Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Copper Fouled Barrel

The KG12 makes a path for the Kroil to creep under the Copper, so the tight fitting Bronze brush can peel strips off.
The 8mm brush wears out quickly and becomes a 308 brush that wears out quickly and becomes a 7mm brush.

You're looking at the "face" of the muzzle - not down the bore.

Thank you, Mark, at first glance I was deceived. I need to read the thread more slowly, a downfall of my youth.

fully clean and then MOLY coat your bullets!

Accelerator, wipeout/patchout until barrel is perfectly clean, then dyna bore coat. Range session with rifle, then repeat process including the bore coat and you should be good to go for a long time.

You're saying apply Dyna Bore Coat twice? Does it work better that way?


Casey

The rifles I've coated, I've only coated once. Thought one coat was good for thousands of rounds before re-coat.

Do these anti fowling powders help if there is already copper in the bore? If I wanted to clean to bare steel would firing a dozen of the anti copper powder loads help remove any copper?

No, they will not remove copper. They are to use after you get your barrel clean.

They can definitely remove copper that's already there. But as I stated earlier in this thread, decoppering agent effectiveness depends on the individual bore, powder charge, etc.

The two common decoppering agents used today are bismuth and tin. (Lead works too, but I don't know of any powder company that adds lead anymore.) They work by forming an amalgam with copper during the pressure and heat of firing, and the hot gas blows the amalgam out the bore. Hence there's no reason for them not to work on an already copper-fouled bore, and in fact I've seen it a number of times.

Here's a response to the OP's query about home-brew solutions to eliminate copper from barrels, with some side comment on ammonia causing damage to steel:

About a hundred years ago participants in rifle matches had some real fouling problems. Lumps of copper-alloy from bullet jackets would form in their barrels, and accuracy would decline drastically. At then end of a day's shooting, knowing that ammonia would dissolve this fouling they would put a stopper in the chamber and from the muzzle fill the barrel with ammonia solution. They would let the rifle stand overnight. In the morning they would drain out the now dark blue liquid and patch the barrel to dryness. This routine removed most of the fouling.

They quickly learned that this treatment could cause rust at the muzzle. The cause of the rust was NOT the ammonia. Ammonia in solution does not "eat steel". If ammonia did so, the inside of their barrels would have rusted. Rather, the rust at the muzzle resulted from atmospheric oxygen dissolving into the thin layer of liquid left on the muzzle face and a very short way into the solution in the bore. The steel rusted from the oxygenated water, not from ammonia.

To prevent muzzle rust the old-time shooters would stretch a length of rubber tubing over the muzzle and fill the barrel and the tube with ammonia solution. Oxygen in the air that dissolved into solution at the open end of the rubber tube did not have time overnight to diffuse down the tube to the muzzle to cause rust.

Relevant to this, my bottle of Sweet's ammonia bore cleaner came with a couple of instructions. Firstly, to leave the solution in the bore at most for 15 minutes, and secondly, not to shake the bottle before using. After 15 minutes, sufficient atmospheric oxygen can diffuse through the wet layer in the bore to begin to cause rust. Shaking would oxygenate the solution even before it was applied to the metal, enabling rust to form immediately upon application.

So, if one is aware of the problems of using ammonia solutions to remove copper from barrels, a "home brew" is simply some ammonia solution. Household ammonia is commonly 3% w/w. The old-timers used "stronger ammonia", which is about 27% w/w, and is available on line, if not in local stores. It's possible to purchase saturated solutions of ammonia, but that stuff is not user friendly.

Finally, one can actually make home-brew ammonia solutions. For example, during the Spanish-American war soldiers in Cuba encountered metallic fouling in their barrels, but ammonia solutions to remove it were scarce. So, they peed in bottles and let rot, minimizing contact with the atmosphere. The end result was a nice smelly solution of ammonia, which apparently did an OK job of removing copper.

--Bob

Ain't so, they will indeed remove fouling already present, and help minimize additional fouling.