Barrel fouling

[Steelhead]

I wanted to bring this up because I don't think enough emphasis is given to how bad big bore barrels can foul. I just responded to someone else on another board who purchased a high-end used big bore and it was totally plugged. I was inexperienced when I got my Texan and I plugged it so bad that it's a miracle I didn't do damage to the gun or myself (see the pic below)  The bullets were going through the target sideways at 20'.

When I was new and trying to get info I was told: 'airgun barrels don't need to be cleaned', 'they shoot better with some lead in them', etc.

For both safety and accuracy IMO it's imperative that the barrels you should be cleaned often. What's considered 'enough' depends on the caliber, maker, and other variables. A clean barrel is a consistent barrel. The best method I have for cleaning is using a wire brush with copper wool spun into it. Dipped into Shooter's Choice lead remover this more than gets it done WHEN NOT PLUGGED. If the barrel has been neglected, it will take a long time and repeated cleanings.

I know that most experienced bb shooters know this, but I'm hoping to save a newbie or two the agony of going through an unnecessary process. There are folks getting into big bore every day and hopefully this saves someone time, money, and aggravation.

[TPL]

Firelapping, firelapping and firelapping! 

[KnifeMaker]

wow! I believe that is as bad as I have ever seen. Ya didn't cheat and take a pic of a dirty patch in the barrel did ya. LOL


Yep, Big Bore shooters have been preaching this for years. And how to stop such heavy fouling from happening in the first place. A well lapped, and polished barrel is a joy.


Before I lapped my first .257 barrel, it would foul enough to ruin accuracy within 30-35 shots. Problem was, it took 5-7 shots after cleaning to settle down again. so really, only 25 or so of good accuracy.


Still, people argue that no lube is needed on the bullets. No barrel prep is needed, proper sizing is ignored by many shooters, and sadly, by both the gun manufacturers and bullets sellers alike. Rarely is it mention by the sellers of the guns themselves.


Use a good system for polishing the bbl.. Use a proper lube. Use a proper cleaning process for the type of barrel you have. And most importantly of all, size to the bore. Not 1-2-3- Thousands over like most try and do. A Max of .0003 over. No more. NAS and D-Rig and one other know this, and take care of it for you. If you have not slug your barrel, you have no business putting lead down the tube.


I have read here on the forum and other places shooter complaining of poor performance, or guns that just won't shoot and or, are completely unshootable. Really putting down the brand of gun. In most cases, it is operator error. Not a gun issue. GRRRRRR!!!


I have written many times what and how to properly prepare and feed a BB. it goes mostly ignored. A shame, as this is very important, and without this knowledge, many move on from big bores with a very bad taste in their mouths.


Steelhead, you are on the right track in part. However, as AF barrels are walther made, we don't know if they are W/L AG barrels or PB barrels and AF will not tell the truth about them one way or the other. I learned long ago to not trust much of anything they tell us.


If the AF barrel is a PB barrel, you can get away with a bronze brush. If a AG barrel, NO!


If it is a polished PB barrel, again, a huge NO-NO_ as it will ruin all the hard work put int the lapping an polishing.


Never apply the lead cleaner with the brush. They don't carry liquid well, and what they do carry runs to the bottom of the bristles. with most of the liquid being deposited at the very beginning of the push, and mostly on the bottom of the bore.  Use a patch soaked with the liquid. Allow it to soak  for no more than 10 minutes. (Maker says up to 15 max, as it i an acid and eating lead, you don't want it eating your barrel). Then attack with the brush, followed by a dry patch X2, then a patch with chosen oil to stop the acidic action, and one more dry. Your done.  (Other cleaners take a lot more work, and many more patches). The good stuff will give you clean patches in 2 or 3 passes.


If you have to do the work from the muzzle, be careful to use a good bore saver, or make one from the spout of a plastic bottle such as the typical catchup bottles in diners, cut to fit over the rod, and able to bush into the muzzle. the crown must be protected at all cost.

these folks make the best rods and crown savers out there.


https://www.boretech.com/categories/rifle-cleaning-supplies

Knife

[Steelhead]

That's an awesome post. There are a bunch of things there that I had no idea about but I will certainly apply.

