Copper Fouling and cast boolits

[MtJerry]

I see in print and hear from others a great deal about ensuring that all copper fouling is removed from a bore to ensure accuracy of cast boolits.

I have done some research about this and have found very little to support a theory of any that gives a clear reason for doing so.

A little education here please?

[40Super]

I haven't done much rifle cast shooting to say one way or the other on that end ,but in pistols, I have shot both back to back ,plus most of mine had shot a great deal of J-worded through them before going to cast, I just slugged them got some bullets and started shooting.Don't have any noticable leading with copper still in there, but rifle may have more copper to make a difference.

[geargnasher]

It's not so much an accuracy thing as it is a leading thing.

Gear

[Eutectic]

I see in print and hear from others a great deal about ensuring that all copper fouling is removed from a bore to ensure accuracy of cast boolits.

I have done some research about this and have found very little to support a theory of any that gives a clear reason for doing so.

A little education here please?

MtJerry,

You see a lot of positive comments about removing or not removing copper fouling before shooting lubed boolits..... Both pro and con...

I'll start with an analogy.... "Beware of making positive statements when standing on shaky ground."

I find it a sometimes thing.....

Handguns..... You will probably get away putting lubricated cast boolits over jacketed fouling. Handgun accuracy is the least critical accuracy standard in general for cast boolits.... (Yeah, I have handguns that shoot minute of angle (or better) Leading could bite you though....

But experience needs to be our teacher....

Here's a very recent experience I will share.

I have been testing lube formulations for the "Extreme" thread. I wanted to put a left hand twist barrel into my testing of my latest formula that was performing excellent to this point. The barrel was standing on its muzzle that told me it had been cleaned prior. So I pushed a clean patch through it. It felt stiff.... I looked carefully through the bore and saw no signs of copper fouling..... So I proceeded with my test.... This is a .22 Hornet and the cast boolit load is pretty stiff.... Like 2600fps stiff... I had leading in three shots! Now..... I could have concluded the new lube formula was no good... This load shot great with other lubes in another barrel. But I remembered the patch resistance.... So I cleaned this barrel with Hoppes #9 and a bronze brush and let it soak for two days muzzle down. It is now 25 rounds into testing with the same exact load with absolutely no leading and great accuracy.

The moral of this story for me is: If the barrel has been shot with jacketed and you are going to lubed boolits..... clean it whether you see copper or not!! It could be overkill, but it sure won't hurt anything... Or you could be like my experience and maybe make a BAD decision about the lube or load that isn't true!

Eutectic

[gray wolf]

What if moisture gets under the copper and the bore rust a little ?
Or is that another urban legion ?
If you want to shoot lead over Copper go a head, you don't need any ones permission. But why not just clean the Copper out and be done with it.
If you read an article that said it was best to do it--would you then do it.
I can read 10 scientific papers that say we went to the moon,
and 10 more that say we didn't.
But then again I could be taking your question up the wrong way, and you simply are looking for the correct answer.

[10x]

Depends on the gun.
Some guns like a bit of copper fouling to fill the pits in the barrel. Clean out the copper fouling and the groups get bigger (on some guns). Other guns like a copper free bore and shoot better after you clean the copper out.
And some guns shoot cast bullets the same as jacketed, whether they have copper fouling or not.

I have taken a .303 Lee Enfield with 60 years of fouling in a dark bore that did not shoot J bullets worth a darn and keyholed cast bullets, cleaned out the fouling and now the gun shoots both accurately with very little cleaning.

Only you can determine whether or not your gun likes, dislikes, or is indifferent to shooting cast bullets while the bore is fouled (or in some cases "treated" ) with copper fouling.

Copper is a lubricant between two metals that are harder than copper, but it is harder than lead so depending the the gun.....

[williamwaco]

One opinion:

I have been shooting jacketed and cast bullets interchangeably in well over 100 handguns for over 50 years.

I have noticed only one relationship between the two. In most cases, I find jacketed bullets to be very effective in removing severe leading.

I shoot them interchangeably in accuracy testing. It is normal to get a different point of impact but no more so than when changing from one cast load to another.

I see no measurable affect on accuracy.

Now for rifles.

I shot cast bullets for years in a Marlin 336 .30-30 and got very good results. So good in fact I never shot jacketed in it. That said, It was used when I bought it and it had fired only jacketed before I bought it. I gave it a quick cleaning before trying it and the first cast loads I tried went in 3" at 100 yd. ( I am sure there was normal copper fouling in that bore at that time. ) Load development ultimately got this down to 2" to 2.5"

I now use a Winchester 1885 High-Wall reproduction for most cast bullets. I have never been really pleased with it so I tried a couple of boxes of factory followed by a couple of boxes of jacketed reloads to see if the problem was with my bullets or with the rifle.

