I believe GeorgeS is on to it with the 'powder fouling', and snake river rufus is right about increasing cleaning frequency and intensity, if not enthusiam.



I've got your rifles big brother, a 300Wby necked to 6.5. Long after the copper is gone, a carbon deposit, with a hardness somewhere between diamonds and coal, is still stuck in your bore. This is an entirely different animal than just a little soot - JB only makes it shiney. I finally got to bare barrel steel with Bon Ami.



Here's the thread with all of my whining and crying about fouling and subsequent pressure excursions, and all of the VERY KIND help I received.



HTH & good luck,

The fastest gun cleaner I have EVER used!

http://www.bluewonder.us/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1

The grey is probably lubalox. The barrel may just need to be lapped or if the roughness is erosion then replaced.
I'm not trying to start anything but you have to clean more often. A lot of this problem is your hatred of cleaning "this SOB", sorry but you have to get it clean and keep it clean.
Did you by chance break in the barrel in any way?

Once you get it clean. Take your stuff to the range and clean between groups. Lets the gun cool down, will smooth up the bore, it slicked up two ruff ones I had. The wife doesnt bitch about the smell, the gun gets cleaned while you are in the mood to be with it and the shit comes out way easier when it is hot/warm, you will not get the build up. Come home and you are done. I like the KROIL, JB and Butches combo. Shooters choice is pretty good also. Waiting on the wipe out to come. My two cents

eshell,
Thank you for coming forward on this one. After looking at the thread you steered me to your experience mirror's what I have been going through. It is nice to at least theorize that maybe the barrel is not as bad as I had originally thought, just that the caliber is a little more temperamental than what I am used to dealing with when it comes to carbon deposits. I am using IMR 7828 in the gun right now at 71.0 grains. A lot of powder to burn down such a small hole.

Anyway, would you mind describing the components in your mixture with Bon Ami and how you applied it. Also what kind of effort was entailed (ie. 20 strokes, 50 strokes or all night at the cleaning cradle). As I have read the posts related to this I'm wondering if I should apply it the same as I do JB's. Nylon brush (undersized)wrapped with a cotton patch smeared with JB's.

I have Sweets and Butches Bore Shine at my disposal, but could aquire others if they work better with Bon Ami.

Thanks.

I was cleaning mine but not thoroughly enough, or often enough, really. This hard carbon was a surprise to me and seemed to have built up gradually as I have fired the rifle over time. Each normal cleaning took the outermost layers of fouling off, both copper and carbon, but never cut this underlying, steadily increasing layer of stuff. Considering the amount of powder and the bore diameter, I was prepared to rebarrel mine pretty quickly, but didn't realize this hard carbon would be the second punch in the old one-two combination.

Quote:

---

. . . . Anyway, would you mind describing the components in your mixture with Bon Ami and how you applied it. . .

---

I mixed some Shooter's Choice with the Bon Ami to make a paste in a small plastic dish. I mixed it about as thick as fresh JB. When you dip it up on the patch, the patch wicks away some of the solvent, leaving the BonAmi a little dry and "cakey", so I just dripped a little more solvent on to loosen it back up.

I've never used Butches, but I guess it would work, as would light machine oil or Hoppes. I don't think I'd mix Sweet's with anything unless I was in a lab.

I did use it like JB, putting a little on a tight patch, running it back and forth and reloading or replacing the patch occasionally. I used a jag, but I'm sure a brush would do fine or better.

Like JB but tougher, it was difficult to get the patch through the throat at first, but as soon as it got about 6" up the bore, it slid easily on the clean metal. You might start with a looser fitting patch until you get a feel for it, then make the patches tighter as you go to get the work done.

I ran the patch back and forth until I could feel it "dull down" (5 strokes), then I would replace and/or recoat the patch and start again. The more I worked on it, the shorter the distance I had difficulty with.

Quote:

---

. . . Also what kind of effort was entailed (ie. 20 strokes, 50 strokes or all night at the cleaning cradle).

---

I would estimate it took at least 50 full in & out strokes to get to clean, smooth metal. My rifle had over 600 rounds fired through it, so yours might vary. The BonAmi is very "grabby" and you can feel it easily when the bore is totally clean and slick. Much more obvious than the "lighter" feel of JB. It really cuts and I was amazed at how much crud came out, even after getting clean patches of about every other cleaner I could try.

Good luck,

Just my opine, but once a rough barrel, always a rough barrel. Barrel burner or not, a rough barrel will foul substantially faster than a smooth bore.
If this has been happening since this barrel was new, no amount of shooting or cleaning will take care of it. It doesn't sound like an eroded throat to me either.

