Can a powder reduce copper fouling?

Republic of Alberta

Republic of Alberta

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Here's something odd I just noticed.

I have a 308 with a rough bore, it has copper fouled since new. I clean it down to bare steel regularly and it has gotten better with time, but will always have some copper in it after a few rounds.

The other day I switched over to R 15 powder for the first time in this rifle. With a clean bore I worked up a great load in about 15 rounds then loaded 50 more rounds and fired them all. Now normally after firing 50+ shots there is quite a bit of copper fouling. This time there is zero copper fouling. I have never seen this before in this gun.

I highly doubt that the rough bore has suddenly gotten smooth enough to not foul. It still looks rough to the naked eye. The only thing I can credit the lack of fouling to is the change in powder.


Anyone else see this before?
 
Velocity can have an effect on copper fouling and that can account for the difference, otherwise I can't see powder affecting fouling in and of itself.
 
I used some military surplus powder pulled from some South American .308s, by Ganderite who posts here. My barrel fouled quite badly, to the point I thought it was burned out.

I tried some IMR 4895 and the problem went away.

NormB
 
105mm artillery shells have a strip of lead foil in one of the propellant bags to prevent/reduce coppering of the bore by the gliding metal driving band.

I wonder if OTM bullets put down more copper because they leave behind no lead? Almost to clean for their own good.
 
I just searched the webernet and found this post on The High Road forums

""John Barsness has written a couple of articles in Rifle/Handloader about powders and fouling. He said that Ramshot Tac and Reloader 15 both have additives to help reduce copper fouling. They were formulated for military use and the additive was one of the requirerments.

He wrote that he had fired up to 500 rounds without cleaning and was still able to shoot sub MOA groups with his rifles. He also stated that they cleaned up with less than 10 patches using Barnes CR-10 copper cleaner.""


http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=463312

Interesting......
 
"...used some military surplus powder..." Not a great idea. You have no idea what that powder is, but the powder has nothing to do with copper fouling.
 
I will leave it to the pundits to decide, but I cannot for the life of me see how identical bullets travelling the identical velocity down the identical barrel will copper foul differently based on powder. Even moly coated and HBN-coted bullets copper foul in the right barrel.
 
Bismuth disolves copper when molten to high temperature. Many commercial and military propellants use bismuth as an additive to reduce copper fouling.

Lead is probably the best copper solvent but not really environmentally friendly.
 
In short - yes, powder can affect that.
Burning temp, pressure curve shape and what powder is made of (chemical additives) do cause copper and (sometimes) brass jacket to 'evaporate' to some degree and then deposit inside barrel.
 
If you want to know if a certain smokeless powder can help you with a copper fouling issue, you can do the following:


Seek information in the ''Product Composition'' section of a propellant's MSDS (material safety data sheet) and look for presence of :

1)Bismuth (and its compounds)
2)Tin (and its compounds)

Material safety data sheets are mostly available for every propellant on the market today (a lot of them are available on Hodgdon, IMR and other brands website). If, for example you google ''US869 MSDS'', you'll see that tin is used in US869 chemical composition. Looking at the amount used, it's definetely an additive.


Frank
 
Obtunded said:
Velocity can have an effect on copper fouling and that can account for the difference, otherwise I can't see powder affecting fouling in and of itself.
Click to expand...

X2
RoA, when you examined your barrel after firing, did you first run a patch through the bore to remove any carbon that might hide the copper fouling? My bet is that the barrel still fouled at the same rate regardless of which powder was chosen. If it gets you down, coating the bore and bullets with moly, or a similar product, is the only way I know of reducing the the jacket fouling from full powered ammo with a given bullet.
 
Interesting topic and good discussion.

One point I can add is, that regardless of how hot the burning powder becomes, none of the components in contact with it ever come even close to "molten", although barrels can get "red hot" with long duration rapid fire. Retrieve any fired plain-base lead bullet (lead alloys melt at about 600 F), and no melting will be evident. The duration of contact is just too short and only the base is exposed to the hot gas. Bore friction is a greater contributor to bullet heating and it too is of too short duration.
 
Boomer said:
X2
RoA, when you examined your barrel after firing, did you first run a patch through the bore to remove any carbon that might hide the copper fouling? My bet is that the barrel still fouled at the same rate regardless of which powder was chosen. If it gets you down, coating the bore and bullets with moly, or a similar product, is the only way I know of reducing the the jacket fouling from full powered ammo with a given bullet.
Click to expand...



This rifle is the same one I have been farting around with from this thread. http://www.canadiangunnutz.com/forum/showthread.php?t=355372


Because I have been using this gun for tests I have been very careful to pay attention to everything that is going on with it. Normally I have been shining a flashlight in the muzzle looking at the copper fouling after shooting it. After not seeing any copper at all this time I took a Qtip with solvent and ran it in and out of the muzzle to clean any powder away just to double check. There's nothing.


I am in the middle of testing annealed vrs hard brass right now, after I am done I will clean the gun using the same methods as I have always done. Then I will go back to 4895 powder, be sure to load to the same velocity. Shoot it and look for copper. Then I will clean, go back to R 15 shoot it at the same velocity and check for copper. That will verify beyond a doubt what is going on.



I felt sheepish for posting this topic. I thought I was nuttier than squirrel turds to think it,, and even crazier to publicly suggest such a thing but I am pretty sure what happened. I do feel somewhat vindicated by finding out that indeed there are powders that are SUPOSED to reduce copper fouling ....and.....it was the one I was using. Tests will verify.
 
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I noticed a difference in copper fouling in my Sako TRG 300 Win Mag. Went from IMR4350 powder to IMR7828 to try a new load. When I got home I cleaned as usual and was left sctracting my head as to why there was so much more copper fouling. Switched back to 4350 and the problem went away. Oh, one thing I can add is that the TRG barrel was nearing the end of its life. It had noticable pitting in the throat from heating the heck out of it numerous times...I think the barrel had about 1800 rounds through it when I tried the new load. Could have been something to do with the extra velocity the 7828 was delivering??
 
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