groups that grooowww...

[africa]

I bought a BRNO .308 win. rifle in good condition, except that it´s previous owner sponsored the theory that a rifle's barrel should never be cleaned. I comitted the heresy of going a light brush/solvent job and found a barrel not mirror-like but no dark. The thing shot Winchester match ammo real good - 1 inch 5 shot groups/100 yds, and, with a mild load of IMR 3031 with casts at about 1600 fps, sub-inch groups. As a firm believer that a clean barrel is an accurate one, I went on, and trying to remove most of the fouling, made some aplication of JB compound. The bore showed some shine, and to range I went...
Same Win ammo - 2 inches groups. Same cast loads - 4 to 5 inches.
Opinions on this matter will be much apreciated.
Sugestions that bring back those lovely groups even more.
Thanks.

[waksupi]

I would keep up the cleaning, until it was absolutely, squeeky clean, and start in again. If you are shooting both types of bullets, you are depositing incompatible fouling. Shoot either jacketed, or cast, but don't interchange, without cleaning the bore first.

[Buckshot]

.................You don't mention it so I doubt there was any, but I have to ask. Any leading?

My suggestion is that you have to establish a baseline to start from. No way to reconstruct the situation before you started cleaning, so you have to continue. Clean the barrel till it's bright squeeky clean. No blue at all showing on a bright white patch after using a good copper solvent.

Lets do some basics too. Check those action screws! 8)

I have a really nice Springfield 03A1. The load is a lyman 311284 sized .309" tumble lubed. Then lube-sized with Javalina over 23.0grs of H4198 + dacron. I had I don't know HOW many rounds through that thing without cleaning. Then, one Tuesday during our little weekly match it was acting up.

Sights on target looking good and I was expecting a 9 and would get a 7 at 3. Another shot, looked good for a 9 or 10 and it's be a 8 but over at like 10 o'clock. I figured, okay it's had a bazillion rounds through it, it's time to clean it cause something is wrong.

With it in the cleaning cradle I laid my hand on the action to hold it as I pushed in the brush and it moved as I worked the brush back and forth. What the!?

Bigger then crap the barreled action was going clunk-clunk back and forth in the stock with the cleaning brush. Heck, the dern thing didn't need to be cleaned it needed it's action screws tightened up. Simple. So simple I never bothered to check.

..................Buckshot

[Frank46]

Africa, I don't know what solvents you have available. So here goes. As stated both the fouling from cast and jacketed bullets are not good for each other. I would suggest a very through cleaning with a solvent that will remove both the powder fouling and the jacket fouling. Some good solvents are, Shooter's Choice with Kroil (prnetrating oil) added, Butch's
Bore Shine, or if really fouled try Sweets but do not leave in barrel for more than 15 minutes and throughly remove all sweets from the bbl and use a good gun oil to lubricate the bore. Sweets has a high concentration of ammonia and will remove any lubrication left by any other solvent. Or you could use rem-clean which is a mild abrasive type cleaner. JB bore paste followed by JB bore shine works well also. The idea behind shooting cast bullets is to thoroughy remove any powder and jacket fouling. To check for any jacket fouling run a wet patch of shooters choice or butchs through the bbl. Let sit for about an hour. If any greenish blue tinge shows up on the patch, you still have jacket fouling to remove. And more cleaning to do. Hope this helps, Frank

[Beau Cassidy]

You need some Wipe Out- the spray stuff you let sit in the barrel overnight. Get the accelerator to go with it. It makes most every other cleaning method obsolete. Sounds like you will need to use it for 3 or 4 nights. I got some around Chrisistmas and it was amazing how much gunk came out of previously cleaned (sometimes 3 or times!) rifles to include those cleaned with JB Bore paste and different copper solvents.

Beau

[africa]

Thank You for the input, gentlemen. A heavy duty cleaning job is in course. I'll let you know about next groups. Ah, those screws are tight!