Bore tech and cleaning your rifle

[Elton]

It is no supprise that I bought my first rifle. No that i am waiting on my license (got to love South african law) I am doing research to pass the time.

Altough I have been hunting for the past 6 years, it has always been with friends or family's weapons. This said, I have no clue as to the propper maintenance of a firearm.

I understand "how" to clean a firearm. But after that then what? This is why i am asking the experienced members for help.

I do know that not everyone cleans their weapons etc, but I am one of those who prefers to keep all things in clean working conditions.

As the thread name implies I am aiming to use Bore tech as I read very good reviews and its easy to get the products here.

So my main question is after cleaning, what boretech products do I use where and how?

 

[KMG Hunting Safaris]

I do know that not everyone cleans their weapons etc, but I am one of those who prefers to keep all things in clean working conditions.

So, you are implying that those rifles that don't get cleaned after every use, don't work? It's actually exactly the opposite. I am surprised still how many hunters arrive here with their rifle and can't understand why they are only getting a 5" group at 100 yards, after it was printing 1" groups back home before they left. My first question/statement is usually, "You de-copper fouled your rifle before leaving home, didn't you?" , which is usually followed by a "Yip." Only way to fix this is by sending a few rounds down range in order to foul it up again.
There is a difference between cleaning the outside of the rifle and the inside of the bore after every use. I clean the outside of my rifle after every safari. I clean the inside of my rifle only once the groups start opening up. After the de-fouling process, it will usually take the rifle around 7 shots to settle down again. Inside of the barrel gets some oil only once a year after the season is done.
After the range, a bore snake is all that you need.

 

[mark-hunter]

The cleaning products.

I use three type of cleaning products:
1. Gun oil, in sprey (balistol, brunox and similar)
2. Break cleaner (degreaser) in spray
3. copper and fouling solvent. (based on amonia, with bad smell)

Gunoil, bore snake you can use after each shooting session. Or you can use various type of patches and soft brushes.

Before shooting, degrease the barrel. for that you can use dry patches, boresnake, or help with break cleaner spray.

keep barrel oiled in safe, if not used frequently, dry the barrel before shooting or hunt

Only, and only after your rifle (after few hundred of rounds fired) start widening the group, then use some copper solvent, to clean the barrel of copper fouling by using soft wire brushes.

After this is done, then clean the barrel with gun oil, then dry the barrel then go to shooting range.
As mentioned above, after copper de-fouling, the group will widen and you need some number of fouling shots for bbl to get in proper working condition.

During busy hunting season, just pass the barrel with bore snake, or dry patch. no oil required

For limited hunting use it can take years before you get to copper de fouling part of cleaning, and when you do that, be quick, conservative in use of chemical, within users manual advise, because this type of cleaning can be aggressive to barrel. More barrels have been destroyed by cleaning then by shooting

 

[Wyatt Smith]

Really all you will need is hoppes No.9. I like to keep mine cleanish. I’ve never had to completely clean out the copper fouling.
Every 100 rounds, or before long term storage, I brush and patch my barrels till the patches come out clean.

 

[rookhawk]

So, you are implying that those rifles that don't get cleaned after every use, don't work? It's actually exactly the opposite. I am surprised still how many hunters arrive here with their rifle and can't understand why they are only getting a 5" group at 100 yards, after it was printing 1" groups back home before they left. My first question/statement is usually, "You de-copper fouled your rifle before leaving home, didn't you?" , which is usually followed by a "Yip." Only way to fix this is by sending a few rounds down range in order to foul it up again.
There is a difference between cleaning the outside of the rifle and the inside of the bore after every use. I clean the outside of my rifle after every safari. I clean the inside of my rifle only once the groups start opening up. After the de-fouling process, it will usually take the rifle around 7 shots to settle down again. Inside of the barrel gets some oil only once a year after the season is done.
After the range, a bore snake is all that you need.

@KMG Hunting Safaris I agree with your observations, but I wouldn't judge the clients too harshly. For a valuable gun, bore rot happens by moisture and traveling internationally with guns on the from-and-to is where that moisture gets introduced with the wild temperature, altitude, and pressure swings of international flights. I would assume that when sighting in the rifles at camp the fouling shots put everything back in its place again?

