Bore Fouling and Bore Cleaners--What Is The Truth?

[Dr. Bullseye]

Videos talk about copper fouling, inaccuracy, and bore cleaners. Other vids. talk about microscopic imperfections in the bore being filled in by copper as you shoot, increasing accuracy. These latter people say no bore cleaners. CLP is not known as a copper remover and it is what I use. I have never done the bore cleaning thing with harsh solvents.

Many of you guys are/were military and or law enforcement and so use the M4 as your tool of trade. What do you guys do? Do you use a designated copper/bore cleaner? If so, after how many rounds? Or do you subscribe to the theory that no copper cleaner is necessary?

What do you do?

[ggammell]

Solvent as needed. Copper cleaner if you start noticing accuracy issues.

Be aware of what context your cleaning advice comes from. If it’s from precision rifle guys, some can be very extreme. Like cleaning the bore every 5 rounds. You’ll find many here that only clean when they have to when it comes to the AR platform.

You can cleaning after each range session. You can cleaning it every thousand rounds. You can clean it however you want.

[Arik]

Sounds like your info is coming from guys in precision shooting or guy who think they're precision shooters.

Putting aside any extreme situations there's no practical difference in when you clean or what you clean with.

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[Stickman]

Videos talk about copper fouling, inaccuracy, and bore cleaners. Other vids. talk about microscopic imperfections in the bore being filled in by copper as you shoot, increasing accuracy. These latter people say no bore cleaners. CLP is not known as a copper remover and it is what I use. I have never done the bore cleaning thing with harsh solvents.

Many of you guys are/were military and or law enforcement and so use the M4 as your tool of trade. What do you guys do? Do you use a designated copper/bore cleaner? If so, after how many rounds? Or do you subscribe to the theory that no copper cleaner is necessary?

What do you do?

I have a variety of weapons, and am not typically doing shooting for extreme accuracy. With that in mind, I clean weapons when they start to get noticeably dirty. If a weapon is dry and malfunctions, it gets a wipe down and more lube. For my "real" weapons, they stay well lubed and ready to go on a moments notice, but I don't do anything fancy with cleaning the barrels.

I should point out, I am not the norm when it comes to weapons, but my LE and former MIL experience in conjunction with being an armorer has given me a pretty good insight to what is or isn't needed for the particular weapon I'm using at the time.

[diving dave]

Even in the precision world, its debatable. I just had a barrel made up for a PRS build in 6.5x47 Lapua. When I asked about barrel break in, the guy who cut and chambered it said drive it like a stolen Corvette...In other words, shoot the heck out of it.

[markm]

I never run a copper remover in a chrome lined barrel. The few times I have yielded nothing. It's a waste of time. I periodically run copper removal in my Rem 700. But only to the point where it knocks it down a little. I don't patch it til it's completely gone. I just try to keep it in balance.

[Dr. Bullseye]

OK guys, I'm just not going to worry about it anymore.

[shadowrider]

I never run a copper remover in a chrome lined barrel. The few times I have yielded nothing. It's a waste of time. I periodically run copper removal in my Rem 700. But only to the point where it knocks it down a little. I don't patch it til it's completely gone. I just try to keep it in balance.

This is a pretty good practice for most shooters. A little copper "seasons" (for lack of a better term) your barrel. When it builds up to the point of degrading accuracy it's actually starting to fill the grooves and it's time to take some out. This is why benchrest shooters do a few fouling shots to "settle it back in" after meticulously removing it all. It's actually putting a little back. Every individual barrel has it's own preference.