best copper remover

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dave_d

New member
guy's i'm going to be breaking in a new rifle soon and was wondering which copper remover was going to make my task the easiest.also are any of the good ones safe to the touch(no toxic).thank's
 
Sweets 7.62.

Most all of the copper removers use ammonia, which the more is in there, the more it stinks and the better it will work. You can also use mercury to remove copper, but that isn't something you want to casually play with.
 
Sweets 7.62, Mercury is an excellent lead remover and does fairly well at removing the potassium left from mercuric primers, won't do much for copper and there is no reason to think of using it today.
 
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After you get all the copper out of a barrel and before you store it, if copper is a real problem, you might try this:

Once the barrel is clean and dry, run a patch soaked with Lock-Eze (for sticky locks) down the barrel, thoroughly coating the bore. Leave the barrel sitting muzzle down for 15 minutes or so and let the liquid carrier in the Lock-Eze drain out of the barrel or evaporate Then run another dry patch down the barrel to remove any excess coloidal graphite in the bore. Also clean the chamber of any graphite that may have gotten into the chamber. If you use a good bore gude, it will probably be minimal, but none the less.

Store the rifle as is, or shoot it, and see if you have as much need for a copper cleaner the next time as you have had before using coloidal graphite in that particular barrel.

It really works for that first shot out of a clean barrel to keep copper fouling down.- BCB
 
Sweets...just don't leave it in the bore. A close second is Butch's bore shine. I think Shilen recommends this be used when reasoning one of their new tubes. One good way to prevent copper build up is to lap the bore.

Gari
 
I had cleaned two rifles with Butches Bore Shine and thought that it was clean. I recently used the Montana Extreme and the patches all came out blue. That stuff has a lot more ammonia in that will take your breath away and make tears come to your eyes.
 
Montana Extreme will clean a heavly coppered barrel in 1/10th the time anything else will, it is extreme, DO NOT sniff it, it will drop you to your knee's it is powerful.
 
Something to keep in mind: Removing all the copper isn't necessarily a good thing. Some of that copper is covering up various pits and mars in the bore, effectively smoothing it out. Of course there always is the issue of too much of a good thing.

I would consider performing copper removal on a barrel that has a number of rounds down it and you are looking at various ways to improve shot-to-shot consistency. However, don't be surprised if after removing the copper from your bore your groups open up considerably. If this happens, don't despair, a few fouling shots should have the gun grouping as it was. This has been my experience in factory barrels, hand lapped high end aftermarket barrels may react differently.
 
I have Sweets 7.62, Barnes CR-10, and Montana Extreme on the shelf, but I always use Wipe-Out. None of the others come even close on my factory barrels! I usually use one of the milder cleaners to get most of the powder fouling out, then fill the barrel with Wipe-Out and lay it on the bench for a min. of 4 hours. Over night will get the most stubborn barrel clean. I must have really rough barrels, cause even the Montana Extreme would take a couple of hours of patching and soaking to clean some of my guns. With the Wipe-Out, I just run about 4 patches of Butches or Hoppes for the fouling, patch out the cleaner, then fill with the foam and let it sit. Come back whenever I feel like it and push out a blue mess with a patch. Couple more patches to finish, then oil it up.
 
I use Sweets and find it does a great job. However, lately I've been hearing that because it contains benzine and ammonia it can be quite dangerous to us. Something else to worry about! Best wishes.

Cal - Montreal
 
Quote:
I use Sweets and find it does a great job. However, lately I've been hearing that because it contains benzine and ammonia it can be quite dangerous to us.



Figgures. Anything that works good, tastes good, feels good, or looks good is harmful to your health.
 
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