 

[KMG Hunting Safaris]

@KMG Hunting Safaris I agree with your observations, but I wouldn't judge the clients too harshly. For a valuable gun, bore rot happens by moisture and traveling internationally with guns on the from-and-to is where that moisture gets introduced with the wild temperature, altitude, and pressure swings of international flights. I would assume that when sighting in the rifles at camp the fouling shots put everything back in its place again?

There is a difference between an oil rag through the bore and de-fouling the barrel completely. Oil can be removed a lot easier than copper solvent, but I hear what you are saying.
The fouling shots do bring it back, but that normally requires close to half a box.

 

[Woodcarver]

Really all you will need is hoppes No.9. I like to keep mine cleanish. I’ve never had to completely clean out the copper fouling.
Every 100 rounds, or before long term storage, I brush and patch my barrels till the patches come out clean.

Hoppes No9 is all I ever used, until I ran out of the original stuff awhile back. A friend gave me a bunch of the military bore cleaner and I used that until it was gone. Used a small bottle of Outer's that came with a new cleaning rod, and now I'm back to Hoppes new formula stuff; it still works. I'll run a bore brush through a few times after an oiled patch, then run another oiled patch through followed by a couple dry patches. Wipe the bolt off with the cleanest, sorta oiled patch and put it back in. Wipe the surface metal off with some Hoppes, then wipe it off with a dry rag. I do have some Ballistol that I got to try out, but it doesn't have that great aroma Hoppes No9 has.
I've never used any of the copper removal products available, never saw the need. Some of my rifles have a few thousand rounds through them and are still sub-moa if I do my part.
The Savage 99 in 250-3000 I have is one that needs a fouling shot after my simple cleaning. 1st round out of a clean barrel is typically 3"-5" high, then it will send the rest of them where they belong. The only other rifle I've noticed a change in POI is my in-line; it must have a fouling shot as the 1st round after cleaning could be anywhere on the target.
Every rifle gets cleaned after a hunt, often wiped down several times during depending on conditions, but typically I only clean a rifle after it feels like I've shot it quite a bit since the last time it was cleaned, or groups start opening up; whichever comes first.

 

[Wyatt Smith]

@Woodcarver my rifles require a fowling shot as well. Most seem to be 1-3 inches high.
I read an article where a marine had Carlos Hathcock help his zero his rifle. They fired one shot per day, cleaning between every shot. That way the bore was always the same, clean and cold.
I am too lazy to do that way.

 

[Bob Nelson 35Whelen]

So, you are implying that those rifles that don't get cleaned after every use, don't work? It's actually exactly the opposite. I am surprised still how many hunters arrive here with their rifle and can't understand why they are only getting a 5" group at 100 yards, after it was printing 1" groups back home before they left. My first question/statement is usually, "You de-copper fouled your rifle before leaving home, didn't you?" , which is usually followed by a "Yip." Only way to fix this is by sending a few rounds down range in order to foul it up again.
There is a difference between cleaning the outside of the rifle and the inside of the bore after every use. I clean the outside of my rifle after every safari. I clean the inside of my rifle only once the groups start opening up. After the de-fouling process, it will usually take the rifle around 7 shots to settle down again. Inside of the barrel gets some oil only once a year after the season is done.
After the range, a bore snake is all that you need.

@KMG Hunting Safaris
Love your idea of cleaning. I clean the outside of my rifle after every trip. I use inox spay to wipe down all the metal parts and Gilleys gun wax on the wood. Unless my groups get bigger I just wet a patch with inox and patch the bore out to prevent rust. The run a clean dry patch thru before use. I use a copper eliminating powder (CFE223) that eliminates most copper fouling. I have cleaned my 35 bore or my son's 308 bore since returning from Namibia 3 years and about 400 rounds ago and still no signs of copper fouling.
More rifles are ruined by improper cleaning than shooting.
Bob

 

[450 Dakota]

Boretech Eliminator works great and helps protect the barrel. It is all I use. Wipe down the outside with a silicone impregnated cloth and you are good. A very small dab of grease on the locking lugs now and then. If you use a brass jag with the boretech you will have blue on your patches but you can check the bore with a flashlight. If you have stubborn copper get their copper remover.

