How often do you clean your double rifle? After how many shots?

Do you see a lot of copper fouling in the lands?

My recently acquired Demas 470NE seems to foul a fair bit. I am cleaning after every range shoot of 17 to 20 rounds. (3 cases ruined so far - fired 5 times now)

I am using Wipeout with Accellerator and have to do 3 or 4 soaks over night to get the copper off - visible in the first 2 inches of the muzzle. I do not have access to a bore scope to check inside. I am also using JB paste.

Never had this issue with any rifle before - not even the 416 Rigby.

The bore looks shiny and great. Accuracy seems fine.

BTW has anyone tried heating the muzzle end with a hair dryer to see if the copper will expand first and come off the steel easily?

Sounds about what I’m doing with my 450ne Gibbs

What is ruining the cases?

quote:

Originally posted by 470Evans:
What is ruining the cases?

Me!

First one was too little lubricant and pulled rim - on 2nd load. I now use a lot more of Imperial lube than I ever did on any other case including 416 Rigby.

Second - lead cast bullet - case mouth not flared enough - neck and shoulder collapsed.

Third - rim ripped after 3 firing - rim had a slight bend from earlier - so gradual failure.

Got it You'll get the hang of it.

I'm on my 8th loading on my practice rounds with the old BELL brass, tough stuff.

I would be wary of using any ammonia-based solvents like Sweet's 7.62 as they have a reputation for eating the solder between your barrels. And don't put any solvent near your nose to find if it applies. I got too close to a bottle of Montana X-treme Copper Killer and it nearly took my head off.

Yup. Sweets will remove micro elements from the chrome molly steel like vanadium etc and leave the surface porous (micro).

I am using Wipeout with Accellerator.

All these years I have use a patch soaked in the solvent. With the 470 I found that the liquid did not stay as much in the bore. Pushing our with a clean patch did not produce the deep blue sludge that I get in other calibers. I was only getting blue streaks on the patch. I would do 3 or 4 rounds AND use JB paste. I was wondering if I needed to try a different solvent.

So I decided to try a black bristle brush this time and the same amount of solvent. I gave it a few strokes and saw the soapy suds in the bore & an over night soak. Next morning one patch and the deep blue sludge was poring out. I soaked it a second time for about 6 hours and the "sludge" was clear!! No blue streaks in the cloth either. Just one treatment!

I also find a small wad of toilet paper is a good option for wiping out the oil before shooting. The big bore allows this.

You learn something new doing the same stuff after 25 years!

Wipeout!

If it were my rifle, I wouldn't be shoving an abrasive down the bores of my nice double rifle.

If it shoots accurately, then it's clean enough. I think we get obsessed over "dinner plate clean" bores.
Hell the first thing you do with a rifle is "shoot it in". If it shoots, don't worry!

I DEFINITELY think we clean our bores to death and also wear out the best parts of accuracy scrubbing with abrasives even though JB and others AREN'T SUPPOSED to cut steel.

I've had many barrels that needed to be de-coppered after a couple dozen shots, THEN take a other 3-8 shots to settle down...mostly the cheaper small cal varminting barrels I didn't get polished correctly before shooting a lot.

Now...I only clean between powder types when building a load or when accuracy falls off. There is a definite change in POI before the previous powder is "burned" out if I don't. Even then it requires a few "fouler's" to coat the bore.

Cleaning depends on powder type also...some powders are "dirtier" than others and just leave more residue. YOUR definition of accuracy also plays a roll as does weather and other conditions. Plus we ALL need to be reassured as to the correctness of HOW we clean...we CAN'T just clean and put them away.

Cleaning products were dear in my early days so it was kerosene or gasoline/oil mix, Mom's belly ache mineral oil, Vaseline, cooking oil, engine/tranny oil, gear grease, just about anything that seemed to work...(whether it did or not)for the most part, sometimes waste pump gas when we could find some that hadn't already grabbed for car gas, just to get the powder fouling out. Store bought patches/liquids were something to dream about and the odd bottles of Hoppe's came maybe every other Christmas, if that.

My hunting rifle BORES get cleaned at the end of the season or the end of the year and fouled with 3 shots before season begins the next year. The metal is cleaned and oiled several time during the year to keep rust at bay depending on the weather. Varminters get a wet patch/dry patch maybe every 25-50 rounds while cooling off and nothing more afterwards unless the accuracy falls off, then a good Wipe-Out treatment.

