I posted on the reloading board about my Howa 243 not grouping like it should, or like it used to.I use Sweets 7.62 for cleaning this gun and havent had any blue patches for 5-600 rounds.The genral concensus was that my gun was badly fouled and that was leading to my bad accuracy.Is there any sort of fouling that sweets wont touch that my gun would have??
Is there any super stong bore solvent that would do better than Sweets??
I have also tried Hoppes no9 but that came out clean as well.
Are there any home brew recipes I could try?? Straight ammonia or maybe watered down a little??

When you say "came out clean as well" does that mean after shooting, the first time you ran solvent through and then a clean patch it came out clean? Any shooting of any powder will leave some residue....some just a lot more than others. Some here have mentioned carbonate buildup from old surplus powders (870 maybe??) but you would still see powder residue...

Do you use a bronze brush? Do you leave solvents in any length of time to soak stuff out? Leave the #9 in overnight and then brush a few strokes, then run through a tight clean patch. When this leaves a clean patch, you can be confident that it is really clean.

Or you could take it to a professional....

Good luck!

When I say "came out clean as well" I mean that yes I got the usual powder residue but I got no blue copper residue. I usually leave the Sweets in for 1/2 hour so ( however long it takes to put everything else away)
Last night I left it in overnight and I got the faintest streak of copper(blue) on the patch, but I dont know that its safe to leave this stuff this long.
I have got the gun stripped, with the trigger assy off,out of the stock, scope off, so I'm about to wash it through with hot soapy water and soak it with Hoppes no9 for a day.

It is very likely that you have the barrel too clean. A lot of rifles need several rounds before they settle down and shoot good. I have a 308 match rifle that takes 50+ rounds after a complete cleaning to settle back down to sub-MOA groups. It shoots 2-3" for the first 15 rounds then starts to tighten up. You may have a similar situation.

Shoot the bore full of "WIPE OUT" leave it over night.
If there is no green on the patch in the morning
it is clean!!!!!

Lyle

It would be good if there was as much available in outback Australia as what there is in the residential U.S. or city Australia for that matter.I asked the local gunshop owner about "Wipeout" and he came back with " what forbey cloth??"
A lot of these products come and go but never sink in to places like where I live.
I've soaked it overnight with Hoppes no 9 now, the patches came out clean, that is only wet with Hoppes.No blue streak, no dirty colouration.
I've completely stripped the bolt and cleaned it up,completely stripped the trigger, cleaned and regreased it, reset it on the gun and gone back to the first scope I tried, a 6-24 Tasco that I know is good.
Its too windy today to try out, my clothesline just got blown over!Will keep you posted.

Read on your bottle of Sweets.
It will say EXPLICITLY NOT TO LEAVE it in your gun for more than about 15-20 minutes.
It is very possible that you have etched your barrel.
Run an oiled patch through it and hold it up to the light.
If it looks sort of dull and not nice and shiny then you are out of luck my friend.
Hopefully this is not the case but please, read the directions before you use a product.
Sweets, G96, and Barnes CR-10 will all F-up your stuff if not used correctly.
They are all very powerful solvents and will do their job without soaking.

-Spencer

Funnily enough, Mr Shopcartracing,I have read the label.In fact I first read the label about 12 years ago.
Yes my barrel IS nice and shiny, with (if you read earlier posts) NO frosty or cloudy patches.This is after leaving it overnight with sweets. This was to try to defoul my barrel that obviously wasn't fouled.

If you get no blue/green streaks after an overnight soaking with #9 (or any decent solvent for that matter) you don't have a copper problem.

The only other check is to actually look at the bore from the muzzle end. A good light will let you clearly see the first 1/2" or so down it, and look for copper streaks. if they aren't there, it isn't there and you should eliminate this as a possible culprit in your accuracy problems...

You say the bore is shiny with no rough spots, so eliminate that as well...