 

[steve white]

Glad to see common sense returning to cleaning regimens...it was not that long ago that we were all being told that rust was creeping under copper fouling and we had not been cleaning nearly well enough or often enough. Also that we had a duty to smooth out tool marks from throats by cleaning after every shot right down to bare metal, etc. Well, in my experience, it was a case of "it wasn't broke and in fixing it their way lots of problems occurred." It is funny, having never really had a problem in the past, we suddenly cleaned our barrels to death, literally. I still hear people say that "ammonia doesn't hurt steel" only to walk it back to "except chrome moly" and eventually to admitting incremental damage. Every time we use a new, improved product, we are guinea pigs taking an expensive risk IMHO. I recently had a bout (first time in my shooting career) of really troubling rust after leaving "Accuracy Oil" in the bore for storage for less than a season. They deny that is possible, and maybe there is a place for the stuff...just not in my guns anymore. Perhaps it was even an incompatibility with another product. But only tried and tested for me, old school for the most part from now on...

 

[Inline6]

Boretech Eliminator works great and helps protect the barrel. It is all I use. Wipe down the outside with a silicone impregnated cloth and you are good. A very small dab of grease on the locking lugs now and then. If you use a brass jag with the boretech you will have blue on your patches but you can check the bore with a flashlight. If you have stubborn copper get their copper remover.

Boretech makes their own jags and brushes to keep that from happening along with cleaning rods.

If you feel like you need to clean your bore. Use the carbon eliminator, that will leave copper in your bore and you will be fine. Depending on what your are shooting, not set in stone. Smaller bores need copper clean sooner that larger bores do. Depending on what condition your barrel is in will determine how many rounds it will take to settle back in.

 

[Mark A Ouellette]

I apply Kroil penetrating oil to the bore and all gun metal after shooting. A couple days later or before my next time shooting run another Kroil-wet patch through the bore. Then I run a couple dry patches through the bore. The penetrating oil seems to soak into the microscopic pours/roughness in the metal and loosen up lots of black carbon fouling. This seems to be enough to both clean the bore and protect it from rust.

I have used Kroil on hunting and target rifles and handguns, and shotguns. It also loosens up the plastic wad fouling in shotguns bores.

While not a good a copper remover as carcinogens and ammonia-based cleaners, it is a lot safer, very convenient, and works just fine for most applications.

 

[Mark A Ouellette]

I should have included in my above post that after a liberal coating of Kroil in the bore, I store those rifles and shotguns muzzle down.

 

[Red Leg]

I am solidly in Marius’s camp. God put the idea in our heads to use copper in bullets to fill the imperfections in a rifle bore. For cleaning, I use Ballistol. Just Ballistol. I use it to lightly wipe down the exterior whenever I have handled a firearm, and the bore will get a couple of passes with it, followed by a couple of dry patches, once a year or so or after a multi day hunting trip. And then I am addressing moisture not copper. That is it. Any oil residue left in the barrel is microscopic, and I happily store them butt down as the Lord intended in the gun room.

 

[425SCHADE]

I used to be one of the "clean, clean & clean again" crowd, including removing copper at the first sign of it until understanding the mechanics of the bore better. That is, copper fouling fills machining marks left within the bore making for a "smoother" and more consistent finish, hence when its removed the groups turn to crap for a while. The quality, or lack there of, regarding the barrel manufacture will make this more apparent.
These days its a wipe through will oil between uses, and a wipe out of this oil just prior to use. Copper is only removed if required. The less a barrel sees of rods etc. the better.
For a couple of rifles I've inherited over the years loaded up with heavy oil and dust crud from storage I've used a product called "Ed's Red" made up by my father, the recipe of which can be found online.

 

[Bob Nelson 35Whelen]

@Woodcarver my rifles require a fowling shot as well. Most seem to be 1-3 inches high.
I read an article where a marine had Carlos Hathcock help his zero his rifle. They fired one shot per day, cleaning between every shot. That way the bore was always the same, clean and cold.
I am too lazy to do that way.

@Wyatt Smith
I must be a luck SOB as all my rifles put the first shot on the money wether spotlessly clean or dirty.
Before I go hunting I always check my rifle with a ONE SHOT group.
That shot is always where it should be.
When I do clean my rifles I'm also lazy. Give the barrel a spay with foaming bore cleaner, leave a few hours and patch it out. Then another spay, leave over night muzzle down and patch it out in the morning. Put a patch wet with INOX thru the bore and put it away. When I go hunting run a,dry patch thru it and go hunting.
Easy as.
Bob

 

[Bob Nelson 35Whelen]

I used to be one of the "clean, clean & clean again" crowd, including removing copper at the first sign of it until understanding the mechanics of the bore better. That is, copper fouling fills machining marks left within the bore making for a "smoother" and more consistent finish, hence when its removed the groups turn to crap for a while. The quality, or lack there of, regarding the barrel manufacture will make this more apparent.
These days its a wipe through will oil between uses, and a wipe out of this oil just prior to use. Copper is only removed if required. The less a barrel sees of rods etc. the better.
For a couple of rifles I've inherited over the years loaded up with heavy oil and dust crud from storage I've used a product called "Ed's Red" made up by my father, the recipe of which can be found online.

