Patches still coming out black after bronze brush...

bsand

bsand

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I recently picked up a parkerhale style jag, and a nylon brush along with some sweets.

I have fired roughly 1560 rounds, 1400 were hand loads of mostly varget. Rest were Federal gold metal match.

I use ballistol and a nylon brush, i wet brush then dry with patches on a jag until the patches come out clean even when wet.

I wasn't getting a nice tight patch on the jag, so I used a worn brush with a patch. The patch came out being the blackest carbon filled patch ive seen.

I proceeded to wet brush with a newish bronze phospohur brush. Then switched to the old brush with patch, and oh my god even more carbon. Kept going back and forth until 40 patches used. It was one dirty patch, streaking on the patch, then just black where the brush made contact with bore. Then back to crazy carbon after wet brushing.

I gave up last night, and ordered vfg felt cleaners both orginial and super intensive ones (brass embedded). They won't be here until next week. Im assuming that I have alot more elbow grease to put in? The part that boggles my mind is with nylon brush the patches came out white. With bronze brush crazy amounts of carbon came out. The bore is mirror shiney, so how will I know when to stop without a bore scope?

It's a factory Remington 5r 24" 308 rifle that I bought used from the ee with 200 round count. So total round count is 1760. With 1560 since august. Since last 3 trips my groups opened up by 0.1-0.3" i thought that the weather made the changes as its around 20 degree difference from load development and used last. But I'm using varget. I would think only over culprit would be a foulled bore? I clean after each trip or sometimes before the next one usually shooting 100 rounds a trip.
 
Are you using a bore guide with all this cleaning? If not you should be.

Did Sweets do it's job and remove the copper? If it did I think you are worrying about too much with black on the patch.

You can always try JB Bore Cleaning Paste... 20-25 stokes and then dry patch and shoot it.
 
Yes im using a tipton universal bore guide, I have a caliber specific one coming with my vfg pellets from nordic marksmen.

There isnt any blue comingout, just black on the brush. I'm more so concerned about the group's getting larger.
 
Possibly the larger groups have to do with the throat moving forwards... after 1500 rounds you will definitely have erosion... adjust your seating depth for less jump, increase the powder slightly... freshen up the crown.
 
Some of that black you see might just be from the brush itself. That explains why you don't see it with a nylon brush. If you polish a piece of shiny steel with a copper or brass pad, then wipe with a white rag, you get a black residue.
And there are also much better products than Ballistol to remove carbon.

Missed the sweet's, that eats brushes too.
 
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I try to shoot until I reach an equilibrium between the copper fouling and the carbon fouling while getting good groups.

I then clean when accuracy degrades by doing 10 strokes with a wire brush and 10 strokes with patches until relatively clean patches appear.

I then consider it "clean" and ready for CCB shot. I have done this for years, not so clean that it removes all copper, but removes enough along with carbon to keep barrel consistent until it once again reaches a point of accuracy degradation. I keep a log book and on one 223 it's 115 rounds, others vary.
 
As others have said, what you are likely seeing is from the brush reacting with the solvent. Another possibility is due to the larger size of the brush and patch combo you are cleaning crud out of the chamber that your previous patch and jag combo was too small to get, but this sounds excessive for that...
 
He was still getting this with the Ballistol as well. And that doesn't eat brass or bronze like the Sweets or other copper solvents.

So something else is at play. SOME of his dark patches when he was using the Sweets are likely related to the bore brush. But not the ones where he's using Ballistol.
 
yeah all dark patches are still with ballistol. I'll snap some pics tomorrow, im going to grab some JB bore paste and Kroil (suggested by brownells on VFG pellets),and wipeout foaming one and some new brushes after work. Then hopefully after some elbow grease i'll get white patches with the brush/patch combo. I probably have an eroided throat, as majority of my handloads (700 or so) were 44.5-44.9 gr of varget. I would clean after each range trip, say 80-140 rounds in an afternoon? I've done the math and i'm averaging 125 rounds a week. I probably should short stroke the first couple inches of the barrel eh?
 
the ammonia in sweet's will turn the patch blue not black. i use sweet's all the time. try a loose but not too loose patch soaked with carburator cleaner. if the patch is real black try again but try short strokes at the chamber and neck area. if your round is loaded too short you may have deposits in the neck shoulder area. the problem is you get a carbon ring in the throat area that can harden tough as "steel" and hard to get rid of. what you also might have to do is carbon cleaner and plug the chamber-pour in enough to let the throat soak overnight. to prevent evaporation put a piece of tape over the muzzle. using carb cleaner i learned this from the 1000 yard prone shooters.
 
