Sorry for the post in the gunsmithing section. I did so in order to get a little more exposure than the gun cleaning section.

Have a 410 gauge side by side I am cleaning. Barrel bores and rear of chamber (under plastic hull) are beautiful. Front of chamber, not so much. I have been shooting a lot of 2.5 inch shells lately instead of 3 inchers. Mainly cause they are cheaper at the stores. The area of severe fouling is what i would call the space difference between the 2.5 and 3 inch lengths.

I have tried soaking patches in Kroil and wadding them into the chambers and let it soak for a couple days to try and loosen this fouling up. I have also tried the same technique with hoppes no. 9. At this point i dont see a whole lot of improvement. Wondering if anybody else has had this problem, and if so, how you were able to clean it out?

Thanks for your suggestions in advance.

Have you tried JB bore paste?

You can take a short cleaning rod, install a bore brush and wrap it with a piece of a scotch brite pad that will fit the chamber and with your dill motor, carefully work the entire chamber to the forcing cone. Use some WD-40 to keep the pad wet. Or, Plan (B):
http://www.brownells.com/aspx/NS/store/productdetail.as...st=chamber%20hone&s=

Hoppe's "Tornado Brushes" are excellent in smooth bores. They are Spiral Wrapped Stainless Steel Wire with none of the ends exposed. Much better than the traditional Brass Brushes.

I do not use them in Rifled Barrels, but they also work great in Revolver "Chambers".
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The Scotch Brite Pad on a traditional Bore Brush works well as Westpac mentioned. I just used any old Bore Cleaner, but the JB Compound mentioned by Wink is some amazing stuff. Even works great on the front of Revolver Cylinders.

Best of luck to you.

Is this lead fouling or plastic wad fouling.
I have seen this a lot in 3" field guns used for skeet. I normally squirt an aerosol solvent into the chambers and sit it in the corner, muzzle down in a plastic cup with a pad in the bottom. After soaking a day or two use a new bore brush and twist it in the chamber to get the crud out.
Polyethylene wad material is, by its chemical properties, very chemically resistance to any solvent. Scrubbing it out with a brush is about all that works.

Thanks Hot Core, I completely forgot about the Tornado brush. I take mine for granted. They sit in a block on the bench, deformed from every conceivable use. And if it's plastic fouling then I work the area with an Acetone soaked patch wrapped around a Tornado Brush. Don't let the stuff hit the stock!

ireload2, i am assuming it is some kind of carbon/lead fouling. Probably also involves plastic fouling as well. At this point i am a little confused.

Regular Hoppes No. 9 patches are coming out clean. On seeing dirty patches after scrubbing with a brush, but at that they are not that dirty either. So my assumption is i have all the powder fouling cleaned out.

Just as a side note, the gun in question is not a fancy double by an means. Its a Stoegger uplander .410. Its a workhorse gun, shoots really well and is very affordable. Either way, i would like to clean the fouling out. One thing i have noted while cleaning though is that the left barrel "feels" more open than the right barrel. When i run patches down each barrel, i am getting more resistence on the right side. Both barrels are clean, and i think any "choking" would happen at the muzzle end. Both barrels are supposed to be full choke. Anybody have a theroy on why the possible different bore diameters?

Shotgun bores can vary quite a bit in diameter.
For examples the Japanese use .725 as a standard for 12 ga while in the US .729 is usually the standard 12 ga.

It would not surprise me that you barrels varies both in bore diameter and internal finish. Both could make a difference in how much drag you feel on a brush.

I have had the same type of fouling you have in several field grade pump shotguns with 3" chambers that I fired cheap factory field loads in. All of the shooting was on a skeet field and usually involved 75 or 100 rounds on a days shoot. Sometimes I gave the bore a shot of Birchwood Casey's Sheath to prevent the chamber from rusting and stood the gun on it's muzzle in the corner in a plastic cup. This lets the chemicals drain down the bore and into the cup rather than down the stock.
I shot those guns every weekend for several months sometimes before giving them a real cleaning. The fouling seemed to pack into the steel just ahead of the case mouth. I always had to twist the brush to get it all out.
It was too big and nasty a chore to clean one every weekend. That is why I learned to give them a shot of rust preventative or solvent and set them in the corner. I think that is also why so many shooters use the chrome lined over and unders. They just don't want to clean them every time they shoot them..

I do as Westpack suggests, only I wrap the brush with fine steel wool. The drill motor takes the misery out of the job.

Don

Most any paint supply store or home store such as Home Depot or Lowes sells bronze wool. It works as good as steel wool for something like this but can't scratch or remove steel like steel wool.