I hope the title makes sense, if not let me explain.

I am using the Otis cable + slot tip + brush to clean my bores from the chamber to the muzzle. I can shine a lot at the muzzle end of my 30 cal rifle bore and look at the rifling. If I look through the muzzle and shine a light at the chamber I can see one side of each rifling land that isn't clean. Basically its the groove to the side of each land but the other groove per land is clean. Does this make sense?

Or should I not worry about this affecting accuracy?



The spots I'm talking about are marked in RED. Does this seem unusual?

Its probably copper fouling.
Some barrels foul worse on one side of the land than the other due to the force of the land bearing against the bullet to start its spin.The twist rate may play a role also.
My 7mm mag does this badly in the throat to about mid way through the barrel with soft bullets like Barnes.
I have also seen this in the Mod.29 .44Mag. using lead WFN's.Lead fouling.
Get the copper solvent on it and dont worry about it.
Other than that I have no idea.I use a Dewey coated rod and have little experience with pull throughs.

Metroplex,

I ain'tgot an eyeball on your bore, but doing waaaay too much assuming while not knowing the details, leads me to thinking that you needto just flat out get busy scrubbing with a Bore rod and a guide.

The issued kit, the Otis system and the Bore snakes are rough tools that do "Good enough" if used often enough, and between short intervals.

Grab a good solvent, and got to work with the brush.

30-40 strokes (In and out=1 Stroke) .

Patch the mung out.

Alternate solvent soaked patches and dry patches untill the dry patches only show solvent.

Then attack the Copper with Sweets or Barnes.

Follow the instructions to the letter, neutralize the Ammoniated solvent with a plain old Rubbing alcohol soaked patch, then a couple dry ones when you figure you are finished.

Then look again.


If it's still dark..........

I gotta wonder how many rounds ya have through the barrel, who made it, and other questions.

Uniformity of resistance to a tight patch getting pushed through the barrel may yeild some clues.

If the Barrel is Chrome lined and still viable, it's just fouling.

If not, Ya got some work ahead of you.

Wish I could seet the thing!!!!!!!!!

Best of luck and keep us in the loop!!!
S-28

My AR-15 barrel is .223" and 24" with an A2 flash hider, so looking into it is rather hard.

The barrel I'm talking about in this case is a hammer-forged, chrome lined, heavy Russian .311" 16" barrel with no muzzle device. You can only see the "fouling" when you use light to reflect through the bore. The one side of the land will look carbon-rough while the other side is clean. There's about 1200 rd through the barrel, all steel jacketed bullets.

I wanted to add that I'm having this problem with my AK.

I did scrub it with MP7 Pro.

It's either carbon from a really hot barrel + 700 rounds without cleaning of Wolf, or its copper fouling after 1500 rounds.

I'll try some Sweets.

I took a very close look and it appears it MIGHT be after the gas port only (from gas port to muzzle).
I was shooting with a vented gas tube for awhile.

Quoted: Jag Rod Patch Sweets

I just did that the other day for like the 15th day using Barnes CR-10. The stuff is caked in there hard...

Assuming the fouling is dark (carbon), my wide guess is that maybe the hard steel bullets aren’t fully conforming to the bore, esp. along the back side of the rifling.

Thus the front edge of the rifling (which the bullet is pushing against) is being cleaned somewhat by the bullet as it goes down the bore, but the back edge of the rifling isn’t.

To clean this out, I’d try an abrasive such as Remington Bore Cleaner or J-B Bore Paste on a patch wrapped around an old bore brush using a conventional rod.  I’d be reluctant to try this with an Otis system since they’re somewhat easy to get stuck in the bore and since I wouldn’t use any abrasive with a corded type cleaning system.

I didn't expect to see this here, but I am having this EXACT problem with my 1911 barrel?  It's like there is a line of "crud" lined on one side of the rifling.  I've soaked with Sweet's and scrubbed left right and sideways, but still it remains.  I'm baffled too!

Gundraw

Gundraw,
               I have the same problem with my 1911.  Now I use a dental pick to break up the deposits when I want to get the barrel spotless.  My barrel is stainless so I am not worried about the pick damaging it.

How necessary is it to get the barrel in a AR spotless?

The only other procedure that I have tried besides cleaning with Sweet's is to soak the barrel with Hoppe's #9 for a couple days.Then brush and reclean.Ive only had to do this with nasty milsurps.

When was the last time you guys replaced your bore brush.  They do wear pretty fast and this is one of the first signs that indicates a new bore brush is needed.  Using a copper solvent or even Hoppes with a bore brush will wear it out even faster.  I probably get about 5-10 uses out of a brush before it needs to be replaced.

CR-10 is a really, really poor carbon solvent and will not remove hardened deposits of carbon.  For a really fouled barrel, use CR-10 first with just patches on a jag or loop.  Once the patches stop turning blue/green, run a patch of rubbing alcohol through the bore followed by a dry patch on a jag.  Now get out the Hoppes no.9 and a good bronze bore brush.  Run a wet patch through, let it sit for 5 mins., and then run the bore brush through.  Run another wet patch down the bore, let it sit and then brush, rinse and repeat.  Periodically run a dry patch on a jag through to push out all the crude and then inspect the bore to see if the carbon is gone.

Found this thread about Teflon being a no no in the bore...Truth or BS. Who knows?
http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=109232
Just a thought about what might be causing the hard to get out crud>

An update to this thread.

I did try Sweet's. It did work on getting some of the copper out, but there is still quite a bit of really hard carbon deposits left.

I *think* it is because I am using a vented gas tube on the Vepr (AK system). I noticed that most if not all of the deposits are downstream of the gas port. Perhaps with the short barrel, the vented gas tube which actually makes more of a muzzle flash, allows air to get into the barrel in sort of a reverse vacuum that causes more of the powder to ignite and basically carbon up the bore?

Tweak: What does that mean?

The rifling that extends downstream of the gas port is filled with something that looks like carbon buildup. I'm not sure if the bore is pitted or eroded though, I'm not sure how I could have done that in 1300 rounds.

Oh I see... they think the gas port is a piece of carbon?

The stuff I'm seeing runs neatly alongside the land downstream of the gas port. Of course it could very well extend from the chamber, but I can only see rough surfaces as far as the gas port.