Hello,
My first post here. I bought a SHR 970 in .270 Win three years ago. The rifle has never shot below a 2.0" group. Recently I got into reloading in a major way to try to improve this.

Now, 172 reloads later, I find that I had been trying to get a dirty gun to group. Total rounds through the gun: 450. I spent most of the day yesterday removing the copper from the bore. While doing this I noticed something very strange. One land seemed to have been copper fouled about twice as badly as the other three. While the other three lands were 'coming along' that is I could see less than a quarter of an inch of copper left from the muzzle end the one showed copper extending a good 3 or 4 inches down the bore. There were no rough or tight spots in the bore that I could feel with the cleaning rod. I expect to get this remaining copper out in the next evening or two. Everyone I have spoken to here locally has basically gone away scratching their heads. Tomorrow, I will see one last gunsmith. I sure hope he has a bore scope.

Has anyone here ever heard of this kind of 'lopsided' copper fouling before?

What the heck is going on here?

I spoke with the dealer and he said that it would take 3 months minimum to ship the rifle to SIG and for them to return it.

As much as I hate the thought of 'starting over', I have been thinking of just giving up on this gun and buying a Savage and be done with it. At least with that gun I could use the good old American Repair Technique....Throw Money at It!

Welcome aboard!

Before you start breaking up your rifle and melting it down for scrap you might try some Wipe-Out foam copper remover first and see what happens.

It is certainly possible that there was a small imperfection or rough spot on that land that caused it to pick up and accumulate more copper fouling than the others did but that doesn’t necessarily mean the barrel is not salvageable.

Once you get the fouling out you might consider “fire-lapping†it to maybe smooth things out. Since you are a hand loader you shouldn’t have any problem buying the kits and loading the treated bullets.

Good luck!

Thanks for the reply Rick. I think before I go to something as drastic as fire lapping or any other lapping or polishing of any kind I'm going to just start all over and break the barrel in again. Only, this time when I clean between those first few rounds, I'm really going to CLEAN (if I can, in a reasonable amount of time, there at the range). I may indeed have to go to the extra expense and trouble of Wipe Out but I will try Pro Shot #4 first. I just recently changed over to it from Shooter's Choice Copper Remover. Reason I changed over? After spending all Sunday afternoon at the range spraying bullets all over paper ("cleaning" the rifle every 12 rounds without fail -3 patches shooters choice, dry patch, one really soaking patch shooters choice copper remover, wait 5-10 minutes, dry patch, three more with shooters choice, dry patch, resume shooting) a bench rest shooter came over to check out what I was doing. I had just finished my cleaning routine. He gave me ONE patch wetted with Pro Shot #4 Copper Remover. I ran it down the bore, waited 5 minutes and ran a dry patch....unbelievable! The blue junk was so thick it was almost black! I finished dry patching, ran three shooters choice and dry patched after that and proceeded to shoot the three best groups of the day. .813", .938" & 1.25".

I've been shooting this gun long enough by now to know not to get my hopes up too high, based on these three little samples.

Larry,

If you keep shooting with that copper fouling in there it is just going to keep getting harder and harder, and thicker and thicker as each round is fired.

The only reason I mentioned the fire lapping (I’m normally not a fan of this) is because it sounds like that area of your bore needs some polishing and that’s the easiest and safest way to polish the bore on an installed barrel, and I would only attempt that AFTER getting the copper fouling out first.

If that Pro Shot got that much copper out I will guarantee you that Wipe Out will get out even more.

Those sound like good groups so I wouldn’t give up on that puppy yet if I were you.

Man! That last 3/4" on that last land is stubborn! I've gotten all of it out of the groove on either side but it's still like a new penny for that distance down the muzzle.

Exactly! That's why I spent the day yesterday (actually I was at the range Saturday, I guess!)
getting out all the crap. Still have that pesky little 3/4" to go! I can tell that's all that's left because first dry patch comes out clean except for that one little dark blue spot exactly the width of the land.

Another thing I'm going to start doing again is, after cleaning, run a patch with Break Free before storing the rifle. Then, a single dry patch just before firing again. Don't know if it will serve as a fluxed copper resist or not, but it's worth a try.

Larry,

With the SHR you have an advantage most guns don't: the barrel is removable.

I would remove the barrel and hand lap it (using a soft lead slug and JB compound).

You can get it done in under an hour, and there aren't many things that pay off as well for such a small investment of time.

Garrett

Larry,

If you do decide to go the lapping route by removing your barrel be very careful to not screw up your chamber by running the lap through it.

I have the bore almost to bare steel now. I didn't get to see the gunsmith this evening and I have commitments tomorrow evening, then it's out of town for a camping/fishing/hunting/shooting trip! Hopefully, I will have enough time to load up some 'suspected good ones' before I leave. If not I will try the rifle out on my old standby factory loads ie. Win 130gr Power Points and Hornady Custom 140gr SST's. Maybe, now that I know what to avoid (copper build up) the thing will group better.

Thanks for the advice, but for now I think I will just see if keeping it clean will help.