And no, that's not a dirty patch. That's the result of my first PCP being a Texan and putting about 400 shots through it without examining the barrel. Shockingly naïve, to be sure. But I use it as an example of what happens to an ignored barrel. I'm too embarrassed to say what it took to get that clean and how I did it. Wrong method, wrong chemical...you name it. Let's just say it's a miracle that it even shoots straight at all and leave it at that. It's nothing if not durable.

Given that horrific beginning to my barrel, it may do some good to firelap and recrown it.

[steveoh]

Interesting video with a barrel maker interview. At the end of the video he talks about using wire brushes to clean a barrel, and possible damage to the crown.

[TPL]

Lets face the facts. In order to remove lead fouling from especially lands where it all mostly ends up you need something harder than lead yet softer than steel. If you have a nylon brush harder than lead then use it. There is no felt pad to remove sticken lead.

If you are worried about crowning then re-crown. I'm not.

[TPL]

I don't know what is the problem in this particular case but in generally about lapping. If the barrell is rough or uneven there can be some scrathes and dents or formal uneveenness. We don't have an option to add material, only remove. And it takes a lot of work. Lapping is grinding. The only option is to remove material around scrathes, dents or possible diameter areas too big to get inside even and smooth. And that makes it hard work.

It cannot be done just polishing if the problem is missing material.

[steveoh]

I'm pretty sure that using a bronze brush, nylon brush or your mama's nylon stockings to clean a barrel has less to do with science or proof and more to do with belief. You know. Religion-like.

https://precisionshooter.info/bore-brushes-bronze-nylon/

It's enough to drive you batty. I think I'm going to get a piece of steel, polish it up, and then stick it in a vice on my drill press, and brush half of it with a bronze wire brush for a few hours or days, and see what happens. Hrrrmph.

[KnifeMaker]

Very true. However, it is not all dents and scratches. With a button rifled bbl. for instance, there can be micro chattering going on. this will cause micro lows and highs that are above the surface. A scratch i smuchlile a plowed furrow. It will have the deep valley, most times a high ridge on its sides. These catch lead. While the valleys cam become filled, it often helps. What is called seasoning a barrel. Until it becomes so full of lead that it causes additional lead to stick to it, it causes no harm. this is what is filled when we re-season a barrel. The more valleys and crevices, the more shots it takes.


The ridges however, shave off lead, and it gets worse and worse. So yes, after lapping, which causes very fine scratches in itself, polishing smooths these over and greatly increase the time, or shot count between the need to clean to restore accuracy.   


I have had many customers request a satin finish. A hand rubbed finish. I have always refused. It is very popular with high end blades. However, it opens the micro pores of the steel. I reckon it doesn't matter much for a collectable safe queen. but ina knife that will actually be used, a full mirror gives corrosion a very hard time finding a place to start.


I have barrels in carbon steel here that I have mirror polished the surface and they have been in use for years. It is much harder to start corrosion on them tha even a well blued barrel. Which is itself a rusting process. And most blued barrels have the bore blued as well. So more pores have already been added, compounding the issue.


Lap and polish that bore, and it will give a lifetime of good service if cared for properly.


I will go out to the shop and get the name of a very well made, and unusually stiff synthetic bore brush. It does a very good job, and it does not have a stainless twisted wire in the center that can damage a crown.


OK, got it, It is the Montana X-Treme by Western Powers and carried by Midway shooters supply. It is higher than the typical Hoppies brush at wally world, but well worth it.
It says on the package, "NY-Tough", The worlds toughest Bristles. 8x32 thread, composite bristles. 


Knife 

[KnifeMaker]

I'm pretty sure that using a bronze brush, nylon brush or your mama's nylon stockings to clean a barrel has less to do with science or proof and more to do with belief. You know. Religion-like.

https://precisionshooter.info/bore-brushes-bronze-nylon/

It's enough to drive you batty. I think I'm going to get a piece of steel, polish it up, and then stick it in a vice on my drill press, and brush half of it with a bronze wire brush for a few hours or days, and see what happens. Hrrrmph.

Depend on the bronze. It can have a lot of impurities in it.  Have seen very hard, highly polished tool steel scratched by simply wiping it with a shirt tail. How, micro particles of natural abrasives either in the cloth, or picked up in the environment.


