I picked up a 700 BA in 243 from someone that was having trouble chambering rounds and showing excessive pressure signs.
Long story short, removed the lead in the rifling but it has a severe carbon build up in the throat.
Leaning towards using an oversized nylon bore brush and solvent (shooters choice) to remove the ring, but not sure if this would be the best method.
Also looking for an 8"-12" carbon fiber cleaning rod that doesn't rotate (fixed).
Any recommendations are appreciated.
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If it's hard carbon which it probably is solvent won't remove it. I suggest taking a slightly oversized brush or wrapping a patch around a worn bore brush and adding either JB Bore paste or Flitz and working the neck and throat area. Use short strokes or spin SLOWLY with an old section of cleaning rod. Work slowly and carefully. I don't know if you have a bore scope or not but they're nice to have in a situation like this so you can monitor your progress and watch for similar problems in the future.
You could try a bore brush soaked in carburetor choke cleaner. Becareful with it not to get it on stock finish. It that doesn't get some of it out it's pretty tough carbon.
Hannibal mentioned a borescope. You can get those flexible ones off the internet that work with you cell phone. Some of them are pretty good.
JB with Kroil on a patch over a worn bore brush works well most of the time. But if you have severe carbon build up in the throat tube best stuff I’ve found is called Freesall which I bought at N O’reilly’s auto parts store. Plug the chamber and spray a liberal amount down the bore while the rifle is setting in a position so that the Freesall flows toward the chamber. After setting over night drain and run a few patches. Then clean as normal. Worked on my Remington .308. Now I use Patch out after each range session to prevent the build up.
Ed's Red.
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Not for hard carbon. That stuff won't dissolve in any solvent and requires a mild abrasive and elbow grease to get out. The OP stared the bore was leaded badly too so I'd say the owner previous to him created a pretty big mess.Originally Posted by pworley1
You know what is another good cleaner, although might not get that carbon, is ATF fluid. I've seen totally rusted wrenches and ratchets soaked in for like a week come out like new.
Shooters Choice was derived from a GM Top Cylinder cleaner from I've heard. That's just for information.
Hard carbon is one of those things that a shooter really has to have a problem with to really understand just how much trouble it is to remove once it forms. It's not the same as heavy fouling and definitely nothing like loose fouling. It tends to form in the small space between the end of the case mouth on the brass and the junction between the neck and shoulder in the chamber. It tends to accumulate slowly and will eventually cause various problems including overpressure because the brass can not expand to release the bullet to accuracy issues because the bullet literally scrapes on the carbon. It's a real problem, not something imagined and once you have a carbon ring like that there's no easy way to remove it all. And if you don't get it all out and work to prevent it then
it will eventually return and cause the same problems once again.
Without being able to see images of the chamber in the area I outlined above I've no way of knowing if it's truly a hard carbon ring or not, and without a borescope there is no way to know if it's been removed or not or if it even existed to begin with.
Many people get upset about the suggestion of using borescopes. I think that's primarily because they haven't had the opportunity to learn enough to understand what they are seeing. That's completely understandable and if someone despises borescopes that's definitely their right to have that opinion of them. The downside of that IMHO is that you may find yourself needing to take or send your rifle to someone who can diagnose your problem for you and many will probably tell you the barrel is shot out/bad/damaged.
Casual shooters rarely run into this but competition shooters that shoot a lot can and do. The link posted above by pietro is a good source for information if you're interested.
Hopefully this is more helpful than confusing to those who read it.
Last edited by Hannibal; 07-26-2023 at 01:30 PM.
I agree with what you posted. It can cause all the problems states. This reminds me of carbon that build up in AR15 and AR15 cylinder in the bolt carrier. It's tough to get out to and many places make like an endmill tool to clean it out with I definitely wouldn't use. The chamber in rifle is another matter indeed.. There are solvents that will disolve carbon build up and I'm not sure what they are all except for the automotive use ones.
You can tell by the residue on the patches when you’re extracting carbon. You’ll get brownish black rather than the dark black you get from powder. One thing for sure, once you get it out you’ll be careful about allowing it to build up in the future.
I respectfully disagree. The only thing a clean patch tells you is whatever you put in the bore hasn't removed anything. And the only thing a dirty patch tells you is something was removed somewhere. What it was and where it came from is an unknown. The actual condition of the bore and chamber is completely unknown without being able to see inside.
As a test I inspected 4 old, takeoff barrels that I had lying around. They all appeared bright and shiny when viewed toward a bright light source. All 4 proved to have a combination of rust, carbon, copper and lead when viewed with a borescope. I tried various solvents and solutions to see just what might come out. Nothing removed everything and frankly I quit testing because there was no one 'magic pill' and I'd already spent too much time messing around when it was obvious all were nothing more than scrap metal even if I did eventually manage to get everything out. Heavy rust pitting was the nail in the coffin in all 4 cases.
My accuracy standards are likely above those of many so there's that. If I can't get a minimum of an inch at 100 yards I loose interest and I'll move on.
That's with jacketed bullets. Cast makes it harder to do no matter what so I don't mean to say I can accomplish those types of feats.
But those barrels sure looked bright and shiny looking down them.
Last edited by Hannibal; 07-26-2023 at 04:12 PM.
2nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. - "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
"Before you argue with someone, ask yourself, is that person even mentally mature enough to grasp the concept of different perspectives? Because if not, there’s absolutely no point."
– Amber Veal
"The Highest form of ignorance is when your reject something you don't know anything about".
- Wayne Dyer
2nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. - "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
"Before you argue with someone, ask yourself, is that person even mentally mature enough to grasp the concept of different perspectives? Because if not, there’s absolutely no point."
– Amber Veal
"The Highest form of ignorance is when your reject something you don't know anything about".
- Wayne Dyer
I had a friend when I lived in Colorado that brought a 1903 Springfield over that shot worse then worse. Well the first thing I found was the bore was fouled bad, worse I've seen. Took me 3 days to clean it to basically bare metal. I slugged it and found the groove was slightly over .310. I reported that to him and he got rid of it, LOL.
2nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. - "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
"Before you argue with someone, ask yourself, is that person even mentally mature enough to grasp the concept of different perspectives? Because if not, there’s absolutely no point."
– Amber Veal
"The Highest form of ignorance is when your reject something you don't know anything about".
- Wayne Dyer
2nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. - "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
"Before you argue with someone, ask yourself, is that person even mentally mature enough to grasp the concept of different perspectives? Because if not, there’s absolutely no point."
– Amber Veal
"The Highest form of ignorance is when your reject something you don't know anything about".
- Wayne Dyer
CLR was one of the products I tested in the 4 takeoff barrels I mentioned. It removed the rust period.
If your bore is rusty no amount of cleaning is going to fix it.
If someone else finds it helpful that's great.
Boretech C4 was another. It's fine for loose fouling but didn't touch anything else. Never tested Carb-out.
In my humble opinion, it sounds to me like Hannibal is right on; I recall a thread a while back on another gun forum, where the OP and membership went around for quite a while about carbon rings in the forward portion of the OP's revolver cylinder, and the best techniques to remove the carbon.
After an investigation that J.Edgar Hoover would have been proud of, it turned out that the features of interest were only the cylinder throats.
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