@425SCHADE
My dad was an armourer and my first rifle was a 303. Cleaning method was simple.
Get home, remove bolt and put the muzzle in a 9 litre bucket. With a funnel pour 2 litres of boiling water down the bore. Use a BORE MOP to suck the boiling water upt the barrel a few times. The boiling water heats the barrel and dries it very quickly.
Ofter that swab the barrel with God ol 303 oil and put it away. No solvent no chemical just hot water and oil.
Bob

 

[BryceM]

I suppose more has been written about cleaning bores than about any other rifle topic.

If you care, the acquisition of a borescope will change the way you think about this. Some rifles foul more quickly than others. Much depends on what bullets you're using. Not everyone is trying to treat the same problem.

Thin copper-jacketed match bullets in a match barrel can go hundreds of rounds without having much effect. Solid monolithic copper bullets in a rough barrel can foul impressively after only a few shots. Does it matter? Depends.

As has been said, stripping all of the copper away may not be such a great idea..... and with many barrels it's darn hard to actually do unless you use an ammonia-based solvent and a bunch of elbow grease. I've tried Boretech Eliminator (and their copper variety) and I think it works OK-ish. I've been shooting TSX bullets in my CZ550 .416 Rigby and the copper buildup was visually impressive in the borescope after 50-100 rounds. When I first peeked, it looked terrible and I set about trying to correct a problem that probably didn't need fixing. A couple of hours of scrubbing with alternating patches, plenty of Eliminator, and nylon brushes helped a little, but I eventually decided it wasn't worth the trouble. The rifle was grouping well all along.... so why bother? These days, I just give it a little TLC with some Hoppes.

The Bartlein barrel on my .300 WM accumulates only a slight copper wash after 50 or so Berger HVLDs. It cleans out sooooo very easily with just a few patches. As has been said, I don't obsess about it, and I worry far more about carbon. That's pretty easy to remove, but it's basically impossible to know what you're actually doing without sticking a scope in to look, especially in the throat region. With a nice match barrel, one or two fouling shots after cleaning seems to suffice. My .260 AI started acting funny a while back and it had developed a pretty good carbon ring. It took a bit of effort to remove, but it seemed to fix the problem. Without a scope, I'd would have had no idea what happened.

Shooting 100 .223 rounds through my AR-15 with a suppressor produces a tremendous mess. Gas blows crud back into the action, down the magazines, and everywhere. For that, there's no easy solution except for a good de-greaser or heavy solvent like brake cleaner. I always apply a generous coat of oil after that (Stoners like to run wet). I'd hesitate to get any degreaser near a nice wooden stock.

For the average guy, I'd run a mild solvent (Hoppes #9, etc) down the barrel after every box or two of ammo. This will remove carbon, and is very unlikely to cause any harm. Less is more. Be sure to completely dry the bore before firing. I prefer a single-piece carbon-fiber cleaning rod and simple jags with cotton patches. Be especially careful in the last three or four inches before the crown. Work patches one way, preferably with a quality bore guide. If groups open up, I'd take a look with a scope before jumping to conclusions. If you live in a humid area, consider leaving a light coating of oil in the bore but patch it out before you shoot! Always leave a light coat of oil around the action and other exposed metal, but not around the trigger assembly.

Just my $0.02 from 40 years of shooting - mostly long-range stuff these days. The average US hunter might need to clean the bore every few years.

 

[425SCHADE]

@425SCHADE
My dad was an armourer and my first rifle was a 303. Cleaning method was simple.
Get home, remove bolt and put the muzzle in a 9 litre bucket. With a funnel pour 2 litres of boiling water down the bore. Use a BORE MOP to suck the boiling water upt the barrel a few times. The boiling water heats the barrel and dries it very quickly.
Ofter that swab the barrel with God ol 303 oil and put it away. No solvent no chemical just hot water and oil.
Bob

Assuming he still had the correct issued SMLE funnel ?