One fallacy in the article is the claim that carbon is ultra hard. It is not. Not without special processes. A pencil is carbon. Graphite lubricating powder is carbon. It is ultra soft and it is not Diamond hard. It also stated that the only thing harder than carbon is a diamond. LOL, a Diamond is carbon. LOL. Seems the writer didn't know his chemistry very well. 

[Bullfrog]

As I’ve said many times before, I am convinced that most of the “soft touch” advice out there for cleaning steel airgun barrels and the corresponding fears of damaging the barrel is born of urban legend and possible deliberate misinformation from the firearms community, where many firearm shooters are just as scared of brushing their barrels as airgunners are for the same reasons. Born years ago from the advice of a few competition bench rest firearm shooters and gunsmiths who may have reason to mislead about how to properly clean a barrel. Or who are perhaps superstitious about their barrels.

You can find old threads from me nearly a decade ago where I questioned people on here about cleaning my .25 Mrod barrel and I chose the soft touch route. Just patches with mild oil. Eventually the barrel got so fouled it wouldn’t  shoot and no amount of hard hand scrubbing or soaking could fix it. I now know that a session with the brush spun thru a drill would have likely got it cleaned out.

Make no mistake, in both large bore and some of the smaller bores, the humidity that comes with the blast of the shot, when coupled with lead dust, can cause lead to cake on to the point that the lead dust becomes like it is welded into the barrel, and when it gets to that point it takes extreme measures to clean.

[steveoh]

As I’ve said many times before, I am convinced that most of the “soft touch” advice out there for cleaning steel airgun barrels and the corresponding fears of damaging the barrel is born of urban legend and possible deliberate misinformation from the firearms community, where many firearm shooters are just as scared of brushing their barrels as airgunners are for the same reasons. Born years ago from the advice of a few competition bench rest firearm shooters and gunsmiths who may have reason to mislead about how to properly clean a barrel. Or who are perhaps superstitious about their barrels.

You can find old threads from me nearly a decade ago where I questioned people on here about cleaning my .25 Mrod barrel and I chose the soft touch route. Just patches with mild oil. Eventually the barrel got so fouled it wouldn’t  shoot and no amount of hard hand scrubbing or soaking could fix it. I now know that a session with the brush spun thru a drill would have likely got it cleaned out.

Make no mistake, in both large bore and some of the smaller bores, the humidity that comes with the blast of the shot, when coupled with lead dust, can cause lead to cake on to the point that the lead dust becomes like it is welded into the barrel, and when it gets to that point it takes extreme measures to clean.

I’m with you Travis.  Until I see a comprehensive scientific study and not just anecdotal evidence that contradicts someone else’s anecdotal evidence I remain unconvinced.

[dyotat100]

I use nylon and brass/bronze brushes in all my barrels. I have 2 guns with Bartlien barrels. How could we hurt a barrel that is meant to shoot copper slugs at 3000+ fps with a brush.

I have no accuracy issues.

[Kinetic45^]

I had the privilege of speaking to Mr Douglas of the renouned Douglas barrels many years ago about cleaning a barrel I'd bought for a custom match rifle and he told me using bronze brushes was OK but never to reverse the brush direction in the barrel because it did microscope damage to the steel.  He SHOWED me microscopic photos of a test barrel that had been repeatededly cleaned that way vs a barrel cleaned with only pass through cleaning and it was ROUGHER!  He had also tested different cleaning methods on bench guns to see what effected accuracy, not just ' old wives tales' or stuff
So I to always pass completely through before reversing direction.
And clean from the rear if possible but ALWAYS use a chamber or muzzle guide because cleaning rod wear ruined more barrels than anything else.
And working through an apprenticeship for gunsmith I saw how lots of bad shooting guns with such wear became more accurate after 1/2" was cut off the muzzle and recrowned.
Most air rifles get cleaned from the muzzle and have short loading ports (a rifle brush is too long so use shorter pistol brushes of the right calibur) so you have to be smarter on cleaning.

[Kinetic45^]

After consideration, I'm adding this:

Well, I am about to contradict a strongly held belief some shooters have with my own opinion.  Judge for yourself in this debate.

To Whom It May Concern:  I am not perfect and I understand no one else is either, just because I disagree with you on one thing does not make me think overall ill of you, so have the same consideration in this debate in the courtroom of the GTA jury…

Every so often I hear someone say they clean their barrels by spinning a bristle brush on the bore. And I cringe.

