Gentlman I have another question for you, when you clean your rifle barrel do you remove all the copper fouling or do you leave some inside the barrel? After I get done shooting it takes me about 35 to 40 patchs to remove all the copper from the rifleing and this is a major pain in the ass! Is there any accuracy to be gained from leaving a little bit? I tend to clean my barrel until there is no copper fouling at all but you must understand that when I go shooting I usually put at least 40 to 60 rounds through the gun and I do tend to run a least a couple of patchs soaked with solvent, is my cleaning overkill?

I tend to prefer to get all the fouling out of my barrel if I can, but my shooting sessions tend to be 5-15 rounds. I seem to be able to get it all out by scrubbing with some Butch's on a brush followed by 2 or 3 patches. That said, I doubt a small amount of fouling is going to noticably affect your accuracy.

You have to "read" your barrel. Some barrels prefer a spotless bore while some like a slight amount of fouling. You'll be able to tell by the groups when slightly fouled or clean-which is tighter. If it likes a clean bore, make it easier to clean. Just a suggestion but consider hand lapping your bore & see if it's not a lot easier to clean.

Here is a link to Shilen Barrels answer to copper fouling / removal questions.

http://www.shilen.com/faq.html#question12

I've found that all my factory barrels have shot better when left lightly fouled. I had a Ruger M77V/T that was an honest sub-3/4 MOA all day long. Then one day I decided to really give it a good cleaning with Barnes CR-10 (following the directions so as not to pit the barrel). I cleaned until I got no blue/green patches at all. The bore was spotless. Took it back to the range and, with the same ammo recipe, it wouldn't hold better than 2 MOA for the first 20 or so shots. After than the groups tightened right back up to where they had been before. As stalkingbear said, it's all about your rifle. Some like to be dirty, others like to be really clean, and most factor barrels like it somewhere in between. Now I don't use a strong copper solvent unless I can actually see excess copper building up, and then only until that fouling is removed and no further. I'm a fan of Birchwood Casey's Bore Scrubber as a good general purpose solvent. It's a good solvent, but not TOO aggressive.

Mike

Thx for all the information guys I always remove all the copper fouling out and with my pet load the first 2 rounds are nuts on but the third round is usually a little off but I think that this has more to do with the barrel heating up than the fouling. But who knows maybe I will leave a little copper fouling and than try it.

I have never been able to remove ALL the copper color from a rifle's bore. So I don't try any more. Accuracy has not suffered much from this problem.

I clean my CF's after each range session, this includes passes with Sweets for copper. If the rifle exhibits a need for slight foulingI foul iton my final sight in prior to the hunt. I also like to know whatmy rifles will do if I need to run a few patches and light gun oil theruogh them on a hunt where moisturemay be a problem. If my gun likes light fouling I will foul it and then test to see what a maint. clean may do to POI. I rarily clean my rifles fully during a hunt, even if the bore shoots fine unfouled.