Still lots of other possibilities, search the old articles here and the reloading sections for more ideas. Good luck!

All fixed, well sort of any way.I know what the problem is now but it has also confused me a bit.I stuck a bit of rubber insertion matt under the foreend to give a little pressure and instantly the groups shrank.The confusing thing is that when I hollowed out the foreend pad and barrel channel to free float the barrel originally, the groups shrunk and it got rid of its vertical stringing problem as well.Its down to 3 shot, .8 @ 100 and about 1 3/4 @ 200.This was a blustery sort of a day with wind gusting between 5 and 35 mph.Our range is also a prick of a range too as there are trees that create a "barrel roll " wind horizontally across the range.This makes estimating windage near impossible when its gusting.I took my grouping shots in the calmer periods of the gusts.
The feel I got with the pressure point in the barrel channel is that there is more sorting to do with it to get it as good as it can get, is there any "plans" or diagrams I could follow to make an adjustable pressure point on this rifle?? The stock is only standard and I'm not afraid of cutting it up to do mods to make it shoot better.I realise that I may already getting its best now, but I like to tinker and would like to find out.
Any ideas??

You have come to that fork in the road that all gun nuts are confronted with sooner or later. 1.75" at 200 means that your rifle is accurate enough to do any reasonable task you give it. Do you just load up a few hundred rounds and start banging away, or do you start trying this and that and the other?
Here are the two schools of philosophy that compete for our hearts and minds:
1. The enemy of good enough is perfection.
2. Test it until it breaks, then fix it and start testing again.

I am sorry to inform you that you are already in the second class of gun nuts.

If you want a specific amount of upward pressure on the barrel build a 1" BY 1" dam of modelling clay about an inch or two back from the foreend tip of the stock, put in bedding compound, turn the gun upside down and secure in a padded vise, hang a weight equal to the desired number of pounds of upward pressure from the barrel. When the bedding compound cures you will have the desired number of pounds of upward pressure on the barrel. People who know way more about this stuff than I do say about 5 - 8 pounds should do it. Make sure you use plenty of release agent.
JCN

I was thinking of hollowing out a spot under the barrel in the forend and filling it with devcon plastic aluminium.I was then going to tap and drill the devcon and using some threaded rod, make an adjustable setup with a "shoe" under the barrel.Externally the only thing you would see would be a hole the size of the threaded rod(5/16") and I would use a screwdriver to adjust by slotting the outer end of the rod.
How does that sound?
I was thinking that a set amount of pressure would be OK for some loads but others may need more or less pressure to work, hence the adjustability.

Dont be sorry to offer your opinion when asked its asked for.
(I am sorry to inform you that you are already in the second class of gun nuts.)
BTW, if we cant tinker, we'd be bloody bored!

The way foreend pressure works to improve accuracy is to dampen barrel vibrations, and to make the barrel end be in the same place when the bullet exits every time. I think the screw idea is good in theory, but it contacts the barrel in to small of an area. For this to work you would need a very rigid stock, and would need to make a steel "pillow" between the screw and the barrel. Barrel vibrations are related to barrel time of the projectile. That doesn't vary much between projectiles.
I think you would be better served by bedding with 5# of pressure. If the groups look good great. Anything over a three shot group will likely string if you use foreend pressure. The barrel heats up, expands, and the bullet is thrown away from the bedding. You can increase the pressure with serial bedding. You can decrease the pressure by removing the bedding and then rebedding to the desired weight.
Welcome to the test to destruction phase of your gun career.
JCN
PS Is Kalgoorlie near the opal fields or am I confused?