They claim it polishes the bore and removes all trace of fouling.  I do not deny that such a bore becomes bright and shiny but is it clean?
I am posting a drawing of the rifling in a barrel.  Now imagine a bronze brush is inside.  The brush is just a tiny bit larger than the width of the bore at the grooves and when drug LENGTHWISE FROM ONE END TOWARDS THE OTHER you can imagine individual bristles radiating out from the center, dragging along the tops of the lands and down in the bottoms of the grooves.  Note that this leaves the sides of the lands basically untouched.  That part of a barrel, the side of the land, is always a problem because that’s where the inertia of the bullet vs the twist of the rifling causes the most pressure/engagement as the bullet is both driven down the barrel and spun, forcing it to follow the path of the rifling.
The 90 degree angle where the groove meets the side of the land is where the most fouling (and I include leading here) begins in a clean barrel and is the hardest to clean.  Frequently a ‘clean to the naked eye’ barrel still has a wedge of crud deposited and packed into this corner.  [But that might not always be bad because some rifling profiles don’t have a 90 degree and instead have the transition from the top of the land to the groove sloped (Ex: 5R rifling invented by Obermeyer and used by several premium barrel companies like Bartlein, Faxon, et.)]  After a lot of back and forth passes with a brush and good solvents most of this crud can be removed from this corner.  And there are chemically treated patches that convert some lead and lift it off the steel too.  The chem-patches work best with a long jag and a tight patch BTW.  The problem with leaving this corner full of leading is the existing leading grabs material from each passing bullet and the leading 'grows' and we all know what much of that in a barrel does to accuracy, right?

Now look at the picture again and imagine the brush sitting there in a dirty barrel. Start spinning it and you can imagine the path of an individual bristle.  As the tip of the bristle passes over the top of a land or in the bottom of a groove it will be sliding on the steal, dislodging and cutting through the crud/fouling.
But what happens when it comes to the intersection of land and groove?

Let’s cover the action of dropping off the top of the land into the groove first – would you think the tip makes a 90 degree turn off the top and continues down the side? Remember, it’s spinning and so it basically jumps outward a bit then its inherent spring stiffness directs it down to the bottom of the groove, just outward from the 90 corner… it may not even touch the side of the land if the brush is spinning at any speed at all in a drill! And the depth of the corner is untouched by any bristle cleaning action. And this is going to happen in BOTH directions so reversing the spin will ALWAYS leave the 90-degree corner untouched on the ‘falling side of the land.  They would shout ‘Unclean!’ in some foreign lands, haha.

Now let’s cover the situation on the other side of the groove at the next land which is rising up like a cliff from the ‘floor’ of the groove.
The tip of the bristle is where the action/cleaning occurs, right? Can the spinning bristle tip get into the 90 degree corner it’s approaching and scrape out the crud?  Remember that the -brush OD is a tiny bit larger than the groove to groove diameter and it’s spinning so it will be dragging along at a backwards SLANT to the spinning direction.
What happens, and visualize this, is the backward slanting bristle’s SIDE touches FIRST against the top corner edge of the land!  So the tip lifts OFF the surface of the groove and stops dragging along the groove bottom… the bristle NEVER even get (microscopically) close to the 90 degree corner where all the crud is!  The side of the bristle keeps sliding on the corner of the land until the tip clears then it starts dragging on top, doing its’s job again after the ‘intermission’.
Another issue is the ‘sweeping’ bristles scrape the crud off the places they can reach (tops of lands and floor of grooves) and PUT IT INTO THE CORNERS AND THEN SORT OF PACK IT IN!?!?!?!?  Have you ever tried to use a broom and sweep towards a wall?

If you dig really deep into the NRA archives (somewhere in the 60’s) I remember reading an article with PICTURES of a section of a barrel showing the crud buildup in that 90 degree corner and how it happens and different cleaning and that’s where I first got edumacated on this.

What say the jury?

[KnifeMaker]

I could not possibly agree more strongly.  Just thinking about it fore a moment would alleviate any idea that a spinning brush could so much as begin toe clean the grooves.


by the same token, the idea that soaking the brush in a solvent and scrubbing the barrel could work. There is not way the bristles can transfer any appreciable amount of agent to the upper parts  ( 10:o'clock to 1:o'clock)


Just not possible physically.


