Carbon cleaning

[okie man]

So I read something the other day. A gunsmith recommending the use of CLR too remove carbon from rifle barrels and muzzle breaks. Anyone else hear of this practice?

 

[BallisticsGuy]

CLR? Ehhh. It'll work but it's a bit much. The best I've tried recently has been from Modern Spartan Systems, their Carbon Destroyer is really kickbutt. Coach and I used it on all of our guns with great results and we weren't overly impressed, it was good but we didn't see anything special on those. But, then we picked up the Trapdoor Springfield which was deeply covered in carbon and with a lot of carbon in places where we couldn't really get to it. A quick swipe of CD and it just ran off. Coach is persnickety about his Trapdoor and he went plain ol' gaga over how clean I got it in just 10 minutes of not even scrubbing.

 

[ShtrRdy]

I haven't heard of CLR or Carbon Destroyer

 

[BallisticsGuy]

CLR is Calcium Lime Rust remover. Good stuff for what it's meant for. Modern Spartan Systems appears relatively new in the marketplace. I got introduced to them from something of a sideways angle and grabbed up a starter kit. I really like their stuff. It works which is one thing but there's also no heavy smell to any of them for my wife to gripe about. I've started a very large data gathering and analysis project to test some of their claims in a quantifiable way. So far, looks pretty darned good.

 

[dok7mm]

So I read something the other day. A gunsmith recommending the use of CLR too remove carbon from rifle barrels and muzzle breaks. Anyone else hear of this practice?

If you are referencing normal carbon residue, BoreTech C-4 is the best I have ever used. For hard, baked on carbon from high burn temperature powders, it is a much different situation. If the layer is relatively thin, I've been able to remove it with Ed's Red formula (available from Brownells), scrubbing with bronze brushes and monitoring with a borescope.

For really hard, caked on situations, it takes soaking with C-4 + bronze brushing + IOSSO or JB abrasive pastes along with checking conditions with a borescope. For the record, I have tried using CLR on bad deposits and found it was no better than C-4 at softening the carbon.

 

[Wedgy]

Seems that most carbon cleaners pretty well when used with a bronze brush, Wipe Out also, right now I'm using C-4 as it doesn't small bad and I got a big bottle for cheap. As Dok7mm said hard carbon/carbon ring (in the throat)is a different story and it will not come out without an abrasive like Isso or JB, many put the paste on a tight jag with a patch & some Kroil and short stroke the throat until the patch is clear but you won't really know until you borescope it. The Isso blue nylon brushed are VERY stiff and work well also, as does a bore mop with paste on a cordless drill, don't go crazy with it though

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