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Rifles, Reloading, Optics, Equipment
Rifles, Bullets, Barrels & Ballistics
Todd Hodnett: Shooting on a Clean Bore
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<blockquote data-quote="MontanaRifleman" data-source="post: 912723" data-attributes="member: 11717"><p>In my experience, every barrel is different but most have a lot of similarities. A few years ago I bought a used 25-06 Sendero. When I got it home, I took it straight out and shot a .224" group with it using some factory ammo that came with the rifle. I took it home and proceeded to clean it. It literally took me 3 days, several hours a day scrubbing (with nylon brush), soaking and wet patching, to completely clean it using BTE. Carbon and copper came out in multiple layers. I took it to get bore scoped and was told the bore was severely fire cracked and the smith was astounded at the group I shot prior to cleaning. After that, it would not shoot well after 50-60 shots, but it shot sub 1/2 MOA up to that but it did require 2 or 3 fouling shots after a cleaning.</p><p></p><p>The primary purpose of breaking in a barrel is to wear down roughness from tooling that rips copper from your bullets when you shoot them and causes copper build up. It is to reduce the amount of fouling and copper build up in your bore when you shoot. Probably 60-80% of the fouling that builds up in your bore happens with the first bullet down the tube. This is apparent when you go to clean after one shot and it takes almost as long as after 50 shots. It serves absolutly no purpose to fire more than 1 shot between cleaning during break-in. You are only ****ing powder and bullets down the tube along with barrel life and accomplishing almost nothing. You shoot one and clean until you deem the break-in complete.</p><p></p><p>What reason is there to dry patch before the cleaning is done? It is a waste of time and patches and more chance to damage your crown, bore and throat with unnecessary strokes of the cleaning rod. You dry patch, then turn around and add solvent again. It makes no sense. I scrub (with nylon brush) to sturate the bore with solvent, then let it soak a little. Then wet patch it until the patches show pale color. Then scrub and soak and wet patch again. I repeat this cycle until I see pale color with a wet patch after the scrub and soak and then I dry patch.... done.</p><p></p><p>I leave a trace amount of copper in the bore to reduce the number of required fouling shots needed to get back to accuracy. I call it a 90% clean. Probably more like 95%.</p><p></p><p>This idea of not cleaning the copper out is baffling to me. I have not had a barrel yet that would not fall off in accuracy once it got fouled to a certain point. First shot does most of the fouling and each successive shot lays down a little more until the barrel says I quit. With some barrels that might be 30 rounds and some it might be over 200.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="MontanaRifleman, post: 912723, member: 11717"] In my experience, every barrel is different but most have a lot of similarities. A few years ago I bought a used 25-06 Sendero. When I got it home, I took it straight out and shot a .224" group with it using some factory ammo that came with the rifle. I took it home and proceeded to clean it. It literally took me 3 days, several hours a day scrubbing (with nylon brush), soaking and wet patching, to completely clean it using BTE. Carbon and copper came out in multiple layers. I took it to get bore scoped and was told the bore was severely fire cracked and the smith was astounded at the group I shot prior to cleaning. After that, it would not shoot well after 50-60 shots, but it shot sub 1/2 MOA up to that but it did require 2 or 3 fouling shots after a cleaning. The primary purpose of breaking in a barrel is to wear down roughness from tooling that rips copper from your bullets when you shoot them and causes copper build up. It is to reduce the amount of fouling and copper build up in your bore when you shoot. Probably 60-80% of the fouling that builds up in your bore happens with the first bullet down the tube. This is apparent when you go to clean after one shot and it takes almost as long as after 50 shots. It serves absolutly no purpose to fire more than 1 shot between cleaning during break-in. You are only ****ing powder and bullets down the tube along with barrel life and accomplishing almost nothing. You shoot one and clean until you deem the break-in complete. What reason is there to dry patch before the cleaning is done? It is a waste of time and patches and more chance to damage your crown, bore and throat with unnecessary strokes of the cleaning rod. You dry patch, then turn around and add solvent again. It makes no sense. I scrub (with nylon brush) to sturate the bore with solvent, then let it soak a little. Then wet patch it until the patches show pale color. Then scrub and soak and wet patch again. I repeat this cycle until I see pale color with a wet patch after the scrub and soak and then I dry patch.... done. I leave a trace amount of copper in the bore to reduce the number of required fouling shots needed to get back to accuracy. I call it a 90% clean. Probably more like 95%. This idea of not cleaning the copper out is baffling to me. I have not had a barrel yet that would not fall off in accuracy once it got fouled to a certain point. First shot does most of the fouling and each successive shot lays down a little more until the barrel says I quit. With some barrels that might be 30 rounds and some it might be over 200. [/QUOTE]
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Todd Hodnett: Shooting on a Clean Bore
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