Holy copper fouling!

[perma]

In the midst of my reloading journey, I made one critical error; not deep cleaning the gun. This weekend, I’m dealing with the ramifications of said lack of maintenance.

How did I get here, you may ask? I was at a gun range in CO last week getting ready to target practice. To qualify for over 200 yards, I need to shoot 2” at 200 yards. Easy peasy.

Or so I thought. I brought both my guns and shot lights out with one but failed with the other. Decided that I wasn’t in the mood to shoot out of frustration and decided to go home and inspect. To my surprise, the rifling was COATED with copper.



I’m up to a few hours of scrubbing, and making slow progress. Four different cleaners. Some milder than others. Thorroclean seems to have made the biggest dent.



Not one for “close enough”, so we’re almost there. Hopefully I’ll have it ready to shoot by Thursday morning, or this thing is sitting put in the safe.



iM hAvInG fUn….

 

[std7mag]

Holy crap!!!

What rifle is that?!

My Savage's don't copper up like that!

 

[perma]

Weatherby Vanguard

It’s been a frustrating experience.

 

[Addicting]

Boretech copper solvent will take that out. Just douse it and let it sit.

 

[nrpate05]

My Vanguard did the same thing, although other rifles have as well. I shoot solely all copper ammo. What has worked for me is getting the carbon fouling out and then leaving a coat of hoppes in it for a few hours and giving it a scrub. Repeat as necessary and it can take a few days. Also, JB non embedding bore compound can speed up the process.

 

[Bigjay73]

Id run some losso through the barrel a couple of dozen times

 

[rjthehunter]

I had this issue one time. Used "Wipe Out" foaming bore cleaner. It worked super fast and easy. I'd recommend that, or try another foaming bore cleaner!

 

[perma]

Good as it’s gonna get for now.

 

[44hunter45]

I am shooting exclusively Hammers out of a 6.5 WBY RPM Mark V and I have not had any issues like this.
I use WipeOut foaming and Montana X-Treme products.

 

[perma]

I started a load of Barnes TTSX at about 260 FPS, then some 175g Berger VLD. Both very slow loads. Wondering if that had anything to do with it. Done with both of them though. We’ll see how it shoots tomorrow.

 

[perma]

Also, I’d be a jerk to not shoutout our local gun genius @p_ham. I hate asking simple questions on gun cleaning procedures and processes but as usual he came to the rescue.

 

[Bigjay73]

I started a load of Barnes TTSX at about 260 FPS, then some 175g Berger VLD. Both very slow loads. Wondering if that had anything to do with it. Done with both of them though. We’ll see how it shoots tomorrow.

Probably the barrel, not the bullet. Id be willing to bet the issue will go away the more you shoot it. You can probably speed up the process with some bore paste.

 

[Keep on]

My guess would also be the barrel rather than loads. I've got a Howa 300 Win. that copper fouls after less than a box. I've used the JB bore paste with better results than the chemical (ammonia) products. Juice is not worth the squeeze though and it just sits as I don't want to send it down the road and make it someone else's problem.

 

[Rie Bread]

My older Remington 700 does that but the accuracy isn’t suffering so I’ll stick to the end of season clean.

 

[Laelkhunter]

I started a load of Barnes TTSX at about 260 FPS, then some 175g Berger VLD. Both very slow loads. Wondering if that had anything to do with it. Done with both of them though. We’ll see how it shoots tomorrow.

What cartridge are you shooting? You have 260 fps, which number is missing? If it's 3260 that's pretty fast 2260 is really slow, so I imagine it's somewhere in the 20's and you left out the second number?

 

[perma]

What cartridge are you shooting? You have 260 fps, which number is missing? If it's 3260 that's pretty fast 2260 is really slow, so I imagine it's somewhere in the 20's and you left out the second number?

2600 my bad. 7 mag

 

[Laelkhunter]

That is a mild load. I found the best copper solvent for me was the Bore Tech Eliminator. Looking at the picture in post #8, it might be a little bit easier to keep it clean now that you got a good bit of it out.

 

[perma]

That is a mild load. I found the best copper solvent for me was the Bore Tech Eliminator. Looking at the picture in post #8, it might be a little bit easier to keep it clean now that you got a good bit of it out.

Wasn’t my favorite load.

Probably the barrel, not the bullet. Id be willing to bet the issue will go away the more you shoot it. You can probably speed up the process with some bore paste.

Gonna shoot some Swifts here in a few so we’ll see. I probably agree, most likely the barrel.

 

[perma]

This is after 7 rounds, 5 were swifts, 1 federal soft point and another federal nickel plated bullet.

 

[Rie Bread]

Are you noticing accuracy issues?