Hello
Do you clean your bore brushes aftre use ie, wash them with water or some thing to get the solvent of them or do you leve it on??
regards.
Jon

I use Brake cleaner. Take them out side and blast them clean.

quote:

Originally posted by leemar28:
I use Brake cleaner. Take them out side and blast them clean.

Me too.

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Most of the time I simply rub wet brushes thoroughly in a paper towel until the brush is completely dry. I expect the brush is not completely cleaned of remaining solvent, but I reckon it's close enough. About once yearly I give all brushes a short bath in methylated spirits and dry as above with a paper towel. Works for me.

I'm cheap and just spray them with mineral spirits, shake out and dry. If you leave copper dissolving bore solvent on bronze brushes it will attack the copper and degrade the brush.

I just give them a little squirt of G96 or something like that and dry them off in a paper towel like king above, or I just wipe them in a used low lint rag like a t shirt. They work for a long time.

I think about 10 years ago I got hacked that I didnt have the right brushes sometimes. Or that the one I wanted to use was not as clean as I would like. I went down and bought about $200 worth and stocked them up. Then I started the above. I still have lots of brushes.

Hot water works fine and evaporates quickly.

You want to get the NH3+/alkali off Cu++ and its mixtures. With stainless or nylon brushes I don't bother.

BTW, take the same approach with your brass jags.

I buy the cheapest carb cleaner I can find, usually at wallyworld or tractor supply. Give it a blast and it will dry on it's own quick.

I prefer to spray them with Brake Cleaner in the large Wurth Spray bottle.

The one or two times I done it over the past 50 some years I used carb cleaner

spray bomb contact cleaner. Learned that from bench rest shooters.

I use a small spout tipped bottle of isopropyl alcohol.

Thanks all for your input its been weary healpfull

"If you leave copper dissolving bore solvent on bronze brushes it will attack the copper and degrade the brush."

That´s true.

I use an old Hoppe´s 9 bottle filled with cheap oil which doens´t attack copper. I put any brush with solvent on it in this bottle, close it and shake slightly. The let the oil run out of the brush on a soft cloth. Just dipping the brush in it several times works great also.

You´d be amazed at the amount of gunk that assebmles at the bottom of the jar! So the oil has to be changed occasionally.

Hermann

Hot water from the tap before drying with the air dryer, so there's no waiting time before the brushes are put away.

Brake clean spray is what I use.

You guys still use a wire brush in your expensive barrels...?

Eccchhh!!

quote:

You guys still use a wire brush in your expensive barrels...?

Not me. Only nylon brushes, the stiffer the better.

I dip them in Mineral spirits, sometimes lighter fluid or whatevefr and blow them off with the air compressor..works like a charm..

I use nylon brushes as opposed to wire brushes as a rule..I use a clean Boresnake with a dab of cleaner on the wire brush part, more than anything else. Ive seen too many bores ruined or damaged with the misuse of rods.

I spray the bore brushes off with Remington Action Cleaner and set aside to dry. Someday I will have fine barrels that are too nice for brushes.

quote:

Originally posted by Arminius:
"If you leave copper dissolving bore solvent on bronze brushes it will attack the copper and degrade the brush."

That´s true.

I use an old Hoppe´s 9 bottle filled with cheap oil which doens´t attack copper. I put any brush with solvent on it in this bottle, close it and shake slightly. The let the oil run out of the brush on a soft cloth. Just dipping the brush in it several times works great also.

You´d be amazed at the amount of gunk that assebmles at the bottom of the jar! So the oil has to be changed occasionally.

Hermann

This is what I do as well. Just stick the brush in the bottle while its still attached to the rod and just give it a few spins and roll it in a paper towel.

quote:

Originally posted by leemar28:
I use Brake cleaner. Take them out side and blast them clean.

This^^^^^

You know guys the brushes aren't that expensive.

I use a little bottle half filled with mineral spirits (paint thinner). Make sure to have a cap which won't leak. I then shake one to several brushes vigorously for a few seconds. Finally I tap the cleaned brushes on an absorbent surface (paper towels, etc) a few times and leave the cleaned brushes to air dry. 30 minutes is usually sufficient. Cheap, easy, and does the job. Nearly forgot, I am able to get several such cleanings before I feel the need to replace the used mineral spirits....

they are these days...

Just as an example: twenty-five years ago I had a Hunter Bench Rest rifle built. 308 Winchester tightneck. Like .001" chamber clearance in the neck on a turned case neck loaded round. With my old Leupold 36X scope I could generally shoot 5-shot groups .3-.4" at 100 yds. The gunsmith who built it threatened me with some serious traumatic amputation of my favorite external organ if he ever saw or heard of me putting a wire brush down that barrel.

His suggestion was to use Quick Silver GM top end engine cleaner (used to clean carbon deposits* from two-stroke outboard engines. Use a 30 caliber brush, but wrap two layers of thin diameter patches around the brush. Run that set up thru the barrel, and leave it while I deprimed and reprimed my cases.
Unscrew the wet patched brush, from the muzzle end and repeat. Drop my powder charges, and seat my 150gr gauged Sierra MK's. Then patch the barrel dry with a spear point jag.

