AR Sponsor
Posted: 9/11/2013 10:35:20 AM EDT
|
I did a search and found nothing on this subject. My barrel is chrome lined I know that limits corrosion but what about copper fouling. I remove the copper fouling from my .30 cal bolt gun twice a year.
With a high velocity round like the .556 I would assume there would be some copper fouling in an AR too. I would like to know. Thanks Don |
|
All rifle barrels, no matter what they're made of or lined with will copper up.
Opinions vary on copper cleaning intervals. Best advice is to use a copper removing bore solvent whenever YOU think you need to. Personally, I clean my bore with solvent whether I fire one round or 1000. |
|
Quoted:
All rifle barrels, no matter what they're made of or lined with will copper up. Opinions vary on copper cleaning intervals. Best advice is to use a copper removing bore solvent whenever YOU think you need to. Personally, I clean my bore with solvent whether I fire one round or 1000. It's just that I never heard of an AR-15 get a copper cleaning. i put 700 rounds a year through my bolt gun somewhat less through my AR so i guess when i do my bolt gun for copper I'll do my AR too. |
| Every range session, i run some hoppes#9 for the gunk, then dry patch it. then i soak my bore brush in copper terminator and giver her a good scrubbing. Youd be amazed at how much fouling you pull with that stuff! Chrome is WAAAAAAAAYYY harder then any bore brush so, dont worry about over doing it. Your more likely to damage your bore from excessive leading/coller fouling then overzealous cleaning. Keep her clean man, AR's respond well to excessive cleaning. Any combination of a good solvent and copper stripper pits CLP to shame. I cant believe we used that trash in the marines. CLP is a pathetic solvent and worthless against copper. |
|
CLP does not attack copper at all. Attacking copper would result in CLP failing the spec.
Personally, I don't worry that much about copper fouling. I run Breakfree bore foam thru the rifles every 500 rounds or six months or so. No problems with accuracy or function. H |
|
Quoted:
Your more likely to damage your bore from excessive leading/coller fouling then overzealous cleaning. Keep her clean man, AR's respond well to excessive cleaning. I mean this in the nicest way, but you're stuck about 10 years in the past. Most of that has been long debunked. Personally I can't remember the last time I ran a patch down any of my CL barrels, and I dont think I even own any copper solvent any more. And I shoot. A lot. |
|
Quoted: I mean this in the nicest way, but you're stuck about 10 years in the past. Most of that has been long debunked. Personally I can't remember the last time I ran a patch down any of my CL barrels, and I dont think I even own any copper solvent any more. And I shoot. A lot. Quoted: Quoted: Your more likely to damage your bore from excessive leading/coller fouling then overzealous cleaning. Keep her clean man, AR's respond well to excessive cleaning. I mean this in the nicest way, but you're stuck about 10 years in the past. Most of that has been long debunked. Personally I can't remember the last time I ran a patch down any of my CL barrels, and I dont think I even own any copper solvent any more. And I shoot. A lot. |
| I continue to read that completely stripping out copper ruins your accuracy and you have to shoot another 50 rounds to get it back to "normal". So, why would anyone want to remove copper fouling? Or is 100% of the info ive read (on this forum) on copper fouling and accuracy all a made up lie? |
| If you put some copper solvent down your bore, and the patch comes out a bluish color, there is copper fouling in the bore. A little copper fouling, no big deal. A lot, and your accuracy will be affected. Accuracy means different things to different people though. Many shooters seem happy if they can keep all their rounds on a silhouette target at 75 paces. Copper fouling in the bore isn't going to bother them in the least. Those of us that find satisfaction in keeping all of our hits in the center of the same silhouette target at 400 meters are going to be more concerned about it. |
| I run a couple patches of Hoppes through mine every now and then. Rarely copper solvent, just when the accuracy seems to fade. Regardless whether its a CL AR or a bolt gun. I do run a patch of lube to displace moisture. Ever since Gale McMillan and Ed Shilen came out against break in and over cleaning I listened. And in all honesty I get way longer barrel life. |
|
If you get on the various top barrel makers web sites you'll find a variety of opinions on barrel break in and bore cleaning.
Most of these makers are talking about MATCH grade barrels, but even so, most include specific instructions on how to break in their barrels and on how to clean them. Some caution against over cleaning, but all recommend cleaning and usually give a procedure they find works best. Things are very different when we're talking about NON-Match barrels and hard chrome lined barrels. Bottom line, even when it comes to high end precision Match rifle barrel makers, opinions vary as to break in and bore cleaning procedures. So, you have one man's educated opinion that is not shared by other, equally educated barrel makers opinions. Best option is to do some reading, then do what seems to work for you. |
|
I used Barnes CR-10 for the first time yesterday on my LAR-8, the copper fouling was gone after two passes with the a wet patch and running a brush through it 10
times after each wet patch. Most of the time I don't have a problem with 50/50 shooters choice and Kroil. I missed a cull buck Wednesday night and went to the range Thursday morning sure enough the thing was shooting a 4" group, usually its a 1" or less. After using the CR-10 it was back to its old groups. |
|
+1 on the Barnes CR-10. Never used it on my CL barrel, but I do use it on the Garand and Mosin once, maybe twice a year. Just be sure and follow the directions and do it outdoors.
The stench is extremely potent.. 
ETA: I've been using a 50/50 mix of Hoppes and Kroil for almost everything for about a year now couldn't be happier with the results. If anyone has a .22 lr that's only been cleaned with Hoppes or similar for years and years, try that mix. The Kroil will stun you by how much lead it removes. |
|
yup, i agree, some guys get away with never cleaning their ar15's. thats fine, but i want my shooter performing as best as its capable of performing. Theres no reason why i should sacrifice my MOA for laziness.
