barrel cleaning issues

[Triplejim]

Will do a few more clean bore shots though and check where they land.

We've had a lot of success with Gnomes Oil. Only one shot to arrive at Average speed whereas Sweets Oil took two shots. James

[ecomeat]

[quote="AlanF"]Bruce,

Mine was delivered a few months ago and is 1 in 9. I noticed the pitting after only 100 or so rounds. Doesn't seem to have spread, which suggests "bubbles" of softer metal perhaps.

I have a Krieger 6mm 1 in 8 twist, chambered in 6x47Lapua that I received in August last year, and it has also got pitting approx right in the middle of the barrel. And it only showed up after approx 150 shots were fired. I have only used 105 gr VLD's chrono'd at 2975 fps, and have checked it religiously with my borescope every time I clean it after shooting FClass and it definitely just "appeared" . I have fired approx 70 shots since it started, and it hasn't spread/grown . Very disconcerting though !
Tony Berry
Beaudesert, QLD

[6shooter]

My .25WSSM MAB barrel takes about 5 patches to go from 25-shots-of-fouling to clean by using a homemade brew that sells in the US as Ed's Red. I use the added ammonia component to remove copper. My local gunshop/gunsmith uses it for all dirty barrels as well as removing surface rust from barrels etc. and loosening tight or rusty parts. It is cheap to make and does a better job than expensive copper removers. I use "normal" Ed's Red to oil the barrel after cleaning it with the ammonia brew and leave it in there (although any good gun oil will do). Ammonia attracts water and can lead to pitting and rusting if you don't dry then oil the bore. (I used to own a gunshop and used heaps of different bore cleaners but wasn't happy with their results). The following is the brew from "Homemade Firearm Related products".
QUOTE:
Ed's Red
As a general bore cleaner, plastic wad remover, and carbon solvent the following formula, a creation of C.E Harris, and dubbed "Ed's Red" works quite well. In fact many folks claim it is better than anything they've tried. The original formula is:

1 part Dexron II, IIe or III Automatic Transmission Fluid - GM Spec D20265 or later
1 part K1 Kerosene
1 part Aliphatic Mineral Spirits federal spec TT-T-2981F (CAS# 64741-49-9) or Stodard Solvent/Varsol
(CAS#8052-41-1)
1 part Acetone (CAS#67-64-1)
END QUOTE
The kero is the low odour type.
Aliphatic mineral spirits is dry cleaning fluid.

QUOTE:
Also, Ed's Red is very penetrative and makes a superior penetrating oil for loosening rusted parts. In fact in some testing by a machinist's magazine a couple of years ago it beat all the commercial products by a wide margin. A dedicated ER penetrating solution can be made by just using a 50-50 mix of ATF and acetone.

A historical note about Ed's Red. When Ed Harris first cooked it up, it exceeded the then current Mil Specs for bore cleaner and CLP. Ed and a cohort were able to test it at a defense contractor's quality lab after hours with chrome-moly and stainless samples provided by Kreiger Barrels.

Eds Red Plus
This variation on the Ed's Red formula gives it a copper removing ability similar to the commercial bore cleaner Marksman's Choice MC-7. You will need:

11 ounces of basic Ed's Red
2 ounces of 10%-20% industrial strength ammonia
2 ounces of Rustlick WS-11 cutting oil or suitable alternative
1 ounce of Murphy's Oil Soap

Mix the oil soap and ammonia in a separate container. In a suitable 1 pint container containing 11 ounces of Ed's Red, add the cutting oil and mix together. Then add the oil soap/ammonia mixture to Ed's Red/ cutting oil and shake the container to mix the ingredients. You will end up with a pink opaque liquid that for the most part remains in solution, but some components may settle out over an extended period. It is always best to shake well before using. The resulting solution will remove mild copper deposits in bores if allowed to work about 15-20 minutes.
END QUOTE

The ammonia I sourced from my local chem supply shop. Mine was 30% which I cut with 2 litres of distilled water with 1 litre of ammonia to make it 10% strength.
Any water soluble cutting oil will do.
Murphy's oil soap is vegetable based - you can use O'Cedar Oil Soap (I get mine from Coles).
You can also make a Black Powder bore cleaner which my local club has used and consider it the best they have tried.
E&OE

[AlanF]

6shooter,

Very interesting information. Some questions. Not having used MC-7, how does the copper removing compare with Sweets? Also, what do you estimate the cost (per 500ml say) based on the current cost of the ingredients?