The target for 100 yard HBR utilizes a six bull target, with a 3/4" bullseye in the middle. Bottom left is your sighter, you put one round thru each of the other five for score. What makes it tough is the limit of a 6X scope, and a weight limit of 10 lbs, 2 oz, and the magazine must hold and feed two rounds. At least it did then. You cannot actually see that 3/4" orange bull on the beige target background. You have to "know" it is there from viewing it thru your spotting scope.

Over the course of four years, I fired over 3000*** of those MK's thru that barrel with a charge of 45gr of H4895. The rifle never got a bare brush in it, just a little Sweet's after a 100/200 yd weekend of shooting. Probably 60-70 rounds.

HBR is a shoulder to shoulder match, but the scores go to the TCL** national match director.

You just show up where there is an HBR match that weekend, and shoot. The top five scores get turned in as the club's score.

I had 20:15 vision in the pre-diabetes II days, and I made the top five at all 19 matches I attended in 1992 (iirc) and finished in a 3-way tie for seventh overall out of over 400 shooters who shot in at least four matches. In the middle of that 3/4" bull is a white 1/16th of an inch white dot. Obliterating it used to be called shooting a "whiteout". I averaged a 247/250 and a12 to 16 whiteout count for that one year. I also won the Oregon State Championship that year. Tied for top score at 100yds, won on the tie-breaker "whiteout" count. Next day, tied for the win at 200yds, and won the tie-breaker on "whiteout"

* some wonderful stuff that the EPA outlawed many years ago. It was designed to clean 100% of the carbon out of an engine, which is what burned powder residue is; along with copper.

** Trans Continental (HBR)League.

*** I sold the rifle to a friend, who shot it in competition for a year or two and then swapped the barrel out for one in 6BR for 600yd BR matches in the Seattle area. About six months ago he had TooManyTools here refit the 308 barrel and chambered it in 300 WSM. It still shoots under 1/2" at a hundred. I attribute that accuracy to never scratching the barrel interior with a bare metal brush.


Rich

I shot benchrest for many years and placed well in National competition. My barrels saw a bronze bristled brush in between each relay. Did not hurt my barrels. Stainless barrels are much harder than bronze brushes. My bore scope showed no damage from the brushes. That is a bunch of huey.
But to each his own.

I use nylon nowadays on rifles, in general agreement with most here.

Still use bronze to get plastic out of shotgun bores (with or without a cordless drill), and use bronze with Kroil when doing the Kroil/paste sequence on a badly fouled and eroded M16 upper. Also, use stainless (yes) brushes with CLP to get Pb fouling out of handgun bbls.

And though I abandoned bronze for rifles long ago my Anschutz sporter - purchased in 1966 - was subjected to ham-handed teenager cleaning technique using bronze brushes.....from the muzzle......using a multi-piece aluminum rod.......and metal patch loops......something like thousands of passes (cuz the teen was fanatical about getting it spotless even after firing one round).

Well, this week that same Anschutz put 5 CCISV into 5/16" @ 50 yds (9x magnific). That's as good a single group as it has ever done, and it's averaging no worse than when new.

No disrespect intended toward Dieter Anschutz' admonitions.

pegleg,

I think I will stick with what Steve Kostanich advised VS your stories of fame and fortune and cleaning procedures...

For the rest of you torn between the two philosophies, take a piece of steel and use fletz or silver polish and rub or buff it (on a wheel) to a shiny finish. Then take one of Mr self-proclaimed famous bench rest shooter's recommended bronze brushes and rub it across that polished surface about six strokes with the same amount of pressure you would a brush in the barrel.

I will be interested to see the results, although I already know the answer.

take care,

Rich

Ive watched gene buckys, world champion group shooter, a few times, he brushes, with bronze..........
Every single bench rest shooter I know, brushes between relays.....

.

Quote:
, take a piece of steel and use fletz or silver polish and rub or buff it (on a wheel) to a shiny finish. Then take one of Mr self-proclaimed famous bench rest shooter's recommended bronze brushes and rub it across that polished surface about six strokes with the same amount of pressure you would a brush in the barrel.

I wonder what that piece of metal would look like if you could push a bullet across it at 3250 fps under 60,000psi pressure.

I would be interested in the results, although I already know.

Come down to earth is my only advise.

I use many different solvents. Of all, most are petroleum based, so I wash my brushes in mineral spirit, known as Shellite here. For my water based solvents, such as sweets 7.62, I use Methylated spirits.
I use these 2 substances to remove the stuff from my barrels after use, followed by dry patches to remove all traces prior to oiling the bore lightly.

Cheers.

What ruins bores is aluminum, platic, graphite cleaning rods that collect tiny rocks and debrie ruins the throats or scratches the bore..as most don't use a guide, but even with a guide I know of some bores damaged..I like the boresnake for all my hunting rifles, I don't shoot benchrest these days.

I spray mine with brake cleaner once done. Dries fast and only takes a second.