Varminters/others get cleaned when the accuracy falls off and I've used Wipe-out products pretty much exclusively since they first came out while using up all the other bottles of snake oil on a 16" deep, 3 feet long "cleaning products" shelf. Montana/Sweets is totally nasty and only used on acquired Military bores along with alternate use of Wipe-Out or when I went totally "froggy" on a sage rat hunt and the bores looked like smooth bores. Even then I'm not sure which works best...the Wipe-Out or the ammonia.

I also like TM and Butches Bore Shine. Truth is MOST of todays cleaning products do an excellent job on powder, rust, copper and carbon, some maybe a little quicker than others, or smell better than others, so pick one and get'er'done.

Good Hunting

I definitely find my double rifle fouls a lot more and lot harder to get rid of copper fouling, UNTIL I started using the brush instead of a cotton patch.

NYLON BRUSHES...many ammonia based cleaners will EAT brass brushes....and use the ones with the STIFFEST bristles. Some barrels just come too rough and chews the heck out of bullets...doesn't take much of a rough spot to start building copper AND lead.

Buy a Lyman bore scope, it really helps determine where and how much roughness so you can work on those areas and not waste time or effort OR steel.

I have several large cals and EACH requires different amounts of work. My two 50-90's, one Quigly 32" and one NEF 20" both have fairly smooth barrels but after a day of shooting cast lead loads, you cans almost peel out some lead streaks and toss them in the lead pot. A combination of Lead-Out, patches and a nylon brush usually makes short work of the mess.

Use gas checks and put a double coat of grease/Alox on your bullets and run a patch SOAKED with Alox through the barrel BEFORE starting to shoot seems to help...at least I THINK it helps and keep the velo on the lower end ...save the KaPOW for the coated or jacketed slugs.

Good Hunting

I remember a last ditch 270 barrel (custom) I was trying to get to shoot. Copper fouled a lot and shot like absolute crap.... I put a very tight patch and JB through the bore...many many times.... JB WILL remove material shown by the polish I got inside that tube after I was done with it... Still shot like absolute crap and fouled even worse after that. I do have a borescope and monitored the abuse as I did it...didn't care at that point. Barrel was scrapped and rifle became a 6.5-284 and shoots incredibly well...

Never used JB after that.....and never built another 270 either

Well, come on...when a barrel is shot, then NO AMOUNT of scrubbing will make it shoot any better...ONLY WORSE...so don't blame the JB OR the cal. Maybe all you needed to do was chop off some muzzle and re-crown...I've done that MANY times an helped accuracy increase.

I've got a couple dozen stories(and so do many others) about "shot out barrels" that just needed a good cleaning or a "bobjob", OR many times only a re-seat on the bullet COAL or different type or longer bullet. Benchresters, Varminters and long rangers thing anything over bullet diameter is krap...many hunters think a few hits on a pie plate at 50 yards is all that's required...accuracy is in the eye of the beholder.

I guarantee there are LOTS of ways to help accuracy and LOTS of ways to destroy the accuracy in even the best barrels...all we can do is do the best we can and maybe learn some lessons along the way.

Yeah...I've got one of those also AND a 6-284 AND a bunch of other hot rock hi-velo shooters. No matter how careful I am with cleaning, shooting, etc., they ALL have a finite guilt edged barrel life and then a nice lifetime of perfectly good hunting accuracy. The only rifle/cal I own(several actually) are 22 cals and pellet guns, many of which get bore cleaned only once every 10-15 years...IF THAT...and are like the Energizer Bunny...they just keep killing and killing and killing...and the 50-75 yd targets I shot just after I acquired them look the same as any I shoot today...1/2" with target ammo and ~1" with the cheapest garbage I usually buy.

Cleaning is cleaning is cleaning...we ALL do it differently, with differing products, and differing results...YOUR RIFLE, YOUR WAY, YOUR RESULTS.

Good Hunting

This was a new re-barrel, not many rounds through it and the surface finish of the JB'd barrel was definitely polished/smoother than the makers final hand lapping... Just saying, it did change the surface finish...think mirror smooth, which is very bad for a jacketed bullet as the jacket galled all the way down the barrel. I had nothing to lose at that point and as I mentioned, it was a last ditch affair.

I understand...I've had at least one barrel apiece from most of the older premium barrel makers like Lilja, Douglas, Shilen way in the past on benchrest actions...if I couldn't get them to shoot right or load up BEFORE any polishing, I would use JB or Flitz to see if those helped and if I didn't I just sent them back with explanations and before/after targets ALWAYS got a good second barrel. I did get some pretty strange slugged numbers from the bad barrels, sometime the chambers were not correct..."who knows what lurks in the dark".

Basically it's "what works for some just pucs up for others".

Good Hunting