I've been shooting for a long time, with many different guns in many different calibers and have never seen this before. Even after scrubbing with Shooters Choice and soaking with Patch Out (with accelerator)overnight and a few passes with Iosso the patches come out with a light brown (darker than tan)residue. Anyone ever experienced this? The gun is a CZ 527 Classic American in .222 caliber.

Probably dissolving carbon. Iosso, USP and other bore pastes should get rid of it in the end. You could also try M-Pro 7, it's effective against carbon, which can't be said of many powder solvents.

Thanks Andre. I've only experienced carbon residue as black in color. Copper as blue or green and fouling as grey/black. I'll keep cleaning.

There are 2 kinds of carbon fouling in rifles.

Brown colour on the patch is carbon residue that is baked on in layers with copper fouling - over an extended period of time. This has to be chemically dissolved and removed.

The black residue usually comes off in the first or second patch and that is the soot from the shots fired last time at the range.

Most of the bore cleaners / copper solvents will not remove the hard baked carbon & hence you end up with the layering.

I have found that alternating between Wipeout and carburetor cleaner gives alternative patches of green / blue with Wipeout (until the patch comes out clean) and brown with Carburetor cleaner (until the patch come out clean). Repeat the process and you will once again get blue / green followed by clean patch and then brown followed by clean patch.

It made me go nuts at first. It took me 15 years to figure this out. That day I cleaned my 7 centre fire rifles and found 6 to 10 alternating layers of copper and carbon in the rifles.

If you did not know it already, just try it on your rifles.

quote:

Originally posted by Michael Michalski:
Thanks Andre. I've only experienced carbon residue as black in color. Copper as blue or green and fouling as grey/black. I'll keep cleaning.

J-B bore paste is your friend. Scrub it away with multiple go-rounds of patch wrapped around a nylon brush (for give) with J-B smoothed over it. Lots of stroking involved to get the carbon free from the bore. It looks black from the contact, not necessarily carbon. You have to "rinse" with KROIL in between and check with a light to see if the bore is shiny yet. Remember to apply bore oil after clean. It might take a few rounds to re-dirty the bore so it shoots accurately. YMMV.

this

Many copper compounds are green/blue like sulfate, carbonate but copper oxide can be brown or red !

Did you happen to scratch your butt with the cleaning pad in you hand?

Put some IOSSO or JB on a clean patch. Rub it vigorously on the outside of a stainless barrel.
Tell me what you see.

Dark smudge, but not black like the bore residue.

Turns black when I rub it on my barrels.

The black colour from JB, Brasso and other polishing compounds is a result of the chemical reaction (oxidation?) That black colour is NOT the carbon from the rifle bore.

So, I'm not wearing out the barrel using Iosso, right? Still cleaning with no end in sight. :-)

quote:

posted document.write('<nobr>'+ myTimeZone('Mon, 05 Dec 2016 14:37:06 GMT-0800', '06 December 2016 02:37')+'</nobr>');06 December 2016 02:3706 December 2016 02:37Hide PostThe black colour from JB, Brasso and other polishing compounds is a result of the chemical reaction (oxidation?) That black colour is NOT the carbon from the rifle bore.

My point exactly! That's why I said to rub it on the outside of a stainless barrel.

DocEd, I am probably somewhat slow on the up take or your posts are too cryptic for this old brain but, what is your point, exactly?

By the way the barrel is starting to get cleaner. I'll post a final report and thanks in the next day or two. Thanks, Mike

My point is, you cannot get any reasonable idea of how much carbon fouling you are removing by
looking at the patches. They turn black even when rubbed on the outside of a stainless barrel.

You should never get brown or yellow.The only times I got brown is when cleaning a heavy rust preservative off, have rust in my bore or when using a very old solvent.

DocEd, Thanks. Still getting brown out of the barrel after a few minutes soaking in Accelerator. I've used literally hundreds of patches with Foul Out, Accelerator, Hoppes #9, Hoppes Elite, Iosso, Montana Extreme, Sweets 7.62, and a mix of Shooters Choice / Kroil. Brass brushes too. If/when it ever comes clean I'm very anxious to see how it will shoot (now 1.3 at 200) but it's way too cold to shoot in Michigan. More frustration; I should have taken up stamp collecting 60 years ago. :-)

That statement is only true with use of JB paste and similar rendered abrasive products.

It is not true if you use carburetor cleaner that dissolves carbon.

Once the carbon is gone, the patch with carb cleaner will come out unchanged.

In other words, it IS possible to tell if you have got did of ALL the carbon by using carb cleaner.

