I've been watching this guy for a while, he's been around and although I don't agree with him on everything, he might have a point here. Thoughts?

I actually don't know.

I've read cupronickel was real. It blew up rifles, and people actually dipped their bullets in viscous grease as a semi- effective combattant.

Copper does rust. That's why the Statue of Liberty is green.

I had an old Rem 700 ADL 270win when I was young. For a couple years a friend and I used it for recreational shooting. Even in very hot weather. I never cleaned it. The rifle developed accuracy issues. The cause was a warped stock. My examination also found a conspicuous copper fouling in the bore. I plugged the barrel and filled it with copper solvent. Then I ran tight patches through the bore for hours until the bore changed from copper color to bright color. Afterwards I kept it clean after use. I'm pretty sure copper fouling is real, and it can build up based on the color change in that 270 bore. I can not conclusively say it effects accuracy, and really don't know or have an opinion about that.

The copper solvent (I can't recall the brand) absolutely did not harm the barrel. My Dad has that rifle now. It consistently puts all the bullets in tight clusters at 100 yards with the new stock I put on it so many years ago.

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbt...-to-this-gun-cleaning-video#Post18277039

There is already a thread on this. Moral of the story is the guy in the video is a blow-hard that doesn't know what he doesn't know. Absolutes and blanket statements are rarely the right way to go, and in his years, this guy hasn't learned that. What is more telling is his silly statement at 6:01 about only cold-hammer forged barrels can be smooth.

If this guy had a lick of sense, he would say, "copper fouling has never been the limiting factory for my accuracy demands in the equipment I use."

Key words in bold.

He is very entertaining at times though. There is no myth to copper fouling and there have been endless posts here about how to remove, reduce it .

I've seen plenty of copper fouling in my rifles and plenty of patches coming out blue after applying copper solvent. Sometimes I wish copper fouling wasn't real because it creates work for the shooter, but there's no escaping it, although Dyna Bore Coat and copper reducing powders do help.

Or, just shoot cast bullets and be 100% free of copper fouling.....

I was a groupie wannabe machine gun guy, helped a good friend over the years with grunt work to get a little trigger time with his collection. Using the 1919A4/A6 as an example, it usually was the worst to clean. Using mil spec MG ammo,linked M1 tracer with M2 ball (ball powder), they would run a lot of rounds before stoppages began from carbon buildup...but if he used non mil spec, loaded with god knows what powder, the carbon fouling was less, but the copper load would go up. Eventually with just a pocket magnifier you could see rough raggedy, jaggedy copper stripping. Since an MG is meant to have a pretty good dispersion anyway, we never checked accuracy. But my friend and others surmised that maybe the double base WC852? powder kept the copper from adhering to some extent.
It would be an interesting experiment, now that we have borescopes. Anecdotally, I am fairly certain that BLc-2 makes cleaning a breeze in my .308, 7.65 and 8x57.

Have been conducting "experiments" involving copper-fouling for over 30 years now.

Yes, it does make a difference in SOME rifle barrels--could describe some but have already done this in my articles and books. It also can be so minimal (or even non-existent) in SOME barrels that there's no point in cleaning them.

Between those two extremes have seen a .338 Winchester Magnum barrel that built up copper-fouling so quickly that within 15 rounds after cleaning to bare steel, accuracy started to deteriorate from 3-shot groups with some loads in the .6" range, to ALL ammo going over 1.5" after 20 rounds. At that point the bore looked copper-plated at the muzzle even with a bare eye--and also throughout with a bore-scope. The cleaned bore was among the smoothest I've ever seen through the same bore-scope--but it took a LOT of cleaning to get there. I was about to replace the barrel when Dyna Bore-Coat appeared--which reduced the cleaning interval before groups even started to open up to around 75-80 rounds. This was with standard gilding-metal jacketed bullets, NOT copper-jacketed or copper monolithic bullets, which tend to foul more.

The most extreme in the other direction was (and is) a heavy-barreled Remington 700 .223 purchased around 20 years ago. With Ramshot TAC (one of the cleanest-burning powders available--when loaded to 60,00+ PSI) accuracy did NOT deteriorate after shooting 500 rounds--and there was only a faint hint of copper when looking through the bore-scope. I cleaned it at that point--and accuracy deteriorated for the first couple of groups, then went right back to shooting as accurately. It is still doing that, several thousand rounds later--though I did use bore-lapping bulllets to smooth the throat after around 2500 rounds, and installed DBC.

Powder fouling also has an effect. The fouling left by old-style spherical (Ball) powders is very abrasive, so tends to increase copper-fouling. But improved spherical powders like TAC don't foul much at all--and then there are the increasing number of powders that include anti-copper compounds. And they work. Have shot brand-new factory barrels with up to 200 rounds of handloads using powders with anti-copper compounds, with no increase if visible fouling after the first few round--and even then its very fauint.

Have seen similar results, at both ends of the spectrum, from a bunch of other rifles. Have detailed all of this "research" in my Gun Gack books far more extensively, both the effect of copper fouling on accuracy and the effects of both cleaner-burning powders and anti-copper powders.

