Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Do Any Copper Removers Work?

Need a cleaner to remove heavy copper in a new barrel. First time out, shoot one, clean with Hoppes Benchrest, repeat for 20 rounds. Never got a bit of blue on patches, just carbon. Thought, damn this barrel isn't coppering at all....
Until I looked down bore with a strong light. Bore was orange.....
Have tried several cleaners including Sweets and there are still traces of copper in the barrel.
Are any copper cleaners really agressive anymore or has EPA neutered everything?

I have had good luck with Wipe Out or Patch Out. As far as I can tell anyway. Interested to hear what anyone with a bore scope has seen after using these.

^^^^^^^^
Ditto

Montana Extreme

Wipe-out

Another recommendation for Wipe-out.

Wow

The barrel break-in myth is alive and well!

Have also had good luck with wipe out. Hoppes isn’t so great for cooper

No schit, thought that died years ago.

Wasn't aware Wipe Out is still available. Have Carb Out and it works great on carbon. Used Wipe Out when first introduced and it was great on copper but never touched the carbon, ended up with carbon rings on 2 rifles years ago.
If I can find wipe out and it is as agressive on copper as it used to be, that may do the trick.

Me too. It helps if you have a horizontal rack you can sit the rifle in and let it sit overnight. Angle the muzzle down slightly, plug the chamber with a patch so you don't get any in there, and put something under the muzzle to catch any drips.


Next day the first patch will be bright blue. I do 2 or 3 rifles at a time after a range session, saves on elbow grease. Clean out the wipeout, then coat the bore with Hoppe's and let it sit for at least a few hours. If there's any copper still in there, the first patch will show it, and you can do the wipeout again to get the rest.

Sweets 7.62 WILL get metal fouling out, but it doesn't seem to be very good at all at getting underneath any carbon fouling present. Leaving it in the bore for a little while and giving it a little help with a nylon brush seems to be effective, but in my experience carbon and metal fouling build up in alternating layers, so a good carbon solvent helps in dealing with that.

Bore Tech eliminator seems to work a little better as a single solvent solution, but I still alternate with Hoppe's No.9 to speed up the carbon layer removal. I also give BTE a little mechanical help with a nylon brush as well.

Thanks for the link.

As to the "barrel break in myth"-
Doesn't take much time and doesn't hurt anything. Most barrel makers still recommend it, so why not?

Gunslick Pro works great.

Several years ago, I bought most of the solvents Midway offered and tested them including every product mentioned in this thread so far.

Barnes solvent was the most aggressive/fastest copper remover. Considering they sell copper bullets that makes sense. It now is what I use at the range on barrels to quickly remove copper. It is very aggressive and can ruin a barrel if left in too long. Sweet’s was second.

Wrap a soaked patch around a smaller diameter nylon brush and push it through. Four or five patches usually will do the job. Then push through a dry patch, followed by a patch with oil, then dry patch to remove the solvent.

The Hoppe’s Benchrest works well for an overnight to remove heavy carbon build up.

Wipeout looks impressive with foam changing color, but leaves heavy carbon deposits behind. A cheap bore scope opened my eyes to that problem.

Because it's a waste of time and effort to clean down to bare metal every shot. Done right, you have to remove all copper between shots which is time consuming.

Mule Deer has written about this, and I do what he recommends. Go to the range, and shoot normally. Clean down to bare metal after every range session. Done that way, you can do your "barrel break-in" while you're testing loads. And get 5-10X the number of rounds downrange in the same amount of time because you're not stopping to clean for 15-20 minutes between shots.

Wipe Out pretty much ruined a couple barrels leaving carbon donuts behind which were baked in so hard as to be almost impossible to remove, but was brutal on copper.

That's why I use Hoppe's too. Should have said this but I'll use Hoppe's and a plastic brush/patches for carbon first, then wipeout for copper.