Left Hand Dave
Well-Known Member
I was taught fully (by 12yrs old) to always put guns away cleaner than I pulled them.
That's not a wipe-down, but full disassembly/clean/reassembly. This was part of many things that amounted to disciplined respect for guns and their uses.
I'm 56 now and every gun I've ever had and hold today were/are in impeccable condition. You might as well believe it's just the same with my son and his care of guns.
So did this hurt me? It did, for a while.
I read a lot of shooting articles, and about cleaning, and it used to be understood that it took ~8 shots to burn Hoppes from a bore and replace it with stable fouling. That's a lot. And I tested it, and they were right.
Well Hoppes is thin stuff, like sowing machine oil, and today's agents are more tenacious.
Fouling is a very important internal ballistic attribute. It directly affects tune, and one fouling different from another will then hurt your results. This includes X-powder -vs- Y-powder fouling.
Now throw into the mix whatever petroleum based products you're leaving in the bore -and it's all out the window -until you've finally undone what you're doing, and started over...
But, instead of giving in to leave a bunch of bad in your bores, try MANAGING your fouling.
Keep that fouling consistently where you put it for load tuning.
You can do this, while keeping your bores consistently clean.
After a range session, no matter the shot count, I jump right on the carbon before it takes a set. Faster removal, is easier removal. My cleaning method is basically that of Speedy Gonzales: https://www.brownells.com/aspx/learn/learndetail.aspx?lid=13001
This, including use of peroxide to remove copper cleaner, and on completion I wash the bore with the best alcohol I can find. Let that dry, check with a borescope, and go on to pre-fouling.
This cleanliness is referred to as white metal clean.
I have larger jag tubes holding mops per cal, BBs, and a pinch here & there of Tungsten Disulfide (WS2) powder.
I can squeeze the jag tube to hold the mop while I screw a cleaning rod onto it, and not make a mess of things. I made a dedicated rod guide out of a large gas line, so that I don't make a mess in my normal delrin rod guides, and this keeps everything clean in the action.
I carefully move the rod/mop past the action and past the chamber into the bore and work it back & forth down the bore to burnish in the dry WS2. Then a quick canned air blowdown (outdoors), and a super thinned mix of Marvel Mystery Oil wipe of the chamber itself.
This is how I've put the bores away for ~30yrs+. Dry and fully ready for future use.
The WS2 seems a universal fouling that somehow matches that of every powder I've used over the years. I can tell you that other foulers; graphite and moly, are not like this (have never tried HBN, sorry).
What's most important about this for me is that I put great efforts into cold bore accuracy, so I need stable fouling for each and every shot. With WS2 pre-fouling, my first shot will be right with any to follow. I know it, I can pull any gun from the safe and go hunting without concern.
What else matters as much is that WS2 cleans right out. I can replace it after each use, constantly restoring my baseline.
Like other coatings WS2 greatly reduces copper fouling. You can go pretty much as many shots as you want between cleanings. With good aftermarket bores coated as I do, I have seen first traces copper at around 90 rounds. But 2-3 times that is still not a problem yet, and easily cleans right out afterwards (including copper/carbon).
Some may jump on that as enough to clean less... .. It's just not me.
My father is gone, but he'd put lightning on me for sure if I did that
Where do you get WS2 if I want to give this a try?
Thanks Dave
