Lead is easy to remove....compared to Copper

[Bill in Ky]

My pistol is a new S&W M&P 9. I have fired 50 or so of my COWW cast boolets and have gotten it to foul less than when I began, after joining here and doing a lot of reading.. I haven't worked up a load yet but most rounds have been fired with 3.8 and 3.9 of RedDot with 105 358 SWC with BAC lube. I made a .3575 expander for my .358 sized boolets and they are not being sized down when seating.

I cleaned it good yesterday and thought I would try some FMJ's in it this morning. I put up a target in the back yard and fired off 50 rounds. I really like the way this Smith shoots and feels while shooting.

One patch down the barrel to get some of the carbon out (I use Mercury Quicksilver Power Tune, its made to clean carbon out of outboard motors) and my goodness, this thing is copper streaked from top to bottom. I am using the same method I do with my prairie dog rifles, which is soaking in Sweets and scrubbing with JB compound. I will finish with Flitz. Its gonna take a lot of patches..

Thanks for letting me ramble....

[seaboltm]

I like the foaming copper removers. Spray it it, leave it for 20 minutes, then run a patch. If there is still copper, repeat until it is gone. Never had to repeat the cycle more than three times, and there is zero work (scrubbing) involved.

[osteodoc08]

Yes, copper fouling can be a royal pain in the rear to get rid of. I use whatever I have on hand and have been using the foaming bore cleaners as well. I will break down and use the Sweets or Butch's if the foaming stuff doesnt take care of it. Its a huge problem in my 22-250.....but that's to be expected.

[bangerjim]

Shoot PC booiits and eliminate Pb & Cu fouling all together!!!!!! And hardly any powder crud either.

The PC coating seems to clean the bore as you shoot.

bangerjim

[blikseme300]

Shoot PC booiits and eliminate Pb & Cu fouling all together!!!!!! And hardly any powder crud either.

The PC coating seems to clean the bore as you shoot.

bangerjim

I have good success with conventional lube sizing but am intrigued by PC but you state that the PC seems to clean the bore as you shoot. I am wondering though if there is any wear in the barrel as I have seen many a machine where plastics have wore away steel it rubs against.

[willie_pete]

Hodgdon has a new powder , CFE Pistol. This is designed to eliminate copper fouling. I have not tried this, but I use their original CFE in rifles and it does seem to work for me. FYI

WP

[bangerjim]

I have good success with conventional lube sizing but am intrigued by PC but you state that the PC seems to clean the bore as you shoot. I am wondering though if there is any wear in the barrel as I have seen many a machine where plastics have wore away steel it rubs against.

There are many hundreds of people on here that are shooting many tens of thousands of rounds of PC boolits with not one reported documented case of barrel degradaition. Some have moaned and speculated about it but when the facts were all presented, the problems were related to something OTHER than PC.

PC is harder than lead but softer than copper. People shoot millions of rounds of FMJ's with no concern if they eventually wear down their barres.....which they will ultimately will.

PC is clean. This past week I shot over 800 rounds of 38SPL and 45LC ammo thru 5 different guns. Cleaning them was accomplished with a simple swipe of a brush and 2 patches each. The barrels were perfectly clean and the patches were hardly dirty. There was no PC residue and the only thing in the barrels was a little black powder residue because I was shooting reduced loads and, as you know, that will produce powder residue faster than full published loads.

I am 110% satisfied with PC and will never go back to old greasy lubes. I use both ESPC gun applied powder and BBDT applied powder.

Give it a try! You will be sold. If you have any further questions, PM me.

bangerjim

[texassako]

Clean an old milsurp of all the fouling, and you will know just how copper fouled a barrel can get. The foaming cleaners are great for what you need to clean. Spray foam in barrel, check after a while with a few patches down the bore, repeat until no more blue. The only real leading I have ever had to clean in about a couple dozen calibers was from a barrel that looked like a washboard. Probably not my best idea to shoot cast in that one.

[jonp]

You are understating the fouling in a milsurp! I have bought a few 7.62x54r and one required several days of Montana Xtreme, jb borepaste and a bag of patches but it ended up shooting a couple of inches with stock iron sights. All for less than $100 at the time.

[TXGunNut]

When I shoot j-words or buy a gun that has the foaming cleaners work like a charm. I foam it in the evening, patch it next morning. If I have any doubts I'll foam it again and patch it out that evening. Little bit of oil in the bore and it's ready to shoot boolits!

[hickfu]

and thats why only 3 rifles shoot J-Words... 300 Savage, 6.5X57 and 7mm Mag and only because I have just sooo many bullets for those rifles. Every thing else gets cast boolits

Doc