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Posted: 7/24/2024 4:21:09 PM EDT
[Last Edit: fgshoot][Edited]
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It's not every day that I find a product that is significantly better than others, but I found one a few months ago. I've tried all kinds of cleaners, and for the most part, none of them really even touch carbon. Even the often touted Bore Tech C4 carbon remover, from what I'm seeing doesn't really touch carbon. It's pretty much the same as Hoppes #9, which is that they don't really remove carbon. Hoppes #9 does seem to kind of get copper a little, but it's not strong, and it would take a long, long time to remove any real copper fouling. There are some copper removers out there that work good such as Sweets 7.62, but they only remove copper. They do not touch carbon. In my experience carbon is just like lead, the only thing that can remove it is actual scrubbing. Unlike lead which can come out easily with some copper scrubbing like chore boy, carbon sticks on way harder. With enough scrubbing you can get a barrel clean with a bronze bore brush and Hoppes #9 or some other cleaner, but it takes a long time. Often 100+ passes to really get it good. That's where abrasives come in. I've long been a fan of JB blue bore paste and Iosso. Both seem to work about the same, and both do the job in a reasonable amount of time. It depends on the barrel of course, but I rarely needed more than 30 passes with Iosco to clean a barrel, and usually it's more like 20. While some use abrasives on a nylon bore brush, the best way I have found is on a patch with a jag. Now in the middle we have Flitz Bore Cleaner. Do not mistake this for Flitz metal polish, they are not the same thing at all. Flitz Bore Cleaner is like protein shake consistency and can be used just like any liquid bore cleaner. It says right on the bottle, the recommend way to use this is right on a bronze bore brush. Based on my testing with a few methods, that is indeed the most effective method. I tried a patch and jag just like Iosso, and it didn't seem to be as good as Iosso. I tried a nylon brush and it was better, but the bronze brush is really the magic. Today I cleaned a dirty barrel and all I did was dip my bronze bore brush in the flitz bore cleaner, and give 25 passes. I finished with a pass of hoppes on a patch, followed by a dry patch, and oiled patch. I have never got a barrel this clean, this fast before. This is honestly 3 minutes of cleaning. There are a few speckles of carbon still in the throat, but this is clean enough for me. It even seems to be controlling the copper, I haven't use a copper remover on this barrel in a long time.  
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| One thing I forgot to mention, if you are going to use Iosso or Flitz bore cleaner with a nylon brush, there's only two nylon brushes worth buying. The first is the Iosso eliminator brushes. The second is the Pro Shot Patriot brushes. It has to be the Patriot brushes, the standard black ones are just wimpy tooth brush garbage ones. The Patriot ones are very stiff bristle just like the Iosso ones are. One nice thing about the nylon brushes is they last a long time. Iosso cleaner specifically says to use nylon brushes, not bronze brushes, and is an abrasive. Flitz bore cleaner is not abrasive, or at least can't harm a barrel, and says bronze brushes are recommended. When it only takes 25 passes to clean a barrel though, bronze brushes last a fairly long time. |
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I did a self-made test with Flitz and bronze brush and cleaning. I had two barrels one that I would follow the military procedure where I would take a bronze brush soaked in clp, pull through 5 times, then soak 1 patch in clp, pass it through, then use patches until one comes out clean. I would also use Flitz and chemical specific for cleaning and use a brush soaked in the cleaner to scrub it until it came out shiny and clean. The area I'm most worried about is the throat since it's the most significant portion of the rifle and what determines if it is accurate or not. The rest of the barrel being clean or not is not really important. What I found: 1) Bronze brush, flitz, and other products will in fact start causing throat erosion sooner. I notice the point where it starts from the chamber to the throat, I can see the area starting to erode sooner than the one where I just used a soaked bronze brush and pass it just 5 times. 2) While the flitz one looks "shiny" looking at it closely I don't see a huge carbon build up other than seeing a copper build up and the chrome turning black. 3) At about the 2k mark, they would be equalize in erosion. The throat gauge both moved equally in terms of erosion factor and it's only by .1 of where it started from. Both started at about the 3 ring, and moved just a hair. 4) I'm not entirely sure how long the barrels will last for but I suspect the one with fliz and intense scrubbing will not last as long. My thoughts: throw the borescope away. Yes, it is hard to do that I understand and the need to make it look shiny and chrome just remember like in that Mad Max movie just because it's shiny and chrome doesn't mean it's going to do any good for you. Don't scrub intensely and try to instead concentrate on soaking and saturation of the bore and then using patches to clean it up. Just remember: barrels are disposable items. You should have a spare barrel and bolt on hand. |