The guy is FOS. But such BS also often increases you-tube video views--which is how you-tubers get paid.

For a minute there I thought you were referring to my Sako338. It behaved exactly like yours did. I followed your advice back in 2014 and bought some Dyna Bore Coat and properly applied it, effectively shutting down my own personal copper mine. No brush, no Sweets, etc is needed. Spray in Wipe Out, wipe out a little bit of powder fouling and I’m back in business.

Carbon fouling is much more of an issue in modern hi vel rifle rounds.

It was reminiscent of one of those "The Real Gunsmith" videos.

Yeah, there's an option...LOL.

That's all I needed to know. Thanks, John!

I also have to add, I've done the copper de-fouling a lot with Wipeout, but then again, I don't recall accuracy improving (or decreasing) due to powder fouling, particularly in pre-64 Model 70s that are know foulers.

My old Ruger 77 starts loosing accuracy after about 20 rounds, once cleaned accuracy returns.

Cleaned or de-coppered or both?

About 20 years ago, I inherited my Dad's much loved 1966 M70, in 30-06, when he passed.

With any load I tried, it shot 1 1/2"-2" groups at 100yds.

Looking down the bore, I saw lots of green streaks, so surmised I had copper fouling. Bought a bottle of Hoppes #9 Benchrest Copper solvent and went to town. After using about half the bottle, a 4oz bottle if I remember right, I still saw green streaks down the bore, and was getting green on the patches.

Then I read about Wipe-Out, and bought a can. Over a Memorial Day weekend, including two overnight soaks, I finally got the copper out!

At the range, the first shot wasn't on paper. Shot #2 was off by 6-7", but shot 3 and up went sub-MOA. I was delighted with the accuracy.

This barrel coppers up pretty quickly, and it does affect the accuracy notably, so I'd say 'Yes', copper fouling is real, in this rifle.

a few years back now I bought a Winchester M70 Featherweight chambered to the 7x57 from a guy at a gun show I'd dealt with in the past. He said the rifle was accurate and he's never lied to me before. Well, yes it was accurate for the first three shots. By the time I'd shot a box of the wimpy factory ammo to get the brass, groups were barely staying on the paper. The bore was badly fouled and if I was lucky it only took 8 to 10 hours to clean the bore. I gambled on doing a firelapping on the barrel and when test the barrel still fouled but about the same as most of my other rifles. I've thought about doing another firelap but hesitate as I don't want to mess up the throat.

As far as that old guy in that video, I agree with Mule Deer. He's about as FOS as a Christmas goose.
PJ

Using the now discontinued Foul-Out system I removed a lot of copper from barrels. It takes copper of the barrel an deposits it on the center rod.

I would have said the guy is "dumber than a box of schitt", but John is more politically correct than I am

He is wrong. I have had rifles copper foul. Cleaned the copper out and they started shooting good again.

Yes, I can't stand his videos either.

To be honest, it is pure comedy and reading the comments is good at times.. They both bank off the same thing, strong opinions that people take as vast experience.

Yeah, which is why many you-tube videos are about stirring "s--t", not information. They get paid by clicks.

But the same thing is true about many of today's magazine articles--especially those that also appear on the Internet. In fact, they have to stir up stuff, to compete with videos like this one....

It is a helluva way to gain followers.

Reminds me of Elmer Keith and Jack O’Connor. Things haven’t changed much. Lol.

Or not even worry about it. Study up, genius!

You must have an unconventional Christmas goose recipe.

Had me think about it for a second, but whenever I've put Sweets or Boretech Cu Remover/Eliminator in the barrel, I get a lot of blue coming out.

GFY... I have a few rifles that sometimes foul and others that do not.

Not allways the rifle some bullets are bad that way. First original Barnes X bullets copper fouled bad enough to ruin the groups in 12 rounds in my mkV 270 wthby with 130 gr x bullets from factory PMC made Eldorado loads. Took a lot of effort to get clean. SAME thing happened in a lefthand 240 wthby mag with the blue coated x bullets. Stopped using the x period. I have some triple shocks now without the same problem but it sure soured me on Barnes bullets...mb

Swift A Frames are also pretty bad foulers, but man, they work!

Bob,

You haven't tried Triple Shocks before now? Just wondering!

Actually, I found the last few years of the original X-Bullets didn't foul nearly as much, and grouped very well. Talked this over with Randy Brooks, and he said it was because they finally could get consistently good copper, which helped making consistent bullets much easier. I believed him--because at the time I was hunting a lot with two rifles, a Ruger Hawkeye 6.5x55 and a CZ 9,3x62--which BOTH shot the new Xs (not TSX's) into tiny groups--and didn't copper-foul more than average cup-and-core bullets. (Of course, both had very good barrels.)

But the TSXs were a game-changer. We first started using them in 2004, shortly after they were introduced.

John

I have had zero issues with Barnes TTSX with regards to copper fouling, cleaned up easily. I used them in a 240,257 and 270 weatherby they were extremely accurate as well..