Alan

[6shooter]

AlanF - going from memory (we're all in trouble now!!) the K1 kero is about $9, the dry cleaning fluid is about $4, Dexron III ATF is about $11, Acetone is about $10 - all per litre - so for about $34 you get 4 litres, which has so many uses in the workshop as well. The Markaline water soluble cutting fluid is $20 per litre. For the ammonia I paid $70 for 2.5 litres of 30% and I ordered the original Murphys soap oil from the US (as the O'cedar wasn't available here yet) - it cost about $4 per container (either 600ml or 1 litre??) so i orderd 3 delivered for about $30Aus. The ammonia, per litre, was cut with 2 litres of distilled water ($2.80 per 4 litre from Coles). (1 litre of 30% ammonia plus 2 litres distilled water gives us 3 litres of liquid - the ammonia solution is now at 10% strength)
I sell this product through my local gunshop in 200ml bottles with nothing but good comments from users.
Sweets is 5% ammonia - this brew is 10% strength. There is plenty of here-say about ammonia eating barrels but the truth is it cleans so well that it exposes the barrel steel underneath that was previously not seen due to fouling.
QUOTE from Lilja:
Q. What does Lilja Rifle
Barrels think of the use of bore solvents with ammonia?
A. While we're aware of "bad press" associated with the use of cleaners with ammonia as part of the solution, we have never seen any damage in one of our barrels caused by the use of ammonia. The rumor is that copper-removing cleaners with ammonia will pit and damage the interior surface of a barrel. Ammonia is very effective as a copper remover. We use solvents, such as Butch's Bore Shine, to remove copper during the break-in. We routinely leave Butch's solution in the barrel over night too. Again, I repeat, we have never seen a problem with ammonia in the concentrations found in commercial cleaners, in either our chrome-moly or stainless steel barrels. This includes examination with our borescope.

Pac-Nor recommends CR-10:
CR-10 – Questions
We have had calls asking if CR-10 will damage your rifle bore. The answer is, no. Let me explain. CR-10, along with most other copper cleaning solvents, contains ammonia to remove the copper. Ammonia attracts moisture, which in turn causes the clean steel to rust very quickly. We have tested barrels submerged in it for 18 months without any damage to the barrel. An oil patch is also recommended after cleaning to prevent the rust process. Using CR-10 will NOT damage bores. Never shoot a dry bore as this will greatly promote copper fouling.


Many other big name (and reputation) barrel makers (Krieger, MAB) recommend the use of ammonia based bore cleaners. The brew above also removes lead, plastic wad fouling, carbon and rust.
Check out this site for lots of good info (and since they aren't trying to sell you anything, they are not biased).
http://www.frfrogspad.com/homemade.htm#Copper

[bruce moulds]

6shooter,
murphy's oil soap is also an ingredient of some black powder lubes.
bruce.

[6shooter]

bruce, the Black Powder patch lube I make is from the same website:
187.5ml lanolin (made by Lanotec it comes in standard and heavy duty - I use the heavy duty as the price diff. is only a couple of dollars)
375ml cutting oil
187.5ml Murphys soap oil
it works out to $15 per 750ml.

A friend shoots Black powder and cleans his smoke pole with windex (because everyone else does!!). I gave him some of my Black powder bore cleaner to try. The last patch had no grey on it as he is used to. It can also be used as a preservative/lube after water cleaning, if you are into that method. Compare the ingredients (K1 kero, acetone, dry cleaning fluid, ATF, lanolin, cutting oil and distilled water) with the most popular commercial brand, who I won't name, but it contains phosphoric acid - the lanolin doesn't have to be added to the bore cleaner but it makes the brew gentler on the hands. The Black Powder bore cleaner costs me $4.30 per 500ml which includes the HDPE container.

As a side note to my post about the Ed's Red bore cleaner, it costs me $2.45 per 200ml which includes the glass amber bottle. The one with the ammonia costs me $2.85 per 200ml.

[Woody_rod]

Going back to the barrel fouling etc...my current 13T 308 barrel (pac nor 5 groove) is a good shooter, but does take 3-4 shots to settle. This is consistent, and eventually we worked this to it being right up at 0.308" groove size. With a bit of fouling, it works a lot better.

In contrast, the same rifle has a 12T barrel (MAB 5 groove), which shoots right from the first round. This barrel developes a lot move pressure sooner with the same sort of loads as the other one - being a tighter groove diameter. More like it should be.

On the barrel pitting, this is likely something quite complex - much more so than just carbon inclusion, which with most 416 type steel is unlikely to be a problem. More likely to be an aspect within the heat treatment or actual manufacturing processes (meaning the crystalline structure of the material). The molecular processes in metallurgy is complex and hard to control down to exact specs, which is why there are problems at times with steel (and other) items even with extreme measures in quality control.

[Norm]

Going back to the barrel fouling etc...my current 13T 308 barrel (pac nor 5 groove) is a good shooter, but does take 3-4 shots to settle. This is consistent, and eventually we worked this to it being right up at 0.308" groove size. With a bit of fouling, it works a lot better.
.

Interesting,
My Hart .308 barrel is only cleaned at about the 350 round mark. It gets shot every week and is just put back into the safe after the comp without any cleaning or oil. It shoots better without any cleaning so I don't clean it very often.