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Thanks for the input. That was Flitz bore cleaner, not metal polish? It's really about the time for me. I'm sure there are chemicals out there that can clean a barrel if you let them soak overnight or something crazy like that. CLR will do it fast, but you really have to watch what you are doing or it can ruin a barrel easily. Flitz bore cleaner is one of the few products that will allow me to clean a barrel in under 10 minutes. JB bore past, and Iosco are the only other products that allow me to do the same without going to very harsh chemicals that will harm a barrel if a mistake is made. If the cost is a little erosion, so be it. I'm not soaking barrels overnight. There may be something to the ignorance is bliss approach, but I would like better from my rifles. It doesn't do much good if your barrel last longer, if it shoots worse the whole time. A clean barrel is one of the simplest ways to improve accuracy there is. |
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Short of heavy copper fouling you're overdoing it. Filthy 14 rifle Wipeout foaming bore cleaner will get you the same results without all the scrubbing and wear. Bore tech carbon cutter sucks, but their Eliminator bore cleaner and copper cleaner are excellent. |
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Originally Posted By fgshoot: Thanks for the input. That was Flitz bore cleaner, not metal polish? It's really about the time for me. I'm sure there are chemicals out there that can clean a barrel if you let them soak overnight or something crazy like that. CLR will do it fast, but you really have to watch what you are doing or it can ruin a barrel easily. Flitz bore cleaner is one of the few products that will allow me to clean a barrel in under 10 minutes. JB bore past, and Iosco are the only other products that allow me to do the same without going to very harsh chemicals that will harm a barrel if a mistake is made. If the cost is a little erosion, so be it. I'm not soaking barrels overnight. There may be something to the ignorance is bliss approach, but I would like better from my rifles. It doesn't do much good if your barrel last longer, if it shoots worse the whole time. A clean barrel is one of the simplest ways to improve accuracy there is. That's just what I mean. The action of scrubbing it like a piston is eroding the throat thereby causing accuracy problems later on down the line. You should try to scrub it as minimally as possible just as specified in the military manual which does very minimal damage to the throat. Another guy here made an excellent suggestion: foaming bore cleaner. It is much safer and does the same thing without the intense scrubbing. I would attack it chemically as oppose to mechanically. By short stroking it like a piston, you run the risk of eroding the throat much faster. Another good product is boretech eliminator which does a pretty good job attacking it chemically. The truth is if you follow the military manual, the act of removing copper will not be needed to maintain long term accuracy for the barrel's life. I suggest getting rid of the bore scope because it's just human nature to want to see shiny surface like you did from the start. All you're doing is more harm than good. You might assume it's accurate and it probably will be for a long while but the barrel will go sooner than it should. The best tool to invest in would be a throat erosion gauge, and a field gauge measuring at 1.4736 if yours is a 5.56 barrel. Keep track of the rings eroding rate on your throat (it should start at the 3-4 ring) and measure about every 1-3k rounds. |
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I think you are mistaken, I am not short stroking. The way I am using the Flitz bore cleaner is dipping a clean bronze brore brush in it, and giving full length strokes all the way through the barrel. In this instance I gave 25 down and backs, and the pictures are the results. I have not seen this kind of result from any other bore cleaner. I have Bore Tech C4 carbon remover, and I have never been so disappointed in a product. I will consider Bore Tech eliminator bore cleaner if I see it. I do have Wipe out foaming cleaner in an aerosol can. It does not do a great job for me. The way I used it was per the instructions on the can, I sprayed it in an let it sit 20 minutes. Run a patch through to wipe it out, then spray it again and let it sit 10 minutes, followed by another patch. This simply did not get the barrel clean, and even with a bore brush after that, it did not get the job done in a reasonable amount of time. Maybe if I tried it again, but instead of patching, brush it while still wet? There's only one chemical that I found that does clean carbon, and that is CLR. It is very dangerous to a barrel if you ever make a mistake such as walking away and forgetting about it for a while, it will ruin the barrel right then and there. That's not a good risk to me. |
