Dry paper patches to reduce copper fouling?

[JSnover]

My bore absolutely loves copper! After just a few rounds I have bright orange lands and am getting tired of cleaning it. Tried Sweets, Hoppes, M-Pro 7 and a few others. They work well enough but I'd like to spend less time applying and then removing copper solvents.
Has anyone shot a handful of dry PP boolits to reduce a problem like this?

[ShooterAZ]

It will work. Even a lightly lubed paper patch boolit (I use BAC) will accomplish the same thing, but probably take a few more rounds to do it. One word of caution I would give if you don't lube the patch, the barrel will get extremely hot after just a few rounds. Ask me how I know...

[JSnover]

Thanks!

[Traffer]

At risk of going off topic here...What in the world causes copper fouling anyway?

[ShooterAZ]

One thing I forgot to mention in my first post, I assume you are use smokeless powder? This is the BP Patching section.

[ShooterAZ]

Traffer, copper fouling is caused by not using Cast Boolits...lol. Seriously, it can be caused by a rough bore...machining marks, etc.

[semtav]

Had a barrel that would lead up terrible. tried some copper bullets to try to burnish the lands. it too turned copper. so I cleaned it best i could and went to paper patched bullets. Shoots great and all the copper/lead is gone, but I'm not going back to anything else with this gun. well, maybe in about 10,000 rounds I'll try it again.

[JSnover]

One thing I forgot to mention in my first post, I assume you are use smokeless powder? This is the BP Patching section.

Yeah, I shoot both smokeless and Holy Black but don't have a mold for this rifle (yet).

[redhawk0]

My vote goes to rough machining of the rifling. I had minor copper fouling with my Ruger M77-MKII when I first got it. I took the time to stroke it out with J-B bore cleaning compound. It has a mild abrasive in it and it did wonders. It totally eliminated my copper foul issue. It might be worth a try.

redhawk

[JSnover]

Redhawk,

I've used Iosso on other bores with good results, haven't tried JB yet but lots of folks seem to love it.

[redhawk0]

Redhawk,

I've used Iosso on other bores with good results, haven't tried JB yet but lots of folks seem to love it.

Same in reverse...I've heard Iosso works as well...but I don't have any personal experiences with it.

I guess there are at least two brands the OP could try. It's worth the $7-10 just to see if it helps with the problem. I know JB worked for me...but I didn't have severe copper fouling...my patch would come out green with a few flecks of copper on it using Hoppies Copper cleaner....the JB made that go away.

redhawk

[JSnover]

Cool, I'll give it try. The Iosso was nice in other bores but seems to take forever with this one.

[redhawk0]

Cool, I'll give it try. The Iosso was nice in other bores but seems to take forever with this one.

Hahaha...just realized...you are the OP.

Give the JB a try...but it isn't quick. It could take you 30min to an hour of scrubbing if you're really rough. But in the long run...if you get all the rough spots out...you'll be ahead of the game.

Do you have a good bore light?...can you tell if one section of the bore is worse than any other?...if so...concentrate on that area first...then then once that area is smoothed out...run the entire bore to make sure its all smooth.

redhawk

[JSnover]

I have access to a pretty decent borescope, just keep forgetting to borrow it from the shop.

[ShooterAZ]

FYI, I have a Mosin Nagant that had a really rough bore. I put a tiny dab of JB Bore on the paperpatches, and fired 20 rounds through it. That smoothed it up considerably, and now it's one of my better CB shooters. Sort of like a PP firelap. I just wish it had a better trigger, but it is what it is.

[BrentD]

My bore absolutely loves copper! After just a few rounds I have bright orange lands and am getting tired of cleaning it. Tried Sweets, Hoppes, M-Pro 7 and a few others. They work well enough but I'd like to spend less time applying and then removing copper solvents.
Has anyone shot a handful of dry PP boolits to reduce a problem like this?

Yes, that will work. Just throw the copper bullets in the trash and shoot paper patches all the time. Your bore will never turn orange again and Sweets will be out of business.

Pretty easy actually.

[Huvius]

Yes, that will work. Just throw the copper bullets in the trash and shoot paper patches all the time. Your bore will never turn orange again and Sweets will be out of business.

Pretty easy actually.


I tend to agree.
I'm something of a collector of British black powder express rifles and it is simply amazing how so many heavily used rifles still have such excellent bores!
With a clean almost mirror finish, the bores are inherently easier to keep clean and I think they resist corrosion to a degree.
I also shoot paper patch bullets in nitro guns to clean up the bores and it works quite well.

[Hahndorf1874]

G,day,
Best solvent I have found during the past 40 odd years of shooting is Sweets for copper fouling,once removed oil with sweets oil.Has never failed so far!!

Cheers Hahndorf1874. Mal.

[GregLaROCHE]

Sounded like you were planning on getting a mold. In the meantime, you might be able to buy some precast boolits. Didn’t catch what caliber you were shooting. Normally they can be found at a quite reasonable price. Some people claim PC boolits help clean out copper and lead too. Fortunately, I’ve never needed to try it. Good luck.

[JSnover]

It's a 9.3x74R. I'm looking into commercial cast boolits and/or a mold but with 325 grain jacketed bulletss, accuracy is good @ 2100 fps and I'd like to have the option to shoot either.

[Huvius]

A .358” cast boolit will paper patch right up to .366” which will be perfect for your 9.3x74.
Go ahead and wrap some cast unlubed gg boolits and give them a try.

[country gent]

Paper is mildly abrasive ( probably around 2000-2500 grit) it will polish slowly. A few well wrapped bullets may help smooth the bore, but to see the effects may take 50-100 rds. I have done a barrel break in with paper patched bullets and it seemed to polish the bore up a little quicker. I simply fired 1 round cleaned the bore and repeated. I did this for 25 rounds. Then 2 rounds and clean for 10 rds. Bore showed noticeable improvement after this. The draw back to this is you cant use solvents to check like using jacketed bullets since there is no color change. But a good bore scope will show the differences. as you progress. The plus to using PP bullets for this is in cleaning you don't have to remove any hard fouling like jacket fouling. I wet the bush gave the bore 2-3 strokes to remove powder fouling and then a dry patch. Fired next set of rounds and repeated.

I would be cautious with the following, but paper is a good Carrier for abrasives also. A light coat of flitz, JB Bore cleaner, Iosso applied to the wrapped bullet very lightly. Here wrap the bullets and with a very small coat on fingers coat patch, then remove any excess with a patch. I would load these lighter and work slowly.

The last option is to literally lapp the barrel lightly with a lead lap. It is more work and set up to do. A solid vise is required ( with stops to keep lapp in the bore not letting it out until rotating is needed. Pluses to this is you can clean the bores up with out firing, If desired you can work a taper into the bore rifling, feed lines are parallel to the bore when done. Draw bcs are the need to make lead lapps, the fixture required, and the time energy involved.

[JSnover]

Thanks for the input. This post started in this section because it didn't really fit anywhere else and my intent was to load BP, figured this was the best place to start looking for info.
Since no one near me stocks JB (ordered some over the weekend) I dug some cast .357 and some jacketed .351 bullets out and wrapped them. Results are encouraging and groups are tightening up a bit, one of these days I may even start patching The Right Way.
Thanks again!