Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles The best bore cleaner you ever used?

I have been really impressed with Hoppe's Black High-Performance Copper Cleaner.Just used it on a new barrel during break-in and between groups,followed by a regular solvent.After 75 rounds,I still don't see any copper residue in the barrel.I apply it to a patch wrapped around a loose fitting bore brush.I used it on some other barrels that had been cleaned,but still showing a little copper,a couple of patches and that copper was gone.It says it's safe on any barrel

DBC
Kroil
Wipe Out, if I'm in a hurry I like Bore Tech Eliminator

I have 20,40,60x magnification to inspect crowns. When I was in the p. dog wars, I would set back barrels every 1700-2000 rounds, I touched up the crown at that point only.

I do not yank the brush through the crown, but intentionally gently pull the brush though the crown. I do not put enough pressure on the cleaning rod to torque it pushing and pulling it either. I have purchased used custom guns with cleaning rod wear in the throat and down the barrel were a guy was yanking and pulling the rod hard through the barrel.

I would add, many good solvents for copper removal, stubborn powder fouling takes good brushes. Shooters have individual needs based on their circumstances. It is difficult to impossible to state a general cleaning regiment that will work for every type of barrel and shooting regiment.

JB and Montana Extreme Copper Cream cut the crud faster than anything, no screwing around with these two products either on patches or brushes.

Wipe out results were dismal without Patch Out, brushes, and Accelerator. I have read of some very knowledgeable shooters that have used it with success, and I know that they have bore scopes. This leads me to believe that the origin of manufacture has changed or the formula has changed because various cans that I recently bought from Midway did not remove all the powder fouling, but it did get 80% of the powder fouling. I threw away two cans of foam. I was doing load development on a 7 Mag, 6 XC, and 6.5 Creed during my recent trial with Patch out & Accelerator. I will continue using the Patch Out with Accelerator,and brushing, where I achieved the success that I was looking for. R#17 was a bitch to get out of that 6 XC, and I developed fire cracking within 400 rounds....hot burning powder and it welded the powder fouling to the super slick custom barrel's bore.

Some of the products mentioned by some of the other posters were not worth a darn, I swear, urine would have worked better. If you don't have a bore scope, you really do not know how well your solvents are removing the Powder and copper fouling. Lyman bore scopes are down to below $200, and you should treat yourself to one. I shoot a lot, and big 7's, in particular, do not tolerate an accumulation of powder fouling if you want to shoot tiny groups.

We are all subject to manufacturing defects in how a product is made from Batch to Batch. I fear bean counters that make a decision to make a product cheaper by using Cheaper ingredients. Their train of thought is that they will only loose 20% of the customer base, and still be money ahead. This happens often after a company has been sold.

This is just a hobby, clean, don't clean, half azz clean...have it your way.

I'm not afraid of a bronze brush, and as you said I take pains to carefully draw it back into the bore.

I'm an Ed's Red fan for about the past decade. I run a wet patch down, put the rifle aside for at least 24 hours, and then wipe out the crud with a couple more patches. I usually put a little Ed's Red Oil mixed with Eezox on a bore snake and run it through when I'm done.

Most of my rifles have been DBC'd. If it's really bad, I may use PB Blaster or Brake Cleaner, but an overnight soak in Ed's Red does the bulk of my cleaning.

There was a guy at the range the other day using Windex (ISYN) to clean his barrel. Anybody ever heard of this? I guess the ammonia in it is good enough to cut the copper?

Windex is a common recommendation for cleaning a barrel shot with corrosive ammo. I've used it on a Mosin-Nagant shot with 60's-era Czech Silvertip and 80's-era Romanian corrosive ammo. It works for that purpose.

As for copper removal, it's not going to do much. Janitorial strength ammonia (9-10%) is supposed to work well for copper removal, but I've never tried it.

Howa/LSI recommends ammonia based cleaners for the break in procedure. I'm fairly sure the first Howa I got,10+ years ago had windex on the procedure. FWIW.

What do you guys do after the wipeout has soaked for awhile? Just dry patches? Or?

Run patches until they come out clean. Shoot away...

Fuel line on the nozzle you can squirt from the chamber instead of from the muzzle and get stuff in the mag box. So simple it's stupid.