I have thought about cleaning my rifles with JB's bore paste in an attempt to polish the barrel so it fouls less. Directions mention something to the effect of 60 strokes. Will this dammage a barrel. Will it round off the rifling edges (and is this a bad thing?) And lastly, will JB's essentially hand lapp the barrel or is that something totally different?

Nope if done according to the instructions! I use it myself often! Handlapping involves a slug cast to the bore usually. Someone please correct me if you disagree!

JB's is a polish, so if you use it as per the directions, you will only do good things for your bore. I suppose that you could Fup the the edges of the lands if you worked at it, I doubt that working it by hand with a cleaning rod will damage a bore. I like JB's and then a finish polish with Flitz.

Jeff

What about David Tubbs final finish bullets?

http://www.jarheadtop.com/article_finalfinish.html

Battue

Tubb's final finish is a different realm,

WAY more AGRESSIVE,.....

RatherB,...we have a digitally enhanced ( magnified) bore scope in my neighborhood,.....takes a "Hawkeye" up to 38 power or such.

ALL barrels look like a gravel road at that power,....I mean the BEST barrels

260 is givin' you the straight skinny,.....used right,....you'll not hurt your barrel with JB.

BORE GUIDE,.......and proper rod / jag combo assumed.

Been using it since 1977,.....no complaints,.....

GTC

I would never consider using the Tubbs system in any of my barrels.
But, for factory rifle barrels that are not lapped by the barrel maker, I do a JB Bore Paste scrub on all of them, with excellent results. I have some amazing targets that I've shot to verify what I say.
For aftermarket barrels that are lapped by the barrel maker, like Hart, Shilen, Krieger and others, I don't do anything to them but shoot them; they don't need any bore polishing. You get the maker's JB scrub in the price of the barrel.

Precisely what DMB said. That's what I do, the results speak for themselves. Just feel JB in your fingers, you'll feel it's a very, very fine polish and will NOT embed in your bore. When you're scrubbing with it, you'll almost "feel" the barrel "roll over" and your effort in subsequent strokes will be reduced. Then go ahead and clean it as normal and notice how smooth the bore feels. That's because it's now polished! YMMV
Selmer

I've been using Ultra Brite toothpaste the past couple of years. Every grocery store has it and its much cheaper.

Another poster, I believe it was Sitka Deer, said that the abrasive in JB compound was something called Rotten Stone, a very mild abrasive used by wood workers to get a high finish on wood finishes.

Or, he could have said Pumice, another fine abrasive used for the same purpose as above. One of the other, I think.

The abrasive should not be aggressive enough to harm barrel steel.

The abrasive in JB's breaks down sizewise while being used. IIRC it's pumice. Precision Shooting had a good article about JB's a few years back.

Does Rem Clean use the same type of abrasive as JB or are they different?
Both seen to act similar as far as cleaning my bores, and I know both are some type of abrasive, I just assume different carriers?

Joe I'd have check if I still have the magazine and re-read the article to give you an answer. It covered the differences between pumice, aluminum oxide and silicon carbide abrasives.

They bought the old "gold medal" product - same thing. If that helps.

I'm not sure what grit level Tubb's uses but I've firelapped older barrels to help mitigate fouling caused by a frosted bore. It worked - I did this after reading John B's article on the method. It halved the groups I was getting from my 1895 Winchester (30-40) and reduced the fouling. Still fouls pretty quickly, but I can get some good groups in before it has any affect - and its now a better hunter.

AJ,

What issue of PS was the article in?

Don, July 2005. Article is by Fred Barker.

AJ,

Thanks,

Don

Jim Brobst is the "JB" in the name.

http://www.us-products.com/borepaste/

I've used it myself numerous times to clean out a 10/22 with a leading prob. Did not hurt the accuracy of the gun at all.

which is more abrasive the bore paste or the red bore polish?

just an aside, I was considering using JB paste to try and work out a burr that Remington left in the mouth of the chamber of my 300 WM... however it explicitly says on the tube NOT to polish a chamber with it.

I guess it makes the chamber too slippery, and the case doesn't "stick" to it upon expansion, and bolt thrust is increased.

Just FYI...

