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Posted: 12/30/2014 11:43:50 AM EDT
| I was shooting with my buddy yesterday. Put about 1000 rounds downrange in total through my 16inch midlength. I decided to do a deep clean on it and completely broke it down and went through it with my cleaning supplies and tools. I even took off the muzzle brake on it, and was amazed at the amount of fouling and carbon buildup under the device, mostly on the crown and the threads closest to the crown. I have a 14.5 incher that is pinned and welded and cant imagine the amount of carbon that must be under the flash hider on it. How detrimental to accuracy, and the general health of the metal is this buildup if not taken care of? The 14.5 has seen roughly 4000 rounds and because it is pinned and welded, I cannot remove it to see, let alone clean. My biggest concern is that there may be months in between my range trips which is why I keep my equipment as clean as I can.How long before the end of the barrel starts to corrode or lose accuracy? |
| Get yourself some Kroil and put a few drops on the muzzle crown inside the device. Let it soak. Then use a spray cleaner after 30 mins to an hour. You could honestly do it overnight, but I am not sure you would have any greater effect. Take small soft plastic brush to the area. All of this if you need to. Or just drop some Kroil in that area after every shoot and spray it off. Kroil will dissolve carbon like crazy. |
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You really need to NOT WORRY about the fouling between the face of the muzzle and the inside surfaces of the muzzle device.
I had the nastiest-looking accumulation you could possibly imagine on my A2-configured match rifle which I use for National Match competition. The fouling was a mixture of carbon, bullet metal, moly-kote and carnauba wax. The sight of it really gave me the heebie-jeebies, but it was so hardened that I could get nothing to make any worthwhile dent in it. So, I kept shooting it that way. ...and shooting it ...and shooting it. For years. The barrel was a stainless Krieger barrel. It was still reliably shooting master-class scores when I finally retired it on "general principles" after about 10,000 rounds. The only method for cleaning that bore for the first 5000-6000 rounds was this: Fire the gun (a lot). Take gun home. Squirt Break-Free CLP down the bore until it runs out the muzzle. Mop-out the chamber. Mop out the bore with two or three patches. Wipe off outsides of flash hider with paper towel. That's it. No bristle brushes or any such thing. Then, I took a break for several years from shooting that sort of competition. Started shooting that sort of competition again. Face of muzzle and insides of flash-hider still nasty as ever. Bore-scoped the barrel. Visible "alligatoring" ahead of chamber. Kept shooting it. Concerned about the "alligatoring." Added a step to the cleaning repertoire: 3-5 strokes with a DRY bronze bore brush before squirting CLP down the barrel for cleaning. Did not make the "alligatoring" go away. Did not have any effect on accuracy that I could demonstrate. But, the 3-5 strokes of the bronze brush made me feel like I was "doing something." Otherwise, cleaned in same manner as before. So, don't sweat the fouling. It won't hurt anything but your feelings. I do recommend that you keep the muzzle and flash-hider area of your rifle (as well as all other areas of your rifle which may be likely to rust) covered in a coat of CLP, or some other rust-preventative oil. The target cannot see cosmetic issues on your rifle. The bullet cannot see cosmetic issues on your rifle. Keep your chamber, and your bolt-assembly clean, and your rifle will function as it was designed for a long, long time. |
| A soft plastic brush will not hurt your muzzle crown. Don't use metal. Kroil is far superior at dissolving carbon than CLP. And I agree carbon fouling at the muzzle will most likely never effect your accuracy. The blast will clear the areas needed to be cleared. |
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Quoted: A soft plastic brush will not hurt your muzzle crown. Don't use metal. Kroil is far superior at dissolving carbon than CLP. And I agree carbon fouling at the muzzle will most likely never effect your accuracy. The blast will clear the areas needed to be cleared. |
| Kroil has never caused any corrosion on my stuff. If you are using today's decent ammo you shouldn't get corrosion. Moly build up inside a barrel CAN POTENTIALLY cause corrosion. You would need to be using moly coated bullets and not cleaning your barrel at all. |
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Quoted: Kroil has never caused any corrosion on my stuff. If you are using today's decent ammo you shouldn't get corrosion. Moly build up inside a barrel CAN POTENTIALLY cause corrosion. You would need to be using moly coated bullets and not cleaning your barrel at all. Not my picture but an accurate example of what I mean:  If this is left for like say 5 years...
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| Lotsa barrels looking like that floating around. I don't see it as being a problem if you been using good non corrosive ammo. I usually place a few drops of Kroil down inside my muzzle device and move on. I have pulled a couple off friends guns that look similar. They had no issues. If you are a clean freak, which I can be, I was simply letting you know one of the better working products I have used. |
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That crud will not hurt a thing, and it will NOT cause corrosion so long as you spray it with some sort of oil on a regular basis.
Its like the crud around a leaky rear main seal on a 305 Chevy motor. Looks nasty, but is absolutely the most rust-free part of the car. |
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By contrast, here is what you get when you shoot corrosive ammo, and never saturated the accumulated crud with oil.
The moonscape you see in the pic is actual pitting. This is how the muzzle looked after aggressive wire-brush-and-solvent cleaning during re-construction of the rifle, followed by 100 rounds of combloc ammo. (from a "battlefield pickup" Yugo AK kit) 
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Quoted: I was shooting with my buddy yesterday. Put about 1000 rounds downrange in total through my 16inch midlength. I decided to do a deep clean on it and completely broke it down and went through it with my cleaning supplies and tools. I even took off the muzzle brake on it, and was amazed at the amount of fouling and carbon buildup under the device, mostly on the crown and the threads closest to the crown. I have a 14.5 incher that is pinned and welded and cant imagine the amount of carbon that must be under the flash hider on it. How detrimental to accuracy, and the general health of the metal is this buildup if not taken care of? The 14.5 has seen roughly 4000 rounds and because it is pinned and welded, I cannot remove it to see, let alone clean. My biggest concern is that there may be months in between my range trips which is why I keep my equipment as clean as I can.How long before the end of the barrel starts to corrode or lose accuracy? I googled, searched the tech forums... same consensus you are getting in this thread: it's not a problem. I wouldn't bother trying to clean it on a removable muzzle device, much less a pinned flash hider.
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