For the casual plinker and guys ringing 14" gongs at 150 yds,... sure 5 or 6MOA is perfectly acceptable, but i like to reach out to 500yds occasionally with my loop sling on in the prone, and see how i do with my wind calls and how tight i can keep a "group" on a big ol dog target.  wayyyyy out at 500yds, every MOA counts, even a half a MOA counts. which is why i prefer to keep a clean rifle. Not just my ARs, but my varmint rifles too. like the 17HMR, you wont be able to decapitate ground squirrels at 200yds if you let it get copper fouled, 22lr typically respond VERY well to clean bores as well. lets you stretch out their legs a bit 
im not arguing with you folks that have religious beliefs against a clean rifle, but dont take my word for it, ask CMP dudes, designated marksmen in our military, bench rest shooters, 1000yd competition shooters, ask those dudes if you should ever scrub your bore clean. your very likely to get a face, or they'll think your trolling. lol.
given two identical (broken in) rifles of the same manufacturer, the clean rifle will out perform the one that has never been cleaned. i guess it doesn't matter if your doing 25 and 50yd zombie drills from the standing with a red dot sight,.... but in many other cases, MOA matters.
Again, not arguing your belief against cleaning, but when the landsof your rifling are plugged with layers of molten copper streaks, your rifling will NOT properly engage the round, and it may not impart the proper spin, or it may impart inconsistent spin on your projectile, which will, *ok now, all together class!!* AFFECT GROUP SIZE! Very good. if you dont care about precision, dont clean it. if you like to wring the most precision and consistency out of your AR, keep her clean.
different strokes for different folks. |
|
Chromed bbls do copper up. I switched from nitro+NH3 solvents like Sweets/Hoppes/Barnes to Patch Out and am very happy. Stuff is amazing. Kroil/paste also works well, especially if you also have lumpy carbon deposits from little/no cleaning after many thousands of rounds.
IME, the newer the bbl, the fewer blue-stained patches till clean I will see. Twice a year sounds about right. On a high-mileage upper, as the throat erodes and rifling gets worn, copper sticks more. So the number of patches till clean is greater, and the cleaning interval shorter. One of my high-mileage shortys is badly worn, has a ragged gas port and alot of washed rifling after 15k FA. No point getting all the copper out - accuracy life is over - but I beat it back to a very light blue patch after each range session. Sam |
|
Quoted:
yup, i agree, some guys get away with never cleaning their ar15's. thats fine, but i want my shooter performing as best as its capable of performing. Theres no reason why i should sacrifice my MOA for laziness. For the casual plinker and guys ringing 14" gongs at 150 yds,... sure 5 or 6MOA is perfectly acceptable, but i like to reach out to 500yds occasionally with my loop sling on in the prone, and see how i do with my wind calls and how tight i can keep a "group" on a big ol dog target. wayyyyy out at 500yds, every MOA counts, even a half a MOA counts. which is why i prefer to keep a clean rifle. Not just my ARs, but my varmint rifles too. like the 17HMR, you wont be able to decapitate ground squirrels at 200yds if you let it get copper fouled, 22lr typically respond VERY well to clean bores as well. lets you stretch out their legs a bit
im not arguing with you folks that have religious beliefs against a clean rifle, but dont take my word for it, ask CMP dudes, designated marksmen in our military, bench rest shooters, 1000yd competition shooters, ask those dudes if you should ever scrub your bore clean. your very likely to get a face, or they'll think your trolling. lol.
given two identical (broken in) rifles of the same manufacturer, the clean rifle will out perform the one that has never been cleaned. i guess it doesn't matter if your doing 25 and 50yd zombie drills from the standing with a red dot sight,.... but in many other cases, MOA matters.
Again, not arguing your belief against cleaning, but when the landsof your rifling are plugged with layers of molten copper streaks, your rifling will NOT properly engage the round, and it may not impart the proper spin, or it may impart inconsistent spin on your projectile, which will, *ok now, all together class!!* AFFECT GROUP SIZE! Very good. if you dont care about precision, dont clean it. if you like to wring the most precision and consistency out of your AR, keep her clean.
different strokes for different folks. If/when you clean your bore is really going to depend on the type of rifle and what you're doing with it. For a rack grade gun with CL bore and duty ammo, stripping copper on a regular basis is not only useless, but potentially a bad idea due to throwing off your zero. I had a long discussion with my gunsmith on this one day, he's a big F class shooter with some state titles. He strips copper every 200 rounds, then fires 50 fouling shots to copper it up, so he's got 150 rounds that pretty much shoot consistently. Some barrels can go longer, some shorter. The difference is he's in a sport where a couple tenths MOA can mean the difference between first and last place, so that amount of paranoia has a payoff. 99% of folks aren't, and have neither the skill or equipment level to notice the difference. How a barrel behaves while coppering up depends on a lot of factors, including but not limited to barrel quality, chambering, ammo, barrel steel/rifling, etc. If you have an articulable reason for a specific cleaning schedule with a specific rifle for a particular use, then good. But for pretty much all rack grade rifles with regular shooters and ammo under non-match conditions(including duty use) they'll never notice a difference. And as for the religious cleaning of the rest of the rifle, I do a basic field strip and wipe with a rag generally every couple thousand rounds, mainly for the parts inspection rather than the actual cleaning. The insane scraping and scratching does more damage to the parts and protective coating than leaving the fouling on. |
AR Sponsor