Only 2 things will take care of this. Switch to moly coated bullets and coat your bore and never look back. Cleaning will be at much longer intervals and accuracy will be maintained for much longer strings. I tried this with a factory Rem. 700 .17 barrel and it practically eliminated my problems with that rifle. Before Moly it would need to be cleaned after 10-12 rounds, which can be a real chore with a .17 and the little, whippy rod. After Moly treatment, I could easily shoot 100 rounds between cleanings and the accuracy was still very acceptable.

The second cure is a new barrel from a well known manufacturer that laps their barrels as part of the process. A smooth barrel will be more accurate and won't have the build up of a barrel with a rough interior. Accurate strings will be much longer, and when cleaning is needed, it will only take minutes to accomplish.

Been there, done that, and have the built-up biceps from pushing a cleaning rod to prove it! (grin)- Sheister

I would like to be a dissenter about the fouling. Years ago, I had a .264 Win rebarreled and kept the old barrel as an example for my hunter safety classes. It is exactly as you describe and suffers greatly from erosion. It just what comes when you buy a "barrel-burner." I can tell really well because it is no longer screwed into the action and a good cleaning job with the army's old "ammonia dope' has eliminated the possibility of any fouling left. When you finally come around to the conclusion that you really need a new barrel, try a caliber that is easier on barrels.

I have a .257 Weatherby in Mark V Deluxe that is the worst fouling gun I have ever been around. A couple of years back I was trying to develop a load for it and found that it fouled severely. With the help of my local gunsmith he gave me some help to get the build up out of it. I used JB's bore paste until I thought my are was going to fall off. When I finally gave up my gunsmith had me send it down to him and he used the foul-out system to remove anything further.

Anyway, after that episode I started shooting ballistic silvertips through the gun in hopes that the lubalox would help with the fouling. I got a load worked up that will shoot .75 m.o.a. if the barrel is clean. IF.

Now fast forward. Approximately 30 rounds have been fired through the gun over the past year, no cleaning...I hate cleaning the s.o.b.!!! I hear about wipe-out and think I'll give it a try. Three applications and all of the blue is gone. Only thing I get out now is grayish/black on the patch which tells me powder fouling. Interesting part is that when I run a patch down the bore I can feel that it is rougher than a cob just slightly in front of the chamber for several inches. When I swabbed the wipeout out of the barrel this morning I looked down the barrel and there is a very distinct difference in the appearance of the barrel between the rough spot and the clean.

Wipe-out does not seem to be doing much with this. I have butches bore shine sitting in the barrel right now, but I have a feeling it will probably be JB's again tonight.

Any suggestions on this P.O.S. short of rebarreling?

Could this build up be the lubalox?

Hornetfan makes some very good points above. When you get your Wipe-Out, you're gonna toss most of that other stuff.

Hi Geo., I believe what you say about your .264 barrel, but his problem may not be actual metal loss as yet. How many rounds do you have through your Weatherby in total, 300winnie? I have close to 700 documented full power ( another half-grain makes it stick sort of) loads through my 6.5-300Wby and when clean, there is no detectable roughness. I thought mine was really going downhill fast until I got straightened out on that other thread.

I got out everything that Sweets, Kroil, Shooter's Choice, SC & Kroil mix, Hoppes#9, Hoppes BR, JB, and it still had a very hard layer of carbon. Beats anything I've seen. How many rounds through your .264? I had heard they got a bad rep and a lot of them were not truly "shot out", but had become so severely fouled they wouldn't shoot. Felt rough, looked rough and shot rough - must be eroded. Ever try Bon Ami in it?

Thanks, Hot Core, I appreciate the idea, as well as all of the other assistance on the fouling thread. Duplex . . . hmmm. Probably be as good a time as any to try something adventurous like that, since I am headed for another rebarrel this fall, it wouldn't hurt anything unless I provoked detonation. I've got it cleaned out good, it's shooting very well, so all I need now is ice-out to finish torching the throat. I'll begrudgingly admit to Geo. that he is right about hot cartridges and I am definitely opting for a much more sensible caliber this time, like a .264 or a 6.5-284.

I wonder how many of those "shot out" .264s were handloaded with H870? That was one of the old Ball powders that had too much residual calcium carbonate from manufacturing processes (it neutralizes acids in the nitrocellulose) in it and made bad hard fouling. (Remember the 1965 mess with fouling M16s? Calcium carbonate from Ball powders.) Later Ball powders got the CaCO3 cleared out to reasonable levels and aren't a problem. Personally, if I had that problem the first thing I'd try is swabbing the bore with vinegar.



Come to think of it, vinegar's a good thing to try anyway. At least some of that hard "carbon" deposit has to be the lead and barium oxides formed in the combustion of the priming mixture. Acetates of lead and barium are water soluble. If you can dissolve out at least some components of that hard cake, it'll leave the rest porous and weaker, so solvents can penetrate it better and it can be broken up and removed more easily by other cleaning methods. Vinegar's not very corrosive to steel, and is often used with hydrogen peroxide to remove lead fouling.