Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Cleaner Powder

bea175,

I'm not exactly young myself, since I started shooting centerfires in the mid-1960's. Used to clean 'em religiously every 20-50 rounds, but in the 1990's started experimenting with how long they'd go without cleaning and found many would go a LONG time without losing any accuracy.

Things got even better when the Ramshot ball powders appeared 12 years ago, and with Dyna Bore Coat they improved again. Though that one .223 never has been DBC'd. I did fire six fire-lapping rounds through it when new, to smooth out the factory throat, but it's just one of those bores that doesn't foul, even though it's one of the supposedly terrible Remington factory barrels.

Bad barrel from the factory these days are over rated in my opinion and they will now shoot with a lot of custom barrels. The same goes for Factory Ammo . As far as cleaning barrels i have done it so much over the years i just consider it a part of shooting. You should attend the Campfire Boar Hunt here in TN and meet some of us old farts

Bob

I have been thinking about the boar hunt, partly because I already know some of the old farts who go. Will see how my schedule works out, as I have a rifle or two that deserves to kill a pig.

More of a Party than a actual Hunt

That's what it sounds like!

Lots of great people from all over the country at this get together , you would be welcome.

30+ years ago I ran into an oddball at the range who was fussing about sooty cases and bores. I recall that he was shooting 760 in his custom 22-250 and claimed they were hot loads, so case expansion/sealing shouldn't have been an issue?

He came over to show me some of his blackened cases and asked if I'd ever had that problem, so I showed him my fired R-P cases that were barely dirtied on the necks. Nothing like his brass, that had black soot down to the shoulders.

Told him I used IMR 4064 (still do), but he went into a rant about how worthless IMR powders are and how great the 760 was. So I bade him a good day and hoped I'd never run into him again. Don't think I've ever seen cases like that before, or since?

As for bore cleaning, I was once pretty anal about it with my varminters. Gave that up years ago, rifles don't seem to have taken note of it yet.

I really like TAC, in fact, I won a 500 yd BR match using it. No problem with accuracy in varmint calibers. Will it win the Super Shoot? I don't know but for 99% of us it is the real deal.

The only powder that I have had problems with because it was obviously dirty was H870. I used it before we had the smorgasboard of good powders that we do now! H450 is also very dirty but I have not used it very much. It is temp sensitive too.

R17 seems to be fairly clean all things considered. I suspect there are more good powders than bad these days.

John,

Hope you can make the Hog Hunt.

It is one helluva lot of fun. The food is great(Pat Powell slow cooks two hogs)and the friendships are in full supply.

Just about everyone who flies into Nashville gets picked up by guys driving through.

And like all good hunts with a bunch of great people, we all agree that the stories afterwards don't have to comply with reality.

Steve

Steve,

Thanks for the urging! If my schedule doesn't interfere, I'll be thinking seriously about it. Would probably fly.

Every story I've ever told has been highly realistic, even the unbelievable tales.

Better wear some high top boots because the chit gets deep around lodge every night .

In all the firearms literature and books I have collected, I came away with the impression that single based powders burned cleaner than double based powders.

I do not know this as fact because the only two that I could compare are IMR 4227 and Hercules 2400. The IMR always seemed to be the cleanest in my .44 Magnum.

Double-based powders tend to have more deterrents to control burning rate, since they contain more energy due to the nitroglycerin they contain. This is especially true with ball powder, all of which are double-based, and since they're all very small-granule the deterrents control burn rate far more than in extruded powders, where the burn rate is partly controlled by granule size.

For many years, deterrents in general tended to create more bore fouling since almost by definition they didn't burn very well. But in recent years the problem has been pretty much solved. The Ramshot ball powders are some of the cleanest-burning available.

John,

We'll keep the light on for you.

Steve

Bring sausage!

If I come, that would definitely be in the plan!

This sounds about like my thoughts on why I use a 5-25X scope on my rifle.

I find it hard to agree with JB because he is bias most times to who is paying the lion's share of the bill's but on this point I agree....but there are exceptions.

On my benchrest 6ppc most of the time it shoots the best with VVN133, it is dirty, filthy and leaves copper with every shot so I clean after every relay.
A couple times last year IMR8208XBR shot the best and leaves absolutely no copper and very little carbon so I only had to clean once for an agg.

No absolutes but the newer cleaner burning powders are great but dont make the older dirdyz obsolete...

I'm glad y'all have good luck with Ramshot (TAC) being clean. In my experience it is among the dirtiest powders I've ever shot.

I just don't get the accuracy with Tac that i do with the Older Powders like H335 and BLC2.