Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Hard powder/carbon removal

I've seen some gun chiefs use regular coke (soda type) to clean the carbon off their muzzle breaks on their M109A3's.

When I chamber a barrel, I run the reamer into the barrel stub for an exact copy of the chanber for that reamer/barrel.

I've been following Speedy Gonzales' process lately:

Someone mentioned simple green and an ultrasonic cleaner. I've found this to be an extremely effective method of cleaning components BUT I've also had it completely removed the finish from a few guns/components. A surplus CZ-75 looked like it was made from stainless steel once I pulled it out of the cleaner-- I ended up nitriding the entire gun. The aluminum cylinder on my father-in-law's .22 revolver was completely devoid of finish after 30 minutes in the solution. Be careful what you use it on!

I use Simple Green a lot in the ultrasonic cleaner with either a 4:1 or 5:1 water mix. Some metals and coatings do act strange, for sure. Some aluminum parts will blacken, too. I've purposely done that and clear coated afterwards.

I ran my CLR test on 4 stainless barrell stubs from 4 different barrel makers. And CLR'd a barrel with a hard carbon ring in it. Based on that, I'll stick to what I'm doing for a safe and effective way to remove hard carbon in the throat/neck area.

Normal carbon deposits in a brake, suppressor or tuner are a different matter than the hard build up being discussed. Countless cleaners will do a nice job for that.

Good shootin' -Al

I'm a fan of Seafoam in an engine with carbon build-up. I've always wondered if plugging a bore and filling it up with Seafoam would help soften/remove carbon. Anyone ever given this a try?

I use the aerosol version of seafoam for my regular carbon cleaner on patches. It works well for me.
F01

I completely etched a stainless tuner off one of my benchrest rifles using CLR. Be careful with that stuff.

Need some help with these bore scope pics, please

First two are pre pics that I felt were hard carbon. Used your method and the last two are post.

What I felt was hard carbon is gone, but what is the rough area by the arrow in the 4 th pic?

The orientation of the images changes but use the longitudinal crack to orient.

This is a Ruger 77 MKII, 7x57 that I bought used around 25 years ago and has never been a great shooter. It had a glassed pressure point at the tip of the stock. Getting back around to it and free floated the barrel, floated the mag box, tightened it up to Ruger spec and got that carbon ring out I think. Hopefully, it will shot better!

Thanks

have ruffled a lot of feathers lately with my recommendations of soaking in kroil oil and then scrubbing heartily with the bronze brush work for me.


with some people got all butt hurt about that but I also have a borescope and watch what work after I already tried many products..
yet I'm not brave or stupid enough to run CLR or other [bleep] like that through it.. a highly recommended product that I did not use or try it was Boretec eliminator.. might be worth a shot ..

Fixed pics! Old dog, new tricks…

That's just normal cracking that occurs...even with very low round count. That area is also prone to discoloration that can't be treated with an abrasive to look like new. No worries with either one.

Good shootin' -Al

Yep, I have seen that sort of cracking in as few as a couple hundred shots in a .223 used for prairie dog shooting.

That said, when groups start to open up in a PD rifle that's been cleaned, I have semi-restored 'em by firing a few bore-lapping bullets to smooth the surface of the cracks. Which is another place where a bore-scope comes in handy: You only want to fire just enough shots to smooth the cracks, no more....

John, there's a NECO lapping kit here I've used in the past in that same situation. A Ruger 77 in 25-06 really benefitted from it.

Good shootin' -Al

Thanks, wasn’t sure what I was seeing.

Yep, the NECO kit is what I've used for quite a while. David Tubbs' Final Finish bullets also work, but are more expensive--and with the NECO and a bore-scope you only have to make enough bullets to get the job done.

John

A note on hard carbon rings in the throats of some barrels:

Briefly, if you have a deposit of carbon and if you subject it to sufficiently high temperatures and pressures, you can wind up with diamond, which is pretty hard.

Google says the required temperature to create diamond is 900 to 1300C, which is less than the temperature of burning smokeless powder in a cartridge (about 1550-1850C). Required pressure to form diamonds is 650,000 - 850,000 psi. This is about 10 times greater than the pressures rifles develop as the bullet passes through the chamber throat.

So, while the hard carbon ring in a barrel throat is far from diamond, under some throat pressures and temperatures it can become really hard compared to other carbon deposits on the rifle.

I recall reports in Precision Shooting magazine in the early 1990s about the results of firing Shilen's 6mm Sabre cartridge. Along with really high velocities, there were descriptions of the formation of hard carbon deposits in the throat. In the 1993(?) report in Guns & Ammo of development of his 6mm Mach IV, Ross Seyfried told of the formation of the hard carbon ring, and of using regular cleaning with J-B abrasive cleaner to minimize it. (Note: J-B's abrasive is synthetic sapphire.)

--Bob

Doesn;t bother me none. I've got two long neglected bores hanging up soaking in Kroil overnight.

Al, being i the high performance auto business, have you seen or used the original GM TEC? I bought several cans when it was discontinued for possible cancer concerns. It was designed as a combustion chamber carbon cleaner. I mix it with white ammonia and Kroil for my barrel cleaning solvent. A fellow did an exhaustive test of several cleaners and found it to be best.
PM if you want a can.

Not true. JB uses Almadine and Pyrope Garnet sand. Commonly used in sand blasting.