Copper fouling in rifle barrel

[243yote]

Do different brands of bullets copper foul barrels more than another? Does temp effect copper fouling in a barrel in colder weather? The reason i ask is that i shot all spring and summer an into to early fall and not much copper fouling. Shot more than 300 rnds in .243 and not any noticable copper fouling. Cleaned bore out in the warm weather after 30 rnds. Pathces came out with some blueing but not much. Also could not see copper fouling in the barrel.Then winter came and temps dropped. Did some new load development in the winter after temps dropped and now major copper fouling. i could look in the bore and see copper fouling. Used Hornady V max 65 gr in the warm months and ran out and only could find Nosler bt in 70 gr. Any insight would be helpful?

 

[MTBULLET]

looks like you answered your own question. All Mfgs., use different jacket alloys and each bullet has a slightly different ogive combination that reacts differently in various bbls. can't answer as to the temp. problem except as to powders being somewhat sensative to variation, and that could possibly lead to copper fouling.

 

[moombaskier]

Nosler 160AB's leave more copper in the barrel vs Berger 168VLD's in my Rem. 7mm mag. The Nosler 95gr. Ballistic Tips also leave more copper in the barrel vs Berger 95 VLD's in my Rem. 243Win.. Rain or shine...warm or cold. The bores on both rifles are very smooth, the Berger's basically leave no fouling at all.

 

[cs1973]

I have also found Nosler bullets to leave more copper in the barrel than Berger, sierra and Barnes bullets. Not substantially more but enough to tell a difference after 50-100 or so rounds. I usually clean my barrels once accuracy starts to fall off and found that in my 308, I was cleaning a bit more frequently when shooting Nosler bullets. not a lot more but a bit more non the less.

 

[MontanaRifleman]

243yote, how and what do you clean your bore with and how do you know how much copper is in it? The reason I ask is, most shooters still have copper in their bore when they think it's clean. If you really want to know if your bore is clean, get some Wipeout or Gunslick Foam cleaner, spray it into your bore and let it sit overnight for about 8 hours or so then dry patch it out. If the patch comes out clean, then your bore was clean.

Cheers,

Mark

 

[B23]

IMO from what I have seen in my 1-9 LTR .223 Nosler leaves more copper. I got lazy, something I won't do again, and let my LTR go awhile without cleaning. I've been shooting only 40gr Nosler BT's behind Benchmark.

I use Shooters Choice copper remover which I don't believe is super aggressive like some of the others but I had to scrub my butt off to get all the copper out.

I'm running those 40 BT's kinda hot, 28gr of Benchmark, and I don't know if that as well as only being a 40gr in a 1-9 has anything to do with it but I had more visually obvious copper than I have ever saw before.

 

[Apex Custom Rifles]

I posed this question on another forum and get the answer... well it's just your barrels.

I have three rifles I have been shooting Noslers out of.
-New .220 swift A&B barrel shooting 40 gr Nosler BT's.... bad copper fouling with 35 rounds down the tube to date.
-My .243 Win with some wear. Hart SS barrel shooting 95 gr Nosler BT's... NO copper fouling.
-7MM Rem Mag Douglas barrel some wear, shooting Nosler 160 gr AB's... some copper fouling.

I was wondering if it was partially due to the Noslers. I have yet to try another brand in the two fouling barrels, but I'm going to try some sierra 55 gr BK's in the .220 soon.

I know the A&B barrel is not a high end barrel but I didn't think it would foul this bad.

 

[243yote]

Well I have cleaned my barrel using sweets7.62. I thought my barrel was clean and was i wrong! After a good thorough cleaning my gun was shooting good again.

 

[Autorotate19]

Yeah that stuff works good, but man it stinks! gun)

 

[J E Custom]

Do different brands of bullets copper foul barrels more than another? Does temp effect copper fouling in a barrel in colder weather? The reason i ask is that i shot all spring and summer an into to early fall and not much copper fouling. Shot more than 300 rnds in .243 and not any noticable copper fouling. Cleaned bore out in the warm weather after 30 rnds. Pathces came out with some blueing but not much. Also could not see copper fouling in the barrel.Then winter came and temps dropped. Did some new load development in the winter after temps dropped and now major copper fouling. i could look in the bore and see copper fouling. Used Hornady V max 65 gr in the warm months and ran out and only could find Nosler bt in 70 gr. Any insight would be helpful?

Different brands of bullets "DO" foul differently because of there alloy.

Barrel temperature could have an effect on fouling also.

The worst I ever saw was the Barnes x when they first came out, but they have solved
this problem and the newer bullets are not as bad.

J E CUSTOM