The standard JB breaks down as mentioned but IIRC it is about 1600-2000grit, the red polish is even finer, about 3000grit per a brownells tech. I have both but cant really see a difference in either when it came to cleaning down to bare steel to apply UBC.

they seemed to work in a .270 I own. I have bore pasted a number of times, then bore polished, as well. At the end the gun seems to shoot much better than it did when I bought it, but that could be any number of things, it does however foul very little.

What is red bore polish?

The red is another polishing compound marketed by Brownells under the JB logo. They recommend its use after using the original JB for a "mirror" polish. I have used after 1000grit wet/dry paper on knife blades and it does take the finish to a brighter finish.

http://www.brownells.com/aspx/NS/store/ProductDetail.aspx?p=1161&title=J-B~%20BORE%20BRIGHT

Rem clean and JB are pretty much the same except Rem cleans abrasive is in a oil suspension VS JB in grease. Both are good products and will not damage your bore Iosso paste is also very good especially in the throat to remove hard powder fouling.

Lefty C

Your arm would fall off before JB removed that burr

Some 3m scothch bright pad on a wooden doel spun lightly on a lathe or drill will take care of the burr...just dont go into the throat.

Lefty C

I have tried almost every bore cleaner, paste, and copper remover on the market, and even some that arent. After I bought a borescope, the real testing started.

The best barrel cleaner I found was the Red JB Bore-Brite, on a patch, wrapped around a nylon brush. It is usually easier to get this to work with a brush one bore size down from what you are cleaning.

I roll the patch around the brush and apply the JB to it. Then push it into the bore guide, then insert into the action. Be sure to use a stop on the rod to keep it from exiting the bore. I use 25 strokes in the first 10 inches in the barrel to get the heavy carbon out, and then 25 more full length strokes to finish the barrel. This removes every last bit of carbon and copper from my barrels.

Most of my rifles drop off in accuracy before 50 rounds, and need to be cleaned, with the exception being my Tikka .308. It will go over 300 before the carbon in the throat needs removed, and then it goes right back to shooting great.

In all honesty, I havent found the Red to work better than the Brown, but being a finer grit paste makes me feel better about using it.

If the burr is large it should be removed with a neck reamer, if it is more of a rough spot you can remove it with 0000 steelwool on a delron rod in a drill. 0000 steelwool doesn't remove any metal from the chamber it burnishes them nicely.

The difference in coefficient of friction between a polished chamber and an unpolished chamber is not enough to increase bolt thrust. If someone were to get crazy polishing a chamber and that chamber was already at max headspace, a dangerous condition could result.

Coefficient of friction study: http://www.varmintal.com/a243z.htm

I went to the link and read the test. Not being an engineer, I really did not understand all that I read, but I was able to compare the figures of bolt thrust.

One piece of information that I did not see was the taper of the case, and the effect the taper has on the case gripping the case walls. With my limited engineering knowledge, I was unable to determine if case taper was given consideration in the calculations.

Also, sometimes I am a little leery of calculations when substituted for actual nuts and bolts testing under field conditions.

A taper will grip the walls where a straight cylender will not. That is how a Morse taper works, to hold a tool in a lathe head stock or tail stock.

Lubricating the Morse taper will reduce the holding ability of the tool shank.

The graphs and charts tests included a similiated highly polished chamber and a greased case, but with very little increased thrust on the bolt face.

I disagree. In my experience, leaving a very slight film of oil in the chamber after cleaning allows the case to stretch so much that when loading to near maximum pressures, the bolt is very difficult to open. This is with both a smooth and rough chamber.

I usually polish my chambers down to 400 grit.

With the same loads and a clean, dry chamber and a clean, dry case, this doesn't happen.

I can offer no explanation, other than the taper of the case, and the possibly that the greased case allowed the brass to lengthen past the elasticity limit. The above causes are only guesses, but it a fact that a greased case will result in harder bolt lift.

It is also a guess, but I think a dry, highly polished chamber would allow case stretching, although not as much as a lubricated case.

I purchased a Ruger .243 MKII Target rifle for very little money eight years ago. The owner said he took the rifle on a a couple prairie dog hunts and he said the barrel was shot out. I used JBs both kinds over a few weeks and a few hundred patches. My effort resulted in a rifle that will shoot true .5 moa. I have used JB bore paste on most of my rifles with positive results.