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Originally Posted By Blacktoothgrin: Are you saying clr will eat the chrome? I use clr on my 22lr suppressor baffles(steel), works great. I honestly have no idea about chrome. None of my barrels are chrome lined, and none of my guns have chrome on the outside. CLR will eat most finishes though. Bluing, and paint for sure, I wouldn't be surprised if it eats Parkerizing either. Used perfectly, and in short timeframes of say 15 minutes and being careful not to get it on the outside of the barrel, CLR does work. The big danger is if you ever mess up. If for example you ran a patch of CLR down your barrel and walked away for whatever reason only to come back 10 hours later, that barrel is wrecked. It doesn't matter if it's regular steel, or stainless steel, CLR will ruin a barrel overnight if you forget it. I suspect it would work fine on suppressor baffles, especially chromed. Who cares if they get discolored or even lightly pitted anyway? It isn't like anyone sees them. Barrels is a different story. CLR is simply too harsh and too risky to be using as a barrel solvent in my opinion. |
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You don't want to clean a barrel until it's pristine, with all copper removed. You actually want to leave copper in the pores of the steel / chrome. The copper fills the pores of the metal and allows the bullet to move more smoothly down the barrel. One of the things that happens with a new barrel , is that it shoots better after it's been fired a bit, because the copper has sealed the pores. When you clean it, you just need to clean it lightly, gently. Anything else is too much, and will serve no purpose, and will wear the barrel faster. Obviously, if you put 5,000 rounds through it, give it a gentle cleaning. Don't overdo it. It just needs to be clean, not spotless. Then go outside and fire a dozen rounds to season the bore again. |
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Originally Posted By Blacktoothgrin: Are you saying clr will eat the chrome? I use clr on my 22lr suppressor baffles(steel), works great. We do not recommend that CLR products be used on any metals except for chrome or stainless steel. https://www.thecarycompany.com/facility-supplies/cleaners/clr/faq#:~:text=We%20do%20not%20recommend%20that,products%20could%20compromise%20the%20finish |
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Originally Posted By Redman556: You don't want to clean a barrel until it's pristine, with all copper removed. You actually want to leave copper in the pores of the steel / chrome. The copper fills the pores of the metal and allows the bullet to move more smoothly down the barrel. One of the things that happens with a new barrel , is that it shoots better after it's been fired a bit, because the copper has sealed the pores. When you clean it, you just need to clean it lightly, gently. Anything else is too much, and will serve no purpose, and will wear the barrel faster. Obviously, if you put 5,000 rounds through it, give it a gentle cleaning. Don't overdo it. It just needs to be clean, not spotless. Then go outside and fire a dozen rounds to season the bore again. Everyone is free to do as they wish. Wiping out the soot with an oiled patch is plenty to keep corrosion from completely wrecking a barrel, but I want more than that. I want my barrels to perform to the best of their abilities. I also do a lot of testing that requires consistency. I can keep my barrels consistently clean, I can't keep them consistently dirty. Clean barrels shoot better than dirty barrels, that's just the truth of the matter. You will not find a single competitive accuracy shooter that doesn't clean their barrels. Some might be ok going a few hundred rounds, some might only go 50, but none of them are going north of 500 rounds without cleaning and still winning matches, at least not at a high level. Carbon and copper fouling both reduce accuracy. Barrels do not get more accurate over time either. A hundred rounds can sometimes smooth some imperfections in the throat, but that's it. If it wont shoot at 100 rounds, it sure as heck isn't getting any better at 1000. None of my barrels need a dozen fouling shots. The first shot can give an odd velocity, although they usually group fine, but every shot after that is right in the pack. It depends on the particular barrel though. That doesn't mean you have to clean as often as I do. If you are happy with the accuracy you have at whatever your round count is, then continue on. This thread is not about when or why to clean. I'm simply sharing a product that will make your life easier when you do clean. You are free to use it however you wish, it simply works faster than anything else out there I have tried. If you enjoy soaking barrels 24 hours in some solution instead, then by all means, do that. |
