy

New member
Hello,

I have a S&W Model 13 with a 3" magnaported barrel. I loaded some .38 with CCI primers, 3.8g of Win 231, and Berry flat point plated 125g bullets.

I'm getting some copper fouling on the barrel right above the ports - talking on the outside of the barrel here. I'm also seeing some pretty good flames come out of the ports.

Am I just seeing the limitations of a short ported barrel, or am I seeing signs that I need to make some changes? I thought the Win 231 was pretty fast, but maybe not fast enough for this combo.

The flames DO look pretty awesome in low light. :)
 
Copper PLATE is actually copper wash, and it's so thin & deposited in layers so it vaporizes and gets deposited in layers along with combustion waste on your barrel.

Proper hard plating is pretty hard to get off the base material (bullet core), same way chrome or nickel is hard to get off barrel chambers, frames or car bumpers.

The difference is purity. Actual plating takes super clean enviormental conditions, while bullets go through in bulk, one batch right after another and the electrolyte is rarely cleaned, so contaminants layer up with the copper...

I had a mono-core supressor in here not long ago the guy had been pumping 'Plated' bullets through... No air spaces in the core at all, completely stuffed full of copper plate, combustion residue & general crud, packed so tightly you couldn't get it out.
Took most of a day to get the core out of the tube, and wound up using a hydraulic press to separate the two.
The entire insides were copper colored and a real mess...
The vaporized copper gets EVERYWHERE, you are just lucky most of it gets blown out the muzzle into open atmosphere where you don't have to clean it up!

The 'Trick' with Magna-Port is to use Jewlers' string/tape and round over the bore side of the poring a little so it doesn't shave as much bullet material off.
There isn't much you can do about the vaporized/redeposited materials, that's coming out with the gas jet, it's going to condense on anything cooler than the combustion gasses no matter what you do.

No matter who did the EDM port machining, EDM leaves square edges in the material, and square edges shave off some of the compressed bullet on the way through.
Abrasive string/tape will round over the sharp edge a little, but that's about all you can do.
 
Last edited:
The plating is being shaved off, try some jacketed bullets and see if that stops it. If you shoot plain lead or coated bullets, it will shave them too.

Just how Mag-na-port is.
 
Last edited:
Yep. That's just gas cut soft copper spraying around. There may also be some that was scraped off the bullets because they bear hard against the Mag-na-port slots they pass by, due to being upset outward under pressure. The copper plating on what are called copper plated bullets, whether a thick plate like Berry's or just a thin wash like the defunct National Bullet Company used to produce, is, in either case, much softer than gilding metal jackets.

You can remove the copper with a copper-cleaning bore solvent. If you get one of those little 1 ounce dosage cups, you can put KG-12 in it, set the gun up so the muzzle and Magnaports are submerged in it in the cup, and even a thick deposit will be gone in a matter of hours.

The same spraying happens with lead bullets, btw. I once made a front sight extension for a bull's eye .22 target pistol of mine, and the part that overhangs the muzzle develops a thick caked up mound of lead on its underside from shooting standard velocity .22's. I shave it down with a pocket knife when it gets too gnarly. I've never tried copper or brass (gold color)-plated .22's to see if they do this any less. I would doubt it. It takes the thicker plated bullets to prevent lead from spraying around. But, as you discovered, you still get copper spray.
 
Thanks all for your experience and advice. I was concerned that it was significant load-wise, like maybe I was not making enough pressure to seal the bullet in the bore.

I've never used KG-12. Sounds like something I need to add to the cleaning kit.
 
KG-12 is a chelating copper solvent. It's very fast and consumes more copper into its volume before getting tired than most do. It's funny attribute is that it doesn't turn blue or green as it eats the copper. It starts out tea-color and gets a little bit darker and maybe slightly more orange as it consumes copper. So you don't get a solid indication that it has done its work unless you could see the copper before it went to work.

Another product that is pretty good is Bore Tech Cu++. It will turn blue and is also fast, but I've not seen it eat as much total copper. But if the copper is in the bore, the color change tells you pretty positively when there isn't any more. Either should work in your case. If either seems to stall out, then rub everything off with a carbon fouling remover and try again. Sometimes powder fouling layers under the copper and can protect it from exposure to the cleaner. Bore Tech Eliminator is a combination carbon and copper removing product that I use for general bore cleaning and like a lot, but it is a little less aggressive than that company's separate carbon and copper removers. KG also makes a separate carbon remover. Neither Bore Tech's nor KG's carbon removers are as aggressive as Slip 2000's Carbon Killer product, if you ever have to get at really stubborn carbon, but the they are relatively odor free, which my spousal unit likes.
 
@Unclenick I used to think I cleaned a weapon well (Army) but I can see that I'm just a duffer. I wish I had some of those products around back then. It sounds like a good copper solvent would be a proper addition to the "long cleaning" my weapons get every so many range trips.

Is there a similar solvent that you would recommend for lead? All I've ever used is Hoppe's #9.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top