The accuracy of the jacketed vs the cast bullets was indistinguishable.

When I went back to cast - without cleaning - to test the copper theory - there was no change in accuracy or point of impact. ( Granted, this is only one gun )

At another time I had a very accurate Colt 98 Mauser in .243. It averaged around 3/4" at 100 yards for several years. Suddenly it wouldn't hit the wall of a barn - from the inside.

I took it apart and tried everything. I couldn't find anything wrong and no amount of fiddling would help. On my "last attempt" with this rifle at the range, the sun accidentally flashed on the muzzle and I caught a bright flash of gold. Close inspection with the sun shining down the bore disclosed the the bore was completely "plated" with copper. I couldn't see this in the shop, not even with a bore light. Closer inspection showed the muzzle even had a small "copper star" - same as a lube star but copper instead of lube and only about .005 around the inside of the crown.

I took it home, stopped up the muzzle with a finger cot. Put it in a pan muzzle down and filled the bore up to the chamber with Hoppe's. Next morning the Hoppe's in the finger cot was completely blue-green. I repeated this for several days - more than a week until the Hoppe's didn't change color. Only then did I run a brush and a tight patch through the bore. The patch came out with a bright blue-green color. I repeated this by swabbing the bore with a mop, letting it set over night then clean patch. No more brush because I didn't want to introduce any new copper. Only the patch on a steel rod.

I repeated this nightly for over two weeks. Every day the patch was a little less green, Finally one day, the patch came out completely clean. I tried it once more just to be sure. Completely clean.

Next week-end I took her back to the range with my best varmint load, 75 grain Sierra HP with a stiff load of 4831.
Guess what? First three shots could be completely hidden by a nickle.

My conclusion.

Slight copper fouling from a few hundred shots will most likely not be noticeable in either a handgun or a rifle.

Severe copper fouling from say 1000 rounds with jacketed bullets can totally ruin the accuracy of a rifle, ( and possibly a handgun ) barrel.

Notice that I say "ruin the accuracy" It did no permanent damage to the barrel.

Again, that is only one rifle.

I expect some competitive bench rest shooters could describe cases of copper fouling interfering with accuracy with many fewer shots.

Enjoy your hobby and don't worry about loss of accuracy until it happens.


.

[geargnasher]

William, I splurged for an Outers Foul-Out III a couple of years ago, it is priceless for removing copper fouling such as you described, or even light fouling. In about three rounds of electro- cleaning and doing a brush scrub and re-degrease in between to get the layered, embedded powder grime out the barrel will be clean again. Longest it's taken to get one clean was about two hours, most of that was it sitting and the FO doing its thing. About 15-20 minutes of scrubbing and cleanup with an ammonia-based cleaner and then some good, penetrating bore solvent finishes the job.

You would, having seen it, but many wouldn't believe the amount of copper some guns have built up in them because most people using J-words never clean them properly. Just wiping out with a powder solvent never addresses the copper. Copper fouling becomes a noticeable issue in as little as ten rounds with some guns, others take a hundred or more before accuracy goes south. I've always had problems trying to shoot cast over heavy copper deposits in rifles. The copper changes the taper of the barrel which is not good, plus it grabs onto the lead. My first order of business when bringing home a used gun is to take it all apart and start de-coppering the bore while I attend to the cleaning/inspection of the small parts.

BTW, the lead-out solution was less than impressive. I think the main issue with it is that it doesn't affect antimony or tin accumulation, which is the primary component of "wash" type fouling. That was disappointing. I suppose if you exchanged the solution for an antimony acetate it would work.

Gear

[williamwaco]

William, I splurged for an Outers Foul-Out III a couple of years ago, it is priceless for removing copper fouling such as you described, or even light fouling. In about three rounds of electro- cleaning and doing a brush scrub and re-degrease in between to get the layered, embedded powder grime out the barrel will be clean again. Longest it's taken to get one clean was about two hours, most of that was it sitting and the FO doing its thing. About 15-20 minutes of scrubbing and cleanup with an ammonia-based cleaner and then some good, penetrating bore solvent finishes the job.

You would, having seen it, but many wouldn't believe the amount of copper some guns have built up in them because most people using J-words never clean them properly. Just wiping out with a powder solvent never addresses the copper. Copper fouling becomes a noticeable issue in as little as ten rounds with some guns, others take a hundred or more before accuracy goes south. I've always had problems trying to shoot cast over heavy copper deposits in rifles. The copper changes the taper of the barrel which is not good, plus it grabs onto the lead. My first order of business when bringing home a used gun is to take it all apart and start de-coppering the bore while I attend to the cleaning/inspection of the small parts.