Knife

[Kinetic45^]

Ever use any of the 'foaming bore cleaners'?  They sure fill the bore with just a squirt. Some work fairly well although most are mostly just for copper fouling which we don't have.

But I have wrapped a solvent wetted patch around my brushes for years then run it through the bore so it mops and brushes at the same time.  The bristles just push through the cloth. Change out the patch as necessary.

However, I basically operate so that I don't GET fouling so don't have to clean it out of my airgun barrels.  Prevention! Efficiently lazy, my MO, haha
I start with a clean, Ballistol treated barrel and always shoot with some type of 'lube' on the slugs, than also run a patch wet with Ballistol down the bore every 50/60 shots (At the range I always take my one piece rods and the full tackle box but for the field I have used weed eater line for years to make my own field cleaning kits that fit in a mint can in my pocket, w/ repurposed eyedrop bottle of solvent and a few patches)

Or sometimes 'this' for the cleaning kit, I have several, some for kits {cleaning, tools (most the right Allen wrenches for that particular gun)} and some for big bore bullets in the field although those I sewed belt loops on.


And you can make some great coil-able pull-through cleaning lines from Spectra/Dyneema 130 lb test for those fishermen (those of you who big game deep sea fish will probably have it already) and using that knot knowledge to make loops on the end to put a patch through.

[Bullfrog]

What say the jury?

Allow me to submit my arguments.

The question is twofold. First, does aggressive cleaning with a brush/rod like reversing direction in the barrel hurt the barrel steel in a meaningful way? Second, does cleaning with a drill bit offer you something that traditional hand scrubbing does not?

As to the first, I simply don't see how scientifically a softer metal can scratch a harder metal. It shouldn't matter whether you reverse direction in the barrel or not. Copper/brass can't stratch steel, period. That's why I have a tendency to start viewing antidotal evidence of "ah I saw this barrel hurt by it" skeptically and why it sounds more like superstition to me. Its the equivalent of starting with the presumption gravity exists and works as we understand it to here on planet Earth, and then an eyewitness coming forward stating that gravity can't work like we think it does on earth, because the eyewitness once saw an object float away in defiance of gravity. Well, is it totally impossible that gravity doesn't work like we think it does and sometimes randomly doesn't apply to some earthbound objects? Maybe. But its more likely the eyewitness is mistaken, maybe even well-meaningly so. Or the eyewitness really did see an object float away, but it had nothing to do with a failure of gravity.

I'm not saying your gunsmith/barrel maker didn't see something different on a microscopic level. But both he and you has to know how to interpret microscopic images of metal surfaces. How would any of us know, without the proper background, that something we're looking at on a microscopic level is in fact bare barrel steel and not microscopic fouling that never gets removed, but can be disturbed, on a rifle surface? And then where is the evidence that microscopic "damage" done by a brush effects a bullet's performance? And ultimately, what about changing brush direction changes the hardness of the brush so that a softer metal can scratch a harder metal, where otherwise that couldn't happen in most or any other context? There's lots of presumptions in the chain of reasoning, each of which has to be proven and reasoned out.

As to the second, I have my own anecdotal evidence to offer. Subject to the same standards as the observations of the gunsmith or barrel maker.

I bought my .25 Condor used in an arm's length transaction, from someone I didn't know. The gun shot horribly when I received it. I wasn't sure if the guy scammed me or if I was just doing something wrong, it being the first Airforce gun I've owned and only the second I had shot. I had to learn a lot of quirks about the gun to make it into the tack driver it is now.

One of the factors I dealt with early was the barrel. It was horribly fouled. Slugging the barrel with bullets and pellets revealed hardly any rifling on the projectiles and I could also see fouling with my own eyes at the crown. I cleaned the barrel for several hours over the course of several days thru traditional scrubbing sessions with a carbon fiber rod, various cleaning compounds, and brass brushes. I also scrubbed/polished it with JB Bore Paste and Kroil. The bullet on top was the result of several days worth of this sort of cleaning. An improved amount of rifling but still faint:



There was no end to the black crud coming out of the barrel every time I'd soak and scrub. I figured the fellow had just sold me a dud or worn out barrel. I was about to order a new barrel from Airforce, just as I had threw in the towel and ordered a new barrel from Crosman years ago for my .25 Mood I talked about previously. But I remembered from my various friends in the military from different branches that they each cleaned their rifle barrels with drill chucks, and out of desperation I thought I'd try the same. The bottom bullet was the result. I didn't just spin a brush thru. I slathered it in bore paste and sent it thru from both sides. That broke the gunk.