if you werent using a bronze brush you werent getting your rifle clean. nylon brushes are ineffective. ive tied it numerous times the rifle is clean by instructions from wipeout or all the people that dont use a bronze brush then i give it a couple pass the brush just to see and the next patch is full of carbon. i only push the brush through one way. i think solvents need mechanical help with carbon its just too hard and impermiable
 
I have wipe out accelerator and wipeout/patchout sitting over night. First attempt with it looked like this. Turns out I have copper fouling still, so I ended up running patches until they came out white. Took some ballistol and new bronze brush, wet brushed 10 strokes, took worn brush with patch and effing hell looked exactly the same as before! I think my biggest issue is not getting a tight seal on the bore with patches/jags, I hope the VFG pellets make this easier/quicker.

 
bsand said:
I have wipe out accelerator and wipeout/patchout sitting over night. First attempt with it looked like this. Turns out I have copper fouling still, so I ended up running patches until they came out white. Took some ballistol and new bronze brush, wet brushed 10 strokes, took worn brush with patch and effing hell looked exactly the same as before! I think my biggest issue is not getting a tight seal on the bore with patches/jags, I hope the VFG pellets make this easier/quicker.

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I bought a used rifle a few months back that was probably never cleaned that it seemed like I'd be scrubbing forever. Persistence paid off with alternate brass brush, solvent and patch finally brought an end to the green and black. Also, you should be piercing the center of the patch on the jag's point: The correct size of patch to the bore will fold down and overlap in the process in effect making it a larger but compressible swab. With zero compression as it appears you are getting wrapping the patch around the jag, the rifling grooves will not be reached with sufficient patch pressure to wipe them out clean. The lands are likely all clean and visual inspection will verify that but patches will be touching the surface of crap stuck in the grooves: The brush and solvent will loosen this from the bore, but the patch is the finishing touch.

bullzeye said:
i was always taught use a brush one size larger and only push it one way.
e.g. instead of .22 brush use .243
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The tips of the brush bristles are what scrape at the fouling not the shaft of the bristles. Use a caliber specific brush for best results. I suppose a worn brush of larger caliber could be used in a smaller caliber but they are the next cheapest cleaning component after a patch.
 
That is a Parker hale jag, its not a pierce point one like the Dewey jag that came with the Dewey rod. I have used both, the pierced point one the second time, which is still soaking.
 
The P-H jag or similar is the way to go. Sweets turns green but does not do much else, the tests are all over the web. Most of the cleaners everyone swears by don't do anything much. If you want if CLEAN then get some wipeout and leave it over night until the patch comes out wet with no colour. This could take you a week for the first time. I then use some Rem Clean or JB for a few strokes, flush with Butches and wipe out until as dry as possible, do not use a degreasing solvent. This will give you good sighters. BUT there are only three reasons to clean, function, accuracy or preservation. If you don't need any of these then don't clean it and wait until you do. I do not use any brushes on match quality barrels.
 
Ian Robertson said:
The P-H jag or similar is the way to go. Sweets turns green but does not do much else, the tests are all over the web. Most of the cleaners everyone swears by don't do anything much. If you want if CLEAN then get some wipeout and leave it over night until the patch comes out wet with no colour. This could take you a week for the first time. I then use some Rem Clean or JB for a few strokes, flush with Butches and wipe out until as dry as possible, do not use a degreasing solvent. This will give you good sighters. BUT there are only three reasons to clean, function, accuracy or preservation. If you don't need any of these then don't clean it and wait until you do. I do not use any brushes on match quality barrels.
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I've been having some issues with accuracy, groups opened up by 0.1-0.3" yesterday after 50 rounds the groups started to tighten up again, I mean 3/5 cloverleafing, then other 2 touching groups of 0.6" which is OK but nothing where it started. I had 5 round groups at 0.380" at 100m, now Im lucky to get double that now. I have had it soaking for two nights now, well all I do is wet the patch then push it through twice.

The patch with blue is after about 12 hours, then second one is the patchout. I have it soaking again, so we will see in another couple hours how it looks. I think i'll be leaving my rifle out for the next week, I removed the scope just in case as well. I'm assuming that since I have the bolt locked up, that the rifle can now be legally left out without any locking device right?
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