BTW, the lead-out solution was less than impressive. I think the main issue with it is that it doesn't affect antimony or tin accumulation, which is the primary component of "wash" type fouling. That was disappointing. I suppose if you exchanged the solution for an antimony acetate it would work.

Gear


Gear,

My episode was about 1968. Hoppe's and Outer's bore solvents were all that was available.

At the time, I couldn't have afforded that "Foul-Out" even if it had existed. Now I can afford it but I am told they are no longer made.

I agree although I have never tried it personally. My intent was to convey my belief that heavy copper fouling will destroy the accuracy of any barrel with ANY bullet whether cast or jacketed.

Now, we have MUCH better solvents than back then. I always scrub every handgun bore after each trip to the range with a modern lead remover. Hoppe's or Birchwood Casey. I prefer the gels because I can mop them in and spread them with a mop and they stay put. I let them "work" for 30 to 60 minutes then scrub them with triple "000" steel wool. My handguns never get any buildup of either lead or copper ( Except when I occasionally try a really bad cast bullet recipe. )

Rifles: I don't clean jacketed bullet rifles as often, around every 100 rounds but I learned my lesson with the .243 mentioned above. I don't expect to ever see another green patch come out of a bore. If I do, it will be a used rifle I just bought.

I am curious to know if moderate copper fouling as in 100 +/- jacketed bullets through a really clean barrel would have any noticeable effect on cast bullet loads fired after the jacketed - but not curious enough to do the testing.

I am also curious as to what is the best way to detect copper fouling. In my case, I was using 20 year old eyes and I could not see it without holding the muzzle so that the sun could shine into it over my shoulder and look down the side of the bore ( not directly into the bore )

.

[geargnasher]

If you have a 3-5 VDC wall charger (think cordless phone or similar, or garage sale/thrift store for $2), a package of small, insulated alligator clips from Radio Shack, a jar of root killer, some rubber o-rings and tapered rubber plugs from the hardware store, a gallon of distilled water, and a brazing rod you're all set. Use a pickle jar to mix and store the solution. You will of course need a few other things like a small funnel (cap off of a gear lube quart bottle works great), spoon, paper towels, denatured alcohol as a bore degreaser, etc. About $30 should cover it including a quart of denatured alcohol, unless you have some Birchwood-Casey cleaner/degreaser on hand. I wish I'd known about all that before I paid $120 for my kit. Anyway, the rubber plugs are almost worth the price by themselves, buggars are hard to find.

Parson's ammonia works great for a liquid copper solvent, and is much cheaper than commercial liquid offerings.

Gear

[High Desert Hunter]

My Ruger #1 in 45/70 would lead the bore horribly until I took the time to remove all of the copper fouling, now it doesn't lead, and accuracy has improved. I no longer shoot any .458 jacketed bullets, my Marlin and Ruger get a diet of lead only.

[10x]

The simple solution is to use household ammonia to clean out the copper and other fouling.
When the ammonia stops turning blue the copper is gone.
Rince with hot water, dry , and oil with your favorite gun oil.

And contrary to myth and legend ammonia does not corrode or damage steel. It will remove all of the oil from steel so that steel will rust if it is not protected by oil.

[geargnasher]

+1 10x

Gear

[prs]

A variable of importance that I did not notice in the above posts is the amount of tin in the lead alloy. Lead and copper are not so likely to bond, but tin seems to solder itself to copper. I only have had had "lead"/copper issues in two rifles. Both Win 94's in 30-30 had long histories of digesting copper clads before I loaded with my WW + 2%Sn cast boolits. Just mundane plinkers and they leaded quite a bit. After cleaning with 0000 steel wool and mineral spirits, no more problems.

prs

[williamwaco]

If you have a 3-5 VDC wall charger (think cordless phone or similar, or garage sale/thrift store for $2), a package of small, insulated alligator clips from Radio Shack, a jar of root killer, some rubber o-rings and tapered rubber plugs from the hardware store, a gallon of distilled water, and a brazing rod you're all set. Use a pickle jar to mix and store the solution. You will of course need a few other things like a small funnel (cap off of a gear lube quart bottle works great), spoon, paper towels, denatured alcohol as a bore degreaser, etc. About $30 should cover it including a quart of denatured alcohol, unless you have some Birchwood-Casey cleaner/degreaser on hand. I wish I'd known about all that before I paid $120 for my kit. Anyway, the rubber plugs are almost worth the price by themselves, buggars are hard to find.

Parson's ammonia works great for a liquid copper solvent, and is much cheaper than commercial liquid offerings.

Gear


YIKES.

