I own and shoot a number of different Remington 700 & 721 rifles in various calibers. Each of them accumulates a great deal of copper fouling with as few as 10 shots, and it takes many applications of Sweets to remove most of it. In fact, I never reach a situation where ALL the blue staining on patches ceases when I clean any of those rifles.

Recently I got a Ruger 77 in 7X57. This is my first experience shooting a Ruger 77 rifle. I find that with this rifle, even after 20 shots (with Speer bullets), there is almost no copper fouling in the barrel, so that just one or two applications of Sweets produces a situation in which I get patches with almost no blue staining.

Is this very low lovel of copper fouling in Ruger rifles typical of the species, or is this particular rifle an anomaly?

I have 8 Rugers at this time and have never had a fouling problem one Never any accuracy problems either. There is shure a lot of Ruger bashing dumb asses out there though
Good luck!!

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There is shure a lot of Ruger bashing dumb asses out there though
Good luck!!

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That is as true a statement as I have heard here.

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Originally posted by tsturm:

There is shure a lot of Ruger bashing dumb asses out there though.

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I don't bash Rugers, but Remington 700s definitely have a much better trigger than the one on Ruger 77 Mark IIs, at least after you adjust them properly! The one on the Ruger is not adjustable.

How did all these great shooters in the past deal with cooper fouling. Its not that big of a deal,just brought up as a way to sell more junk to the public.Some barrels are made with different types steel,hence they will reasct different. I use to shoot professionally and never worried about fouling. vangunsmith

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Originally posted by vangunsmith:
How did all these great shooters in the past deal with cooper fouling. Its not that big of a deal,just brought up as a way to sell more junk to the public.Some barrels are made with different types steel,hence they will reasct different. I use to shoot professionally and never worried about fouling. vangunsmith

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Except for benchrest guys, the great shooters of the past did not expect, nor demand, 0.25" groups from their rifles. So the copper fouling was not such a big deal. The rifles usually shot well enough for even varmint shooting without having every last speck of copper removed!

Hello,
Well the simple truth of the matter is all barrels are not born equal. You mention your Rem's copper badly and you are using Sweet's 7.62 to remove or at least remove most of it. This would tell me that the barrel was "rough" to start with and the barrel was not "broken in..." If the barrels are chromemoly and not stainless the CM barrels are usually more difficult to break in than the stainless.
Now the Ruger barrel being new or near new and showing no or little copper fouling tells me that the barrel was just simply smoother from new than the Rem's were. It happens. Really does not make one barrel better than the other, just a problem to be solved. Believe me, there have been Ruger barrels that not only coppered terribly, but would not hold a 1 moa group at 100 yards. Their tollerances or run out in the bore is frankly pretty loose, but some shoot great, go figure. Suggest you go to range, take approx. 35-40 rounds with you for your Rem's and shoot twenty times, clean after each shot. Clean with GM Top engine cleaner, brush with patch wrapped around it, only from breech to muzzle, yeah, I know, pain in the rear, but will help. After this twenty round exercise, shoot group of 5 and then clean as above, but then use JB compound and scrubb the first 1/3 of bore back and forth for 15-20 strokes. The throat of the bore from chamber forward is the portion of the barrel that sees the most violent action of the bullet travel and the most heat. ( When the chamber is cut/reamed, it is almost impossible to have a clean polish entrance from the neck to the lands and grooves and your Rem's may have been very rough in that area. ) Do this three times and that gives you a total of 35 rounds through the bore and this will normally greatly reduce the copper build up in the bore. It simply is rough and never broken in. You may never get all the copper to go away and can tell you some of my Krieger barrels have copper build up, slight, but it does happen and it does not get any better than a Krieger.( Douglas, Shilen, PacNor, Hart,et. etc. all make good barrels, but Krieger cut rifled barrels are damn hard to beat.) Anyway, above is what we long range match shooters normally try to do to clean up a barrel and am sure there are many other ideas out there, but this works for me and a bunch of others. If it will not clean up, then you could resort to fire lapping, but I have heard mixed reviews on that approach. Believe it or not, many years ago, Bon Ami, cleanser and hot soapy water with a brush and bore mop was used to clean up barrels up through the 30's and beyond and it does work, but a bit of a mess!!
Favor Center!!
dsiteman

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Originally posted by tsturm:
I have 8 Rugers at this time and have never had a fouling problem one Never any accuracy problems either. There is shure a lot of Ruger bashing dumb asses out there though
Good luck!!

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Yes well, I'd have all Rugers too except. . .
Accuracy, well things may have changed but my
bolt actions were just so so. Then to float the
barrel, the wood would usually warp one side.
Triggers were just pathetic, and have got worse.
As accuracy is my main concern, most other brands are more consistant. (I think I must have had the only accurate Mini-14 in the world
seems like.) Copper fouling doesn't worry me so
much, only my Win 94 collects the stuff and I just soak it in Sweets until it gives up.
So, the Ruger 77 is my ideal rifle, but with
doubtful accuracy, and the costs of bedding,floating, and trigger, I went elsewhere.
Dammed shame as their service is terrific.
JL.

I have a Ruger 77 (not a mark II) in .243.
It shoots just fine for hunting rifle standards. The barrel doesn't seem to foul any more or less than any other rifle.
My son (now 17) has pretty much taken over this rifle. To give some perspective, at our last rifle range session (there have been several since, pistol, trap, etc.) I told him no more than 5 rds before letting it cool awhile. He shot 60 rds in addition to other rifles.
When we were cleaning up afterwards, the Ruger seemed to be especially fouled and took a longer than usual time to clean. The other rifles (.223, .270, .30-06, .300WSM and rimfires) cleaned up as usual.
I don't know if it was due to more than the usual number of rounds fired or maybe a buildup that I failed to remove previously. We'll find out at the next range session.

Vangunsmith,
They have always had fouling remover..In the old days the benchresters and a few of the smarter shooters used a mixture called blue goop..25% commercial amonia, cup full of Hydrogen Perxiode and toss in a copper penny to turn it blue..It worked then and works today as well as any comm. product or better.

Factory barrels are factory barrels, some shoot and some don't, some foul and some don't, has nothing whatsoever to do with make model or serial number....In fact that also applies to custom barrels but to a much lesser degree...

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Originally posted by Atkinson:
a mixture called blue goop..25% commercial amonia, cup full of Hydrogen Perxiode and toss in a copper penny to turn it blue...

So, your saying they put some copper in goop
that is used to remove copper??
JL

Take a little gander down a Shilen or a Douglass and it makes the Rugchesters look like they finished with a nail file and a rock hammer. You clean up a Shilen barrel and never use a brush....couple of solvent patches and a couple dry ones...you're done.
I have a Ruger 77 and several Remington 700 and I think its kinda of crap shoot some are better than others...but it seems that the newer ones from either company are finished rougher.

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Originally posted by LE270:

Recently I got a Ruger 77 in 7X57... I find that with this rifle, even after 20 shots (with Speer bullets), there is almost no copper fouling in the barrel,.
Is this very low lovel of copper fouling in Ruger rifles typical of the species, or is this particular rifle an anomaly?

It might have something to do with the velocities you're shooting at. My experience has been that the faster I shove the bullet, the more copper buildup I get. With .30-30s, it takes decades to build up any copper, but with a .300WM, it takes less than 100 rounds to get enough fouling to affect the group size. Yep, barrel mfr probably has something to do with it, but I'd look first at the velocity.

There is a product the .22 bench shooters love called molyfusion that pretty much makes it impossible for copper build-up to happen inside your barrel. You might want to check it out. I wrote a review of it last year at http://ruger22.com that I think is still up.