No mate, Kalgoorlie is THE goldfields!My other pastime is going detecting for nuggets!
I'll leave it till after the weekend shoot, then I'll have a 2 week play period.
I understand the vibration and what causes and controls it.What I think we are doing by using forend pressure is to get the stock to help control the oscillations,hence to get more control from the stock we need it to be stiffer to absorb more of the oscillations.It would still need some "spring" to do this so whatever I lay in there wouldn't be able to be connected to the action, if I continue to use the wooden stock for the "spring".
I know I'm close with the amount I have now because when I added a peice of thin cardboard under the rubber, the bullet strike went off the target above (15"+), but it still grouped up there, just not as good as now.The peice of cardboard was a peice of .22 bullet packet , so you can see its not much extra to get such a radical change.I think I have to go a tiny bit less than what I've got now.The other thing is I would like to be able to find a balance between the vertical stringing problem and good grouping.Its all this mucking around that makes me think I would be better off making it adjustable from the start.
In the end, its well known ground for many gun tuners out there, and me doing all this will probably have them chuckling in the back rows, but I'm having a go!
What do you think totally filling the barrel channel with glass/epoxy filler will do in these circumstances??( as in a glue in, but with release agent so I can still take it apart)

I bed my big bores with a full length neutral pressure bed job. That has calmed down more than one recalcitrant barrel over the years. My prejudice is toward round groups and a cold bore bullet strike at point of aim. 3/4 MOA will get the job done. If you are going to be shooting 5-10 groups, or blasting away at varmints there is no substitute for more metal in the barrel. I put 97 rounds through my old .308 sniper rifle in one day during a five day re-qual course. They just kept slamming into the round group on point of call. When the course was over and the wind was down that evening (sun behind us) I amused myself by shooting up a plastic soft drink bottle at 600 yards.
The answer to precision over long strings of fire is the same as the answer to automobile safety; "more steel".
JCN

My reaction when reading the above posts was that your accuracy problem had nothing at all to do with the cleanliness, or lack thereof, of your bore, but was due to something else. Perhaps bedding, guard-screw tension, etc., etc. Amazingly, it seems to have turned out that way!

I have to tell you guys that I am totally UNDERWHELMED by Wipe Out. I've had to repeat the 24hr process up to three times before all the copper comes out. That's after I've done the wipe out thing, then gone to the range. None of this one time and it's clean stuff. It doesn't work that way at all. With Sweets, yes i have to use elbow grease but after abut 20 minutes I'm done.

Yeah well , you know how it is when someone's in your ear and you go off on a tangent.
Is there any concensus forming,full length bed of barrel and action or do I go for a pressure point??
I kind of like the idea of the full bed.Pros and cons??

Just a few rambling thought off the top of my head...

Full bed is heavier.

When the barrel heats up, there is more surface in contact so more pressure is put on the barrel, probably unevenly.

Pressure point is easier to adjust the upward pressure upon the barrel.

I have heard of bedding the barrel and floating the action, but usually in .22rf, not centerfire rifles...

Full vs floating, only your rifle will tell you. You didn't mention whether you havea heavy or lt.wt. bbl. Sometimes the lt.wts. work better fully bedded. My .338-06 is a med. wt. bbl. & gave me fits until I went w/ apressure point. I started w/ strips of elec. tape & shot groups & added thickness of tape until the groups rounded out. Then made a little "dam" the same thicknes either side of the tape. Pull the tape & glass that little area, take out the dam & away uoi go. You can still fine tune this w/ a bit of sandpaper.

Its a "sporter " weight barrel, 22" and around 9/16" at the muzzel.I'm thinking at this time to go for a full bed, with no actual upward pressure(neutral).If that works OK, I can still experiment with pressure by using electrical tape.Its now obvious to me that it likes some pressure, but not much by the feel of the " spring" in the timber of the stock the way it is now(still shooting good). I am thinking that the full bed will be more like light pressure over a great area, rather than a fair bit of pressure on a small spot.It will also leave only about 12" of barrel unsupported.The weight wont bother me, looking at the gap between the barrel and the stock now, I think it will add only 5 or 6 ounces.
If it all doesn't work, I'll get out my trusty dremel and hack away again.
Thanks to all for your thoughts.