I did a search and thought I was in the chemistry lab.

Those thing are available in every metal imaginable including 15% silver and 5% Phosphorus at only $2,205.00 each.

They all seem to be 36 inches in length. Do they need to be cut to the length of the barrel they will be used in?

What metal do I need?



.

[geargnasher]

The secret is any of them will work, including all eight bazillion of the the steel-alloy TiG welding rods. They only serve as a deposition point for the copper. I needed one once that was longer than the one that came in the FO kit and grabbed one of my brazing rods out of the shop, it worked great but was a bear to clean the copper off. I think just polishing it with degreased steel wool and degreasing it before use will work fine, copper deposits on copper just dandy.

Gear

[HangFireW8]

williamwaco,

I use a few different diameters of 316 stainless with my Outer's Foul Out II with no problems. The advantage over brazing rod is that it is easier to see the copper! I don't see the need to go for fancy expensive stuff. I got my stuff from onlinemetals.com which will cut them to length for you. I had them do a short stout rod for my 45's. This is handy primarily because it saves on the quantity of expensive solution used. Of course, it needs to be replaced more often for heavily fouled barrels, but that happens less often lately.

There's no chemical problem with using an overly long rod in a short barrel. The only hazard is that the leverage of the exposed rod weight will make it more likely to tilt and short out against the barrel. You can avoid this with o-rings or thin cut strips of electrical tape, and using clothes pins or whatnot to hold the rod straight above the muzzle.

HF

[40Super]

I grabbed some Stainless TIG filler rods from work for making multiple lengths. They work about as good as any, My kit came in handy when I first started and a few barrels that were way oversized,before I got them slugged. Cleaned the lead out unbeleivable. It hardly gets used any more now that I got all sizes needed and leading isn't an issue.

[williamwaco]

Which gets the positive/negative leads?

Barrel or brazing rod?

I don't want to deposit brazing rod on the bore.


.

[geargnasher]

Hot wire goes to the gun. Ground goes to the rod.

The copper deposits are the anode, the rod the cathode. Electrons flow from the anode to the cathode, transferring copper ions through the solution.

I can make five gallons of that pretty blue water for about twelve bucks using purified rainwater, so I wouldn't call it expensive. You can also buy the little jugs of the lead or copper solution from any of the normal shooting/gunsmithing supply houses if you prefer.

Gear

[cajun shooter]

Back in the late Eighties when I attended the FBI Sniper School, we were told to clean our sniper rifles with only one solvent. That solvent was Sweets 7.62 and it was made in the down under. I still use it today on the limited j bullets that I do send down range.
My McMillan special built sniper rifle would shoot 100 yard groups that were just a bit over the .308 of the bullet. All shots covered with a dime.

[MtJerry]

Thank you for the information and education. From what I gather here, it has more to do with leading of the bore than accuracy UNLESS the bore is so fouled (lead or copper) that it becomes inaccurate with anything you shoot.

Thanks again!!

[williamwaco]

Thanks, I am going to try this this winter when the weather demands some indoor projects.

[prs]

By "hot" I guess you mean positive and by "ground" you refer to negative. Electrons actually "flow" from negative to positive. Does that change your polarity recommendations?

prs



Hot wire goes to the gun. Ground goes to the rod.

The copper deposits are the anode, the rod the cathode. Electrons flow from the anode to the cathode, transferring copper ions through the solution.

I can make five gallons of that pretty blue water for about twelve bucks using purified rainwater, so I wouldn't call it expensive. You can also buy the little jugs of the lead or copper solution from any of the normal shooting/gunsmithing supply houses if you prefer.

Gear

[geargnasher]

That is correct on the electron flow. The metal ions go the other way. Negative terminal goes on the cathode, positive on the cathode (gun with copper deposits in it.

Here's a an open-source link that describes the process: http://www.finishing.com/faqs/howworks.html

Gear

[doctorggg]

Hot wire goes to the gun. Ground goes to the rod.

The copper deposits are the anode, the rod the cathode. Electrons flow from the anode to the cathode, transferring copper ions through the solution.

I can make five gallons of that pretty blue water for about twelve bucks using purified rainwater, so I wouldn't call it expensive. You can also buy the little jugs of the lead or copper solution from any of the normal shooting/gunsmithing supply houses if you prefer.

Gear

Gear,

Would you please share your recipe? The solutions are very expensive.

Thanks,
Gregory

[geargnasher]

A near maxiumum-saturated solution of copper sulphate pentahydrate and distilled water. I suspect the commercial copper remover solution has some other additives in it too, as do the commercial plating solutions, but the plain-jane solution works fine for me.

Gear

[doctorggg]

Gear,
Thank you sir.