For those of you shooting Swift bullets, and the A-Frames in particular, do you experience higher than normal copper fouling?

I've got a Win. M70 in .416 Rem Mag that collects copper like no one would believe. I have just over 450 rounds through the rifle, 20 Norma factory rounds, about 75 handloads using Hornady DGX and DGS bullets, and the rest have all been A-Frame handloads.

I once used Outer's Foul-Out to clean the barrel and the metal rod came out looking like a copper pipe. Just last weekend I used Wipe Out with Accelerator to get 90% of the copper out and needed some Sweet's 7.62 to get the final bits out.

I'm just curious if this is because Swift uses pure copper for their jackets and my rifle's bore is rough enough to strip a lot off the bullet's bearing surface, or if there might be some other reason.

Regardless, the rifle does shoot very well.

I use A-Frames in my 308 Tikka and they don't seem to foul it that easily. It has a stainless barrel.

I have a Whitworth 458 Win Mag and any bullet within 2 feet of the rifle deposits copper inside of the barrel without shooting it.

So I think the barrel makes the biggest difference.

How often are you using copper remover?

I shot some 250 grain A-frames in my 338RUM and didn't notice any more copper fouling than any other bullets I fired through it. I think you have a really rough bore on that rifle. I had a factory Ruger M77 chambered in 30/06 that fouled like crazy. When I bought it off the used rack at a LGS but it looked brand new. After cleaning heavy copper out of the bore I shot some loads at the range and the accuracy diminished quickly, and once again it was horribly copper fouled. I then used a soft lead slug and some lapping compound and wore my arm out hand lapping the bore. When I finished with it the bore shined like a new dime and it shot better, and it was no slouch when the bore was clean anyway before hand lapping. It hardly fouled at all after lapping. I know hand lapping a finished barrel is a no-no but I felt like I had nothing to lose anyway. FWIW

I've shot a lot of A-Frames thru a number of different rifles without any problem with fouling. I go thru a break in process with every rifle I buy to help reduce fouling. The only rifle that I had a real fouling problem with was a Win70 in 416 Remington. I had a box of the old Barnes X bullets and they just copper plated the bore. We cleaned it out and then had a local gunsmith to lap the barrel and it hasn't fouled much since then after switching to A-Frames.

In a number of my Winchester Model 70s both the older Barnes and the Swifts had what I would consider excessive fouling versus the Nosler or the Sierra bullets.

I think the jacket material is softer on the Swifts.

After having good results with the newer Barnes TTSX last year I am gearing up to load and test some of those in both 7mm Mag and in 300 Weatherby Mag in my Model 70s.

I too considered the Swifts again but I thought I would first see how the Barnes perform as far as both accuracy and in terms of jacket fouling of the bore.

Time to go hBN.

My 17REM zips along north of 4500fps and zero copper after 100 shots and minimal carbon to clean.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDHYzGg7Ucc

https://www.google.dk/search?q...MnV6P9MIGKsgGonYSYAw

I clean the barrel after each range session, which may be anywhere from 15-30 rounds. I don't try and get all the copper out, as that would take all day and then some. Usually a couple rounds with Sweets or Wipe Out will allow some of the lands to peek through the copper fouling. Then dry it out, light coat of oil, and away it goes.

Twice now I have decided to get ALL the copper out. First with the Outers Foul Out system, and the second time it took three days of Wipe Out and Sweets to get it all the way clean.

Anybody know who uses pure copper , or gilding metal of 5% Zn ,or 10% Zn with copper ??

I have used them quite a bit in 416 Rigbys, 375 H&H, 270 Win, and 300 WSM. No issues with fouling.

I find that the A-Frames foul heavily; but don't see it as a problem since accuracy doesn't seem to be affected to any extent that matters on the heavy rifles I use them in. I just leave it in the barrel, saves the trouble of putting it back in.

An interesting, although perhaps not overly useful tidbit is that shooting a few CEB bullets takes the A-Frame fouling right out. I don't know if it scrapes it out or one sticks to the other.

I noticed excess fouling with Swift bullets, that jacket is soft stuff..but they perform very well indeed on game.

I've found that a softer bullet foul less if the barrel is devoid of all traces of gilding metal from harder bullets.

I won't mix and match any more unless I thoroughly clean before the switch.

Zeke

Swift and Barnes use pure copper jackets and therefore foul more in general.

Nosler uses copper-zinc guilding metal which fouls less.

Both A-Frames and Partitions have exposed lead cores at their base. On firing, the exposed lead surface will ablate and the generated lead fumes inhibit copper fouling.

In either case, fouling will be worse if one type of jacket material is fired after using the other type. So, as has been recommended, clean all fouling out completely before going from copper to guilding or guilding to copper.

As more militaries abandon conventional FMJ bullets with their exposed lead bases, the militaries have pushed the powder manufacturers to add copper fouling inhibitors to their powder. So most of our reloading powders that are also used for military ammo contracts now contain copper fouling inhibitors.

The Swift bullets use pure copper jackets. This is necessary for their bonding process to work. As the temperatures are elevated during this process, the copper is further softened by annealing.

The Hornady dangerous game bullets are plated with pure copper over their steel jackets and are hell for copper fouling as well.

Powders such as the new IMR Enduron 4166, and Ramshot TAC have a copper reducing agent built into them which do help with regard to copper fouling. Both Accurate Powders, and Hodgdon have data for TAC and IMR 4166 respectively for the 416 Remington using 400 grain Hornady bullets. It's a start.

I went to Woodleigh bullets because they use gilding metal plating over steel or just gilding metal jackets with expanding bullets. They don't foul like Barnes and Hornady. Excellent slugs but you do have to run the FMJ's with a touch less powder than the expanding bullets.