The rifle has been shooting great, and I don’t shoot it a lot, but with doctor’s orders to do next to nothing, I can’t do just nothing. I cleaned all the bores, saving the 220 for last. Take it to bare metal was the plan. Got the Boretech Eliminator and got started. Man...the copper. Not much carbon fouling since I had punched the bore recently with Shooter’s Choice, but the copper was a real surprise. Took two days to get the copper, and then I started getting carbon fouling. Had to be under the copper. No doubt about it that the fouling was in layers, with carbon under the copper.

Finally got to bare metal. Dried the bore and grabbed some ammo. 55 grain Nosler BTs over 38.5 gr of IMR 4064. New Norma brass and CCI BR primers. One fouler, then put 3 into one hole.

All the rifles (270, 260, 223, and 220) now have no (well, maybe a tiny bit) copper and are shooting great. Makes me wonder if “laying down some copper”, as some folks do for max accuracy, is that good a plan. I guess it depends on the barrel.

I have definitely realized that copper buildup in the 223 is not a good thing. Before I cleaned it to bare metal, that expensive Benchmark barrel was throwing bullets all over. On the other hand, the 260 with a Brux barrel picks up very little copper. The 220, with a Douglas barrel, seems to shoot great with and without copper, as does the Sako 270.

I think it depends on the barrel.
I have a few that shoot best dirty, I mean really filthy, and some that shoot best clean after a few rounds down them, and a couple that shoot best from spotless up to about 25 rounds then start to fall off.

I always get layers when I clean a barrel.

Agree with Rustler, just have to learn what your firearm likes

I tend to believe they will tell you when they want to be cleaned. Several years ago I noticed my 270 wasn't shooting that well and I wondered what had gone amiss, I hadn't changed anything with the gun and ive been shooting the same unchanged handload off the same lot of powder for 10 years in it. I cleaned it good and bam back to shooting great. About 3 years down the road I repeated the exact same scenario.

Round count tells me to clean more than anything else.

The 7 Rem Mag might shoot 50-100 rounds in a year. The new .223 A.I. can go through 50 rounds in an hour, easily.

When they stop doing what I know they normally do, I clean. And then it's Gun Slick bore solvent, 15 minute soak, and about 12 passes of dry patches. I do nothing further, on any of them.

i'm gonna clean my .257 tonite and then start the process over gain.

I've only shot it at the range once, so I really have no idea how good it will shoot.

I’ve got an old Winchester Model 100 in 308. Dads gun originally from the 50’s. Sometime around the 80’s it started slinging shots. It went as far as popping the magazine and once blew the op rod off. I was a kid at the time and took what the ‘experts’ told him; Shot Out.

I began the AR15 experience and started building rifles some years back. Spoke with many industry experts along the way. One was a barrel manufacturer. We had a discussion on AR’s and the light popped on!

Long story short, I took out that old Model 100 and on his recommendation, used some bore foam and began cleaning the barrel. This gun had been shot a bunch, with 7.62 ball, too. I foamed, waited, scrubbed, and cleaned. After 93 patches and countless bore brushings the blue stopped. I did have to straighten the receiver arms a bit, added a new recoil spring, and reassembled. After over 30 years, this rifle is back on the active list. Shoots great and no mechanical issues.

TAKEAWAY - Lead and copper gets depositied in the barrel;grooves/lands. Most cleaning removes lead easily. The copper is harder and gets ‘stacked’ in the barrel. Even a regular cleaning may not get it all out. Over time it can build up enough to affect accuracy, and worse, PRESSURE. Different calibers will get fouled quicker. I now will foam clean/scrub my barrels whenever accuracy degradation is noticed or around 200 rounds. You can surely tell a difference.

Just my experience/opinion.

^^Good post.

What rvrrat said was about the way I see it too. Generally speaking, what I see is a difference in cleaning from one fellow to the next, and Sometimes not much real cleaning is happening. I was guilty of it with the 220 Swift. I was using a perfectly adequate bore cleaner, but one that doesn’t do much toward copper removal, and I was thinking I had a pretty clean bore. So wrong. I had a ton of copper and if I had not known of Boretech Eliminator, I’d still have the copper and still think I had a clean bore.

Some of you guys don’t have as clean a bore as you think.

We go back to a thought I have had for a long time. Does a button rifled barrel need more attention to clean that a cut rifled does?

I say that, because I have shot out several cut rifles barrels that kept shooting great, with my minimal cleaning, until they all of a sudden stopped shooting well.

But it is worth mentioning, all of the cartridges associated with those barrels were not one that would have afforded a very long barrel life, anyway. .260 Rem, 6.5 Creedmoor, .22-250. The first two are done in 2500 rounds, no matter how you cut it.

I’d also like the answer to Fireman’s question - fouling of cut versus button. It’s not like I go through a lot of barrels, but I’d still like to know.

And right now what I know is that the Brux barrel on my 260 fouls hardly at all. So easy to clean. It must be super smooth inside. But I don’t know how the rifling was done by Brux. Some of you guys probably know.

And now I know. It’s cut rifling. My next rifle barrel will be a Brux. Thanks to the internet, I see that my Benchmark and Douglas barrels are button rifled and Sako is hammer forged. The two button rifled rifles foul faster than the others. I don’t think the small number of barrels I have are enough to make any sort of blanket statement about which fouls faster, but I think I’ll go with cut rifling next time

Yessir.

Brux, Bartlein, Obermeyer, Rock Creek, Krieger are cut rifled. I have had many gunsmiths or shooters tell me "find the caliber, twist rate, and contour you want, any of those brands are top quality". After that, it comes down to the man running the lathe to make it shoot to its' potential.

My factory Tikka barrel (button rifled) tells me to clean more often than the cut rifled barrels do, FWIW.

When in doubt, clean 'em!!!


I was at Jason's a couple of weeks ago and the .308 was rough off the bipod and also needed a stock pack for better cheek weld. I followed his method above of Gunslick and 10-12 patches and although it didn't show much copper, here was the first 100yd five-shot group off bags (fouled in with five others first). Both shots to the left were pulls. I feel much better now. Factory 178gr ELDX




I also thought the 6.5 was dirty so I cleaned it as well, fouled it in with about the same number, and here was the first 100yd five-shot group of Chad's 143gr Match ammo

Real nice!!!

And plan to re-foul em.