Hard carbon in barrel

[xtratoy]

After years of shooting and cleaning my rifle I made the mistake of buying a bore scope. I always cleaned with normal bore cleaners like Hoppes or Montana X type cleaners. Would clean until patches pushed through clean. An eyeball look down the barrel looked great. Now I find I have what appears to be hard carbon deposits randomly dispersed throughout the bore. I Have been trying for days to remove this. I've watched dozens of you tube videos and tried soaking barrel overnight in various concoctions recommended by the YouTube pros with no luck. I'm wanting to try BoreTech C4 Carbon remover or KG1 but haven't found any local stores that carry it. Trying to avoid the ridiculous shipping costs if possible. Any ideas?

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[Member 34319]

Plug the bore, pour in CLR. Wait. Clean.

 

[xtratoy]

Plug the bore, pour in CLR. Wait. Clean.

Did that a few times. It helped then didn't seem to do anymore. The first time i plugged barrel and filled bore for an hour. Made a big difference. Second time I let it sit longer , less improvement but still got black patches. 3rd time even longer...

 

[Member 34319]

This CLR?

 

[po18guy]

If you have the time, fill it and let it sit for a week or longer. Heck, a month won't hurt it. You are soaking at the molecular level and at a molecular rate. I would email Shilen, E.R. Shaw or any of the other good barrel makers and get their advice.

 

[xtratoy]

This CLR?

View attachment 1347880

This CLR...Did they change the label or is it a different brand?

 

[xtratoy]

If you have the time, fill it and let it sit for a week or longer. Heck, a month won't hurt it. You are soaking at the molecular level and at a molecular rate. I would email Shilen, E.R. Shaw or any of the other good barrel makers and get their advice.

I have plenty of time. Are you saying to leave CLR in barrel for that length of time? I over night soaked it with Sweets 7.62 bore clear and it didn't help either.

 

[Member 34319]

This CLR...Did they change the label or is it a different brand?

View attachment 1347882

Just checking. This stuff eats through everything I've ever got stuck on a suppressor baffle. Leaves the metal shiny and clean. I've used it in barrels that have had bad fouling and they come out spotless. Your internal carbon rings are just be super stubborn!

Maybe, if not already tried, put a bore brush in a drill and let it spin in that area for a minute or so. Soaked in solvent of coarse.

 

[xtratoy]

I have plenty of time. Are you saying to leave CLR in barrel for that length of time? I over night soaked it with Sweets 7.62 bore clear and it didn't help either.

I also made up a solution of the fabled Ed's Red bore cleaner and left it in for 24 hours to no avail. 1 part ATF, 1 part kerosene and 1 part Acetone. Arghhh.... I wish I could get a rifling button that matched my rifling to pull though. I tried a nylon brush with a patch wrapped on it and some Wheelers 220 grit bore paste . It shined up the top of the rifling but not much in the bore.
Maybe I need to get a new bottle of CLR??? I had a piece of bare steel and put a drop of CLR, a drop of ammonia and a drop of the Sweets 7.62 bore cleaner on it to see what it did to bare metal. Nothing to see after 3 hours. One of the items I used mananaged to run out of the blow by hole in receiver and mess up the bluing between the stock and barrel. I assume it was the CLR that did it.

 

[xtratoy]

I have used DIY electric bore cleaner to remove fouling out of some older Mil Surplus guns but don't know if it would help with carbon fouling.

 

[po18guy]

I have plenty of time. Are you saying to leave CLR in barrel for that length of time? I over night soaked it with Sweets 7.62 bore clear and it didn't help either.

Time soaking. Penetration and loosening of the carbon is little by little. Imagine a sheet of 3/4 plywood lying out in the rain. Overnight the bottom will still be dry. 3, 4 nights it might be damp on the bottom. After a week or more, the water will seep through to the bottom. And so it is with anything permeable. Remember also that carbon will fill any low spots in the barrel - we're talking 0.00005" - so practically unmeasureable, but some of that carbon in the low spots might actually be doing some good, accuracy-wise.

I had a suggestion, but it's too late to advise against a bore scope!

 

[Koda]

was there something wrong with how it shot?

 

[gmerkt]

After years of shooting and cleaning my rifle I made the mistake of buying a bore scope.

was there something wrong with how it shot?

You didn't know you had a problem until you looked.

This is kind of along the line of getting a digital scale after using a beam scale for years. You didn't know your charges varied a tenth of a grain and your loads were working fine. Then you got the new scale and discovered you had a "problem."

 

[dangerranger60]

I'm in the camp of "if it shoots well leave it alone!" Good Luck DR

 

[Koda]

I'm in a similar boat as @xtratoy, I'm waiting on a barrel replacement.

I think it was needed, but... maybe it did, maybe it didn't need replacement.