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Originally Posted By TGWLDR: We do not recommend that CLR products be used on any metals except for chrome or stainless steel. https://www.thecarycompany.com/facility-supplies/cleaners/clr/faq#:~:text=We%20do%20not%20recommend%20that,products%20could%20compromise%20the%20finish There's a lot of different stainless steels, but the kind used in barrels will pit from CLR in a short timeframe. Frank Green of Bartlein barrels did testing with CLR on his own stainless steel barrels, and they were ruined overnight. |
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Originally Posted By fgshoot: Barrels do not get more accurate over time either. A hundred rounds can sometimes smooth some imperfections in the throat, but that's it. If it wont shoot at 100 rounds, it sure as heck isn't getting any better at 1000. Have to disagree with that, particularly in non-chrome-lined barrels, 200 rounds or thereabouts has seemed the magic number over the decades, in pistols and rifles. My PTR-91 was my most recent case scenario, out of the box 5-7 MOA. and almost right at 200 rounds it all changed dramatically. Now it's about 1.5-2 MOA with any ammo. I know guys that back in the day, would fire-lap their new barrels specifically because they were trying to avoid the known break-in issue and ammo expense on such barrels. |
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Originally Posted By Dragynn: Have to disagree with that, particularly in non-chrome-lined barrels, 200 rounds or thereabouts has seemed the magic number over the decades, in pistols and rifles. My PTR-91 was my most recent case scenario, out of the box 5-7 MOA. and almost right at 200 rounds it all changed dramatically. Now it's about 1.5-2 MOA with any ammo. I know guys that back in the day, would fire-lap their new barrels specifically because they were trying to avoid the known break-in issue and ammo expense on such barrels. It sounds like you agree, more than disagree. I just picked 100 rounds as an arbitrary number. Surely you agree that your barrel is not going to be better in 1000 more rounds than it is now. Whatever you had going on to give you over 5 moa, down to under 2 moa must have been a really gnarly problem. Now that it's gone, there's nothing else to improve. It's simply wearing out from now on. For what it's worth, I have never experienced that. 50 rounds tops is about all the change I've ever seen. For the most part they either shoot good from day 1, or they never shoot good at all. Obviously there are outliers, as you had one. Fire lapping is just another way of looking at things. Myself, if a barrel doesn't shoot, I send the rifle back, or send the barrel back. Or just sell the rifle and move on. |
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Originally Posted By FoxValleyTacDriver: Butches bore shine cleans barrels better than anything else I've tried. Outside of an abrasive like jb bore paste. But butches is nasty stuff and getting it that clean isn't neccessary. I usually just use boretec eliminator. Followed with a patch of clp |
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I put JB Bore paste on a patch and put 3 or 4 drops of Kroil on it, it cuts the paste a little and Kroil will cut through carbon. Barrels come out sparkeling clean, and that's with using a bore scope to inspect.want You want to leave the copper fouling in the barrel to a certain degree, and you want it to stick to the metal not to carbon. |
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Originally Posted By Dino11: I put JB Bore paste on a patch and put 3 or 4 drops of Kroil on it, it cuts the paste a little and Kroil will cut through carbon. Barrels come out sparkeling clean, and that's with using a bore scope to inspect.want You want to leave the copper fouling in the barrel to a certain degree, and you want it to stick to the metal not to carbon. This. I take a slightly undersized bore mop and wet it with Hoppes, wrap a 2 by 2 patch around like a cigarette until I get a tight fit for the bore. Then, smear JB and stroke. Perfect cleaning. |
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Originally Posted By FedDC: This. I take a slightly undersized bore mop and wet it with Hoppes, wrap a 2 by 2 patch around like a cigarette until I get a tight fit for the bore. Then, smear JB and stroke. Perfect cleaning. What I did as an alternative is go to Hobby Lobby and bought a few small samples of fabric and tried them. I found a fabric that makes a good fit with the jag and bought a couple yards of it. I never saw any reason to cut JB bore paste, I would just wipe my patch in the tub and once its on that's good. Iosso is basically thin JB paste, but it works the same, no real difference. Both are good products that will do the job fairly quickly. |
