Has anyone tried the HODGDON COPPER FOULING ERASER (CFE™) I have a AR-15 .223 with a new barrel.
My concern is if the powder cleans out the copper what will it do to the rifling.
What are your thoughts on this.
Am I being concerned for no reason?

I have two AR's that shoot CFE very well with 55gr TSX's. I have never noticed much if any copper fouling in either barrel.

It is the go-to powder for the 6.5 Grendel-Max and the standard grendels like it a lot as well.

Been shooting it for two months now, very accurate, clean the barrel much less compared to other powders. I like it so much every time I find another 8 pound jug just have to buy it. Shooting two .223 Rem's getting ready for prairie dogs. Good shooting.

Been using it about a year now, it is just about all I use in my Grendel and it does 'seem' to cut down on copper fouling. I use quite a bit in my 5.56 rifles to. Notice I said 'seems'. I can't prove it but I think it does make a difference. It does not seem to have hurt my rifling whatsoever and I have shot several pounds through one rifle in particular.

Steve..........

As usual, no one has addressed the question asked.

quote:

Picture of Swede44mag

posted 20 August 2015 22:09
Has anyone tried the HODGDON COPPER FOULING ERASER (CFE™) I have a AR-15 .223 with a new barrel.
My concern is if the powder cleans out the copper what will it do to the rifling.
What are your thoughts on this.
Am I being concerned for no reason?

Swede

I use bot CFE Pistol and CFE-223.

IMO it reduces copper fouling. I shoot it pushing Barnes bullets which generally do foul more than gilding metal bullets. I have seen no evidence of it damaging a barrel. I haven't put thousands of rounds down range with it yet so there may be an issue but I am doubtful. Removal/reduction of copper in barrels is a well understood process and the chemistry is pretty simple. Even very aggressive copper removers won't damage a barrel provided you follow directions.

Don't worry about CFE powders.

Okay, I'll take a stab at the question regarding what it will do to the rifling/bore.

Noting that any other powder burning at ~4000 deg F won't. Barrel life is measured in the order of several seconds of actual bullet/bore time. In my experience with high volume high power shooting with ARs and M1/M1As

Barrels, CM or SS can endure about 7 seconds ( each rounds has a bore dwell time of about .0001 sec) of flame time cumulative, or about 3-5k rounds. CFE is no different. Its copper reducing sales pitch is a matter of chemistry, nothing more ( of which I skeptical). Of course, raid fire can cause the erosive effect to accelerate, but ta tis another story.

Regards,

quote:

Originally posted by HPMaster:
Barrels, CM or SS can endure about 7 seconds ( each rounds has a bore dwell time of about .0001 sec) of flame time cumulative, or about 3-5k rounds.

Not questioning your experience, just the math -- 7seconds /0.0001 is 70,000 - call it nearly 80 times the average of 3 to 5 k rounds...

am I reading your meth wrong?


BTW, I can understand where you would use dwell time as a measure of the life of a barrel - though there would have to be a healthy grain of salt on starting temps ... obviously 1 shot out of a 0c barrel would have less wear than 1,000 rounds out of a 150C barrel

quote:

Originally posted by lee440:
As usual, no one has addressed the question asked.

You included!

Apart from the fact that CFE223 gets me top velocity, it also gets me the best accuracy in my 250-3000s...I also picked up a couple of humndred FPS in my 25-35, but at a bit more pressure in the 25-35 so school is still out on that and it needs more shooting and reloading..

As to cleaning the bore, after about two years of shooting with the 25-35 without a cleaning of any kind, it had to be pretty gummy, and after shooting 60 rounds of CFE, I gave it a good cleaning with Wipe Out and Hoppes, and it only took two passes of Wipe Out followed by dry patches to get a clean patch, so I swabbed it once with Hoppes and got a clean patch, Gave it 5 passes with a bore snake and one patch of WD-40 and put it up..

My take is the powder does what it says and as to "dwell time", it may or may not be a factor but I have better ways to spend my day!