BUT there is likely to be layers of copper and carbon on top of each other. Please read my earlier post.

quote:

Originally posted by DocEd:
My point is, you cannot get any reasonable idea of how much carbon fouling you are removing by
looking at the patches. They turn black even when rubbed on the outside of a stainless barrel.

Is this a new rifle you just received? I know all of my CZ rimfires had brown stuff inside when I first cleaned them.If so the brown stuff takes a while to remove unless you use JB on a patch and brush.

quote:

Originally posted by Nakihunter:
That statement is only true with use of JB paste and similar rendered abrasive products.

It is not true if you use carburetor cleaner that dissolves carbon.

Once the carbon is gone, the patch with carb cleaner will come out unchanged.

In other words, it IS possible to tell if you have got did of ALL the carbon by using carb cleaner.

BUT there is likely to be layers of copper and carbon on top of each other. Please read my earlier post.

quote:

Originally posted by DocEd:
My point is, you cannot get any reasonable idea of how much carbon fouling you are removing by
looking at the patches. They turn black even when rubbed on the outside of a stainless barrel.

Naki you obviously don't have any shooting experience you just come on here to blab your mouth.If carburetor cleaner could dissolve carbon it would dissolve your barrel.

It is Christmas season & this is so ridiculously funny that it is pure entertainment.

If carburetor cleaner will dissolve barrels it should dissolve carburetors as well!

quote:

Originally posted by shootaway:

quote:

Originally posted by Nakihunter:
That statement is only true with use of JB paste and similar rendered abrasive products.

It is not true if you use carburetor cleaner that dissolves carbon.

Once the carbon is gone, the patch with carb cleaner will come out unchanged.

In other words, it IS possible to tell if you have got did of ALL the carbon by using carb cleaner.

BUT there is likely to be layers of copper and carbon on top of each other. Please read my earlier post.

quote:

Originally posted by DocEd:
My point is, you cannot get any reasonable idea of how much carbon fouling you are removing by
looking at the patches. They turn black even when rubbed on the outside of a stainless barrel.

Naki you obviously don't have any shooting experience you just come on here to blab your mouth.If carburetor cleaner could dissolve carbon it would dissolve your barrel.

Before you scrub your bore to death, unless you are feeling carbon build up in the throat, you have most likely achieved a clean enough bore.

I would ask, how many rounds were fired between cleanings?

The concept of layering is misunderstood be some and seriously over exaggerated by others. While carbon and copper inter mix, it's not as if there is a layer of copper trapping carbon layer after layer. If this actually did happen, chamber pressures would skyrocket with each shot. What is actually happening is fouling, both copper and carbon become deposited in the micro grooves of a rough bore. These are generally tooling marks that occur during bore cutting. Unfortunately, this also happens with a pitted bore.

If you want to remove copper fouling from a seriously powder fouled bore, the simplest and by far the safest way is to plug the muzzle and fill the bore to the chamber with Hoppes or any powder solvent. Let it sit overnight, drain, and then bronze brush it out. There is no need to scrub for hours on end. A few passes with a bronze brush, a few patches and then a copper cleaner and you're done.

As others have said, a little JB or other non embedding compound (never use Brasso as it will embed) will help smooth a rough bore, or you could just shoot and clean for the first 25 to 50 rounds if this is a new barrel.

I have seen more good rifles destroyed through misguided cleaning than shooting them to death. Don't get too crazy with it.

Thanks all, for the comments, advice, and humor :-). The CZ has come clean, finally. As far as the layering and round counts go, I bought the gun used and have no idea of shots fired or previous cleaning procedures. The bore scope shows NO fowling only the rough spots in the rifling. Cold and snowing here in SE Michigan so testing is on hold. If anyone is interested I'll report accuracy tests in the spring or an unexpected warm day.

Thanks again.

Mike

That color indicates rust, usually very mild and usually removable to the extent it discolors the metal, much like a beginning rust blue..Id get as much out as I could and not worry about it as no pitting occurs as best I can tell.

[URL= ]first(green/blue) and second solvent patch/308 SS barrel[/URL]

Keep doing what your doing until you get a clean or light greay patch, you will know when the bore is clean...but a clean bore needs to be shot in, so why worry about that. also a clean bore will rust much like the picture you show, because it was not oiled sufficiently after being squeaky clean..A clean bore needs a good oiling, to be removed before shooting is a good idea and several fouling shots should follow..

Keep in mind over cleaning isn't all that good an idea, and besides there has never in the history of firearms been an animal killed with a clean bore...