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Technique also matters here…you can do damage. Basically, whatever you do, try to do it evenly to the entire bore. This is slightly different for the throat as it needs specific attention…but you don’t want to polish the heck out of the throat and end up with a different bore finish in the rest of the barrel. You can also cause damage to the crown if you are exiting and recompressing the swab at the muzzle. I generally work by doing progressive 6-8 inch back and forth scrubbing motion while simultaneously slowing advancing down the bore…don’t fully exit…then scrub my way back to the chamber. Probably 3-5 scrubs per inch forward. |
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Originally Posted By FedDC: Technique also matters here…you can do damage. Basically, whatever you do, try to do it evenly to the entire bore. This is slightly different for the throat as it needs specific attention…but you don’t want to polish the heck out of the throat and end up with a different bore finish in the rest of the barrel. You can also cause damage to the crown if you are exiting and recompressing the swab at the muzzle. I generally work by doing progressive 6-8 inch back and forth scrubbing motion while simultaneously slowing advancing down the bore…don’t fully exit…then scrub my way back to the chamber. Probably 3-5 scrubs per inch forward. I always say just follow the instructions. The way you describe is about what the JB instructions say. You can't really cause any damage with JB bore paste, Iosso bore paste, or Flitz bore cleaner. Maybe you could if you got really stupid, but not while following the instructions. The only damage that could occur is if you bought the oddly similarly named products that are true metal abrasive such as JB bore bright, or Flitz metal polish. Supposedly if you use a bronze brush with JB bore paste or Iosso you can force the abrasive to cause damage, but the evidence of that is limited. I'm not aware of any way to harm a barrel with Flitz bore cleaner, and the directions say right on the bottle to use a bronze bore brush. Whatever you use, use a bore scope and watch what you do, stop if you don't like what you see. |
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Originally Posted By fgshoot: I can keep my barrels consistently clean, I can't keep them consistently dirty. Clean barrels shoot better than dirty barrels, that's just the truth of the matter. You will not find a single competitive accuracy shooter that doesn't clean their barrels. Some might be ok going a few hundred rounds, some might only go 50, but none of them are going north of 500 rounds without cleaning and still winning matches, at least not at a high level. Carbon and copper fouling both reduce accuracy. How many chrome lined barrels did you say you had?  (If the answer is none - that DOES say a lot about your level of 'expertise' here) |
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Originally Posted By Aaron56: How many chrome lined barrels did you say you had? (If the answer is none - that DOES say a lot about your level of 'expertise' here) You can see above, I said zero. I have owned two in the past. I have never claimed to have owned every type of barrel or cleaner in existence, and I fail to see why that matters. I'm only trying to help people by sharing a superior cleaning product. |
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Originally Posted By FedDC: I used the red JB on a throat…and did too much. I ended up with about a 6 inch section that looks like a mirror…and the rest of the bore looks normal and flat dull but clean. I never shot it again…just haven’t tried it. It is dumb they named them so similar, but this is a good example of why it is important to read instructions. JB bore cleaning compound (blue), and JB bore bright (red) are two different products with different purposes. It says so right on the jar if you read it. JB bore cleaning compound (blue) is made for regular cleaning, does not touch a barrel if you use it per instructions which involve a patch, not a brush. This is a product I have used often, and it does work when you use it per instructions. JB bore bright (red) is a harsher abrasive meant to remove metal, it says right on it "bore finishing compound", it's also literally in the name bore bright. It is not for regular cleaning. It "finishes the cleaning job started by conventional bore cleaners and original JB compound (blue)". It is meant to remove metal, "regular use micro-polishes lands and grooves." This is not a product I use, but it sounds like you both used it wrong, and still got an expected result. |
| I think it's all a learning experience. Yes Flitz is great, and would make the bore shiny and bright and clear with a bore cam inspection. But I'm guessing over time, once you realize that it is eroding your throat faster, you'll stop using it and throw the bore cam away. |
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