Well Graybeard, I came to the topic to see the answer, like most. I don't have the answer. My reading comprehension is pretty good, and the OP did not ask for general opinions, he was asking a specific question which no one was answering. We still don't have a definitive answer, but what HPMaster posted makes sense.

Jeffe, Yeah, maybe my math is off- I figured it out once with ammunition with a MV of 2750 and a 20" AR barrel. The final number was approx. 7 seconds and the barrel in question had worn the leade from standard 233 Wylde to barely able to reach the lands with an 80 AMAX seated as fr out as I was comfortable with ( 2.550 or so), at which point I considered it "shot out", even though it would clean the 300 yard NRA target in rapid prone with 75s at mag length. It was a badger 1-8 CM and it had a documented 3800 rounds through it. I suppose one could rewrite the equation, but not me not tonight!

I can't answer the OP's question on barrel life but I'm using it in a 35 Whelen Imp and it's a new fresh cut barrel that copper fouled big time before I started using it and now I find very little copper fouling and I'm getting good accuracy and it has allowed me to reach the upper end of the velocity I wanted in this cartridge.

I don't have a definitive answer, but I doubt that the CFE powder will affect barrel life much if any.
My opinion is that Hodgkin is using the same chemical "trick" that Dupont did after WWI with the "1/2" powder series (15 1/2, 17 1/2) - add tin to the powder. Back in the 1920's it was tiny shreds of metallic tin foil mixed with the powder, today I expect it's something like tin carbonate (SbCO4) being added while the powder is still dissolved in ether during manufacturing. This would lower the maximum flame temp slightly by absorbing energy as it came apart chemically and reduce the muzzle flash by adding oxygen to the powder burn down the barrel so less burn would happen when the powder gases hit the atmosphere. Might actually increase barrel life but I think it would be very hard to accurately measure. Don't know if anyone ever figured out exactly how tin removes the copper fouling, but it really did work back when they were still using pure copper jackets on the bullets. Then Winchester invented luballoy bullet jacket material (putting the tin into the bullet jacket instead of the powder) and the tin wasn't needed in the powder anymore.

The Hodgdons annual reloading manuals (magazine) has written several articles on CFE powder. CFE is made in the old Winchester plant in St. Marks Florida and developed at the request of our military. And it will not cause any harm to the barrel and in fact protects it and the new powder does two things.

1. It forms an oxide with the almost molten and still-malleable copper smeared from the bullet, which then leaves the barrel in its muzzle blast.

2. It leaves a residue in the bore that prevents the copper from sticking to the bore.

So you have General Dynamics weapons division who bought out Winchester/Olin powder plant making a improvement to ball powder. So therefore its the best ball powder the American tax payer can buy.

quote:

Originally posted by bigrdp51:
The Hodgdons annual reloading manuals (magazine) has written several articles on CFE powder.

It's always good to have information from a disinterested third party.

I've had excellent and consistent velocity from CFE 223, which is ample reason to use it. But whether it has any real advantages regarding fouling other than advertising hype will take a bit of time to tell. 'Twould be nice should it be true.

quote:

Originally posted by Swede44mag:
Has anyone tried the HODGDON COPPER FOULING ERASER (CFE™) I have a AR-15 .223 with a new barrel.
My concern is if the powder cleans out the copper what will it do to the rifling.
What are your thoughts on this.
Am I being concerned for no reason?

We shall (both) soon know. In the last few weeks I have been breaking in, sighting in, and beginning load development with a NEW Rem 700 with a stainless steel barrel (purchased here on AR). So far I do believe CFE223 reduces copper fouling based on inspection of cleaning patches using Barnes solvent and Wipeout. More to follow.

I should have added that (so far) the barrel is bright and clear. That includes break in (shoot-clean-shoot-clean...) for 12 rounds, and then clean every three rounds for another 20ish. and load development with CFE223 and Accurate 2200 using several different copper-jacketed bullets.