I've since given that treatment to all of my gun barrels that I use regularly, both airgun and firearm, and the results across the board are great. Guns I thought just plain stunk as shooters (like family heirloom rifles that had never had their barrels cleaned a day in their lives) became great shooters. The only airguns I haven't done it to are my newest cheapies (my Hatsan and Gamo). Generally once I clean a barrel out that way I don't have to be that aggressive again. It becomes possible to let solvents do the work on subsequent cleanings, as if that initial run with the drill and bore paste really smooths rough spots over.

So there's my own eyewitness story about how awesome cleaning with a drill bit is. Its no more or less credible than anyone else's account about how a barrel was ruined by reversing direction with a brush or whatever. That's why in the end, we have to reason out each account to see if they make sense scientifically.

Concerning what's actually happening when that brush spins thru, I can't say. It very well could be that the brush is vibrating and thus causing the bristles to extend further than what they would on paper. Or that the vibration itself loosens the crud, allowing it to be pushed out once I start running patches thru and also pulling brushes thru traditionally to finish it off. The length of the bristles also changes during the cleaning and the brush wears down (I use 2-3 brushes per spin cleaning session). And because I come into a barrel both ways, the rifling is catching the spinning brush from both clockwise and counter clockwise directions.

All I can say is that somehow, someway, the drill gives me a deeper clean than what any standard back and to brushing ever has, as evidenced the above bullet picture from my Condor.

I think that the only real danger is using an object made of metal as hard as or harder than the barrel, or alternatively accidentally introducing a hard grit that would catch on the rod or brush and make scratches.

[Kinetic45^]

Just a quick rebuttal, snap thoughts (this is fun  )

A.   I have a 1/2" steel, 8" gong hanging on my shop wall that has holes punched in it by softer copper and lead bullets so softer metals can damage harder ones with enough kinetic energy added.
The example Mr. Douglas told me was how a small woman wearing high heels put tons of force into a tiny contact point and so there were stories of floors damaged by the concentrated force under the point of the heel.  Knives cut the same way actually, concentrated force into a small area. On the barrel damage he said that when the bristles, which were all leaning back from the direction of travel were reversed they had to go straight then start to lean the other direction and although the bristles did bend a bit they were stiff enough to cause huge force which was concentrated into the small diameter tip of the wire bristle.  He also mentioned that the numerous bristles opposing each other kept the bristles in hard contact with the barrel.  Hey, he was an expert and I was only there to pick up a barrel and spent less than an hour there.  I trusted him and although I am usually a doubter I figured maybe it was possible. He said a barrel lost accuracy and was more prone to fouling if usually cleaned like that.

B.   Back when I was a Field Service Tech for General Electric Aeroderivative Power Systems I sometimes had to take a borescope to various parts of the world to look inside customers jet engines.  Sometimes I came straight home from the airport and because I was just passing through to the next location the next day I would keep it with me so a couple of times I used it to look at 60x inside some of my barrels and a few friends guns too.  And I can tell you that a lot of them had fouling in the angle of the groove and the side of the land, even if the barrel looked clean by eye.  That's an observed fact to me even if it's anecdotal hearsay to someone else who has not seen it personally.
I can agree that what you could see was clean and when slugged it showed the rifling better and even shot better but I still believe there was remaining fouling packed into the rifling corners that act as seeds for new fouling to form on.

Good debate though 

[steveoh]

Ok, now that we've had a few opinions, and anecdotal evidence, I have one more thing to throw into the mix.

How does hardness of bullet affect the fouling of a barrel at any given FPS?

I shoot primarily home cast pure lead bullets in my .257's, .457, .458, .575 big bores. Should I avoid pure lead to help with leading? If so, what mix of lead and tin or antimony or ? should I use to improve fouling, and yet keep my accuracy?