So my question is on an old well used rifle what are the things to look for in the borescope that tells you its time to replace the barrel?

 

[drstrangelove]

Goof Off is available on Amazon. Plug your bore and fill the barrel. Let it sit for 24-48hrs then get a new bronze bore brush and take 50passes. Use a bore guide. Run dry patches and inspect. I suspect all carbon deposits will be gone. Goof Off also makes a good solvent for Suppressor baffle soaking 24-48hrs prior to ultrasonic dawn and water cleaning.
One other excellent product is the Lead-Away cloth. Try using them as jag patches. If they wipe away the carbon from a revolver cylinder face, they will do the same in a barrel. I have a stainless 357 rifle barrel that had ungodly amounts of black carbon staining in the grooves from shooting Titegroup reloads. The Lead-Away cloth made short work of it.
I have not tried Boretech Carbon Solvent, but if it works as well as their copper remover, it should be a winner too.

 

[xtratoy]

1 hour with the electric bore cleaner and it got 98% of the carbon and whatever else was in the barrel out. The carbon must have been sitting on top of copper??? Doing a second clean now and expect it to be 99.9% clean. Most of the rounds shot through gun were reloads with Winchester 760 powder. I think I need to try something different because I have read that the nitrocellulose in the ball type powders are prone to hard carbon fouling. If it is clean enough I will give the barrel some strokes with some 600 grit paste and then maybe some JB Bore Paste if I can find some locally.

was there something wrong with how it shot?

No, it is a hunting rifle in 30-06 caliber and had no problem hitting what it was aimed at. I was appalled at what the bore scope showed. It looked like what i have heard mosin barrel looking like except i could still see the riflings. I have almost all of the fouling out after 3 electric cleanings. I now have small hard core flecking of carbon in a few spots where the the lands meet the rifling. I have the bore now full of Free All penetrant which a F class competitive shooter recommended. I'm going to let it soak for several days and see what happens. I do have a large bottle of Goof Off I'll try if still needed.

 

[Koda]

I was appalled at what the bore score showed.

One of the things I learned with my borescope was I wasnt cleaning the barrel properly.
the other thing is even factory new barrels have a lot of defects, then shot fine.

Now that your bore has been thoroughly cleaned, I wonder if it will shoot differently....

 

[xtratoy]

Goof Off is available on Amazon. Plug your bore and fill the barrel. Let it sit for 24-48hrs then get a new bronze bore brush and take 50passes. Use a bore guide. Run dry patches and inspect. I suspect all carbon deposits will be gone. Goof Off also makes a good solvent for Suppressor baffle soaking 24-48hrs prior to ultrasonic dawn and water cleaning.
One other excellent product is the Lead-Away cloth. Try using them as jag patches. If they wipe away the carbon from a revolver cylinder face, they will do the same in a barrel. I have a stainless 357 rifle barrel that had ungodly amounts of black carbon staining in the grooves from shooting Titegroup reloads. The Lead-Away cloth made short work of it.
I have not tried Boretech Carbon Solvent, but if it works as well as their copper remover, it should be a winner too.

I have some Goof Off and thought about trying it but I didn't know it would soften carbon deposits.

 

[DLS]

... I over night soaked it with Sweets 7.62 bore clear and it didn't help either.

Sweets is a high ammonia content cleaner designed to dissolve copper fouling, not carbon. That high ammonia level can damage barrels, hence the warning to not leave in the barrel more than 10 or 15 minutes (can't remember exactly and my bottle is out in the garage ... and I'm too lazy to go out and look). I would highly recommend you not do that again, because you probably have already created micro-crazing in your bore and doing it again could make it worse.

CLR and KG1 both work well but take time. With CLR it's a pain to plug the bore and find a way to securely stand the rifle upright. It can damage stock finishes too. KG1 takes a number of passes up and down the bore. If there is light carbon it works great and is fast, not so much with heavy buildup.

For heavy carbon I'd recommend JB Bore Paste and KROIL. Five minutes with this and you will have a clean, highly polished bore that is carbon free. It's also great on copper fouling if that has been allowed to build up. For light copper a 5-minute soak with Sweets is the ticket.

Hope this helps.

J-B® NON-EMBEDDING BORE CLEANING COMPOUND | Brownells

The original, time-proven formula developed by Jim Brobst and produced under exclusive license. J-B has been getting burned-on, caked-in powder residue and copper jacket fouling out of gun barrels since the 1960’s, and hasn’t damaged an inch of ri...

www.brownells.com

KROIL | Brownells

A lubricating and penetrating oil that flows into the tiniest of crevices, lifts away lead and copper jacket fouling, frees up super-tight barrels, loosens frozen screws and bolts. Dissolves dried grease and oil, displaces water, without harming m...

www.brownells.com