Sometimes, the old ways are still the best ways. But, sometimes, old habits are not the best habits.
I have a 12 twist Lilja chambered in .22-250AI that the accuracy has fallen off pretty dramatically.
This barrel has always been sort of a problem child. It never got the velocity I have seen with previous .22-250AI barrels. And it has always copper fouled more than any other custom barrel I've ever owned.
But, it has always been very accurate. Agging in the high 2's when new and still plunking down five shot groups in the 3's with over a thousand rounds on it and still chugging along with 3's and low 4's at 1,500 rounds. It always copper fouled a lot, it was a slow barrel, but it shot good. Until it just kind of went to crap last year. With groups opening up into the 7's and 8's. Which, is not acceptable for it's purpose.
The round count is starting to get up there, at 1,800 rounds, and throat erosion has advanced a good bit. So, not hugely surprising that accuracy might be starting to wane. But, I have worn out a handful of slow twist plain .22-250 and .22-250AI barrels and never had one go south like this until closer to 2,500 rounds (the two 8 twist .22-250AI's were toast much sooner).
And as mentioned, it has always copper fouled quite a bit more than any other custom barrel I've ever owned. But lately it has become a total copper mine. Just ridiculous copper fouling.
Anyway... I got a Lyman borescope recently and the first barrel I wanted to look at was this one. What I found was horrifying. Just gawd awful carbon fouling.
The thing is, the throat was carbon fouled, yes, but not horribly so – there wasn't any ring. Further up the barrel, starting about six inches in front of the chamber though, the whole barrel was just carbon fouled all to 'ell. I mean, BAD.
That the throat was cleaner than the rest of the bore I blame on an old habit. Which is, that I always pay extra attention to the throat area when cleaning. Anytime I feel a clean dry patch starts to feel tight in the throat, I break out the JB and work the throat area. But even during routine cleaning, I always pay a lot of extra attention to the throat area. So, this barrel, the result, the throat was the least fouled part of the barrel, ha-ha!
Another thing I saw, is that the bottom of the throat area, was less fouled than the top. This, is not so much an old habit, as getting complacent and lazy and dropping an old habit. From having used a Hawkeye borescope a lot many years ago, I was well aware that a solvent soaking routine would let cleaners pool in the bottom and leave the top neglected. I used to make sure that any time I was letting a barrel soak – as I routinely do with Wipeout – that I turned the rifle upside down for half the soak time. At some point over the years, I got lazy and complacent and stopped doing that. I'm going to start doing it again...
Okay, so there are the consequences of some bad habits. But what about the old ways, still being best? Well...
I had by far the worst case of a carbon fouled barrel I have ever been faced with. There was just a crap ton of really hard, cooked on carbon fouling for most of the length of the barrel to deal with.
I have Boretch C4 on the shelf (and, not for nothing, but have used it a good bit on this barrel already...). So, I started with that. Wetting the barrel with C4, 20 strokes with a bronze brush re-wetting the brush occasionally, patch out dry, inspect with borescope, repeat. The patches showed it was getting some of the carbon out, but it was a slow, hard labor process and after over an hour of hard work, I could see that it was going to take DAYS at the rate it was going.
It was at this point I remembered the Lyman scope can capture pictures. I wish I had started taking them at the beginning, but this was when I took the first pic. This is about 8” in front of the chamber, AFTER an over an hour scrubbing with C4.
Boretech states that it is safe to leave C4 in the barrel “an infinite amount of time”. So I wetted the bore real good with C4 and let it soak over night (upside down, ha-ha!). Then brushed the bejeezus out of it again with another new bronze brush. Patched dry and inspected. Progress, for sure – the overnight soak was helping. But still a LONG way to go. So I did the whole thing over again, let C4 soak overnight, bronze brushed the crap out of it, blah-blah-blah. More progress, but STILL a HECKUVA LOT of carbon fouling remained. It appeared this method would eventually get it all out, but it looked like it was literally going to take weeks. Eff that...
BTW... I had always kind of wondered about the blue I get on patches using C4. Kind of thought it was getting some copper too. Except when I have used it, it has usually been after I think I already have all the copper out and want to get any carbon left behind. Turns out, C4 turns blue with carbon? This is a wet patch pushed through after an overnight soak. Note the blue on top of the suppressor mount though. There was some carbon build up there so I wiped it with C4 to let it soak too. You can see that it also turned blue.
So... I decided to go new school aggressive. I got some VFG “intense” pellets and grabbed the CLR out from under the kitchen sink. Worked those pellets hard, up and down the bore. Didn't dare let the CLR soak too long, never let it sit more than about half an hour – I just don't know what it might or might not do if left to soak a long time. After about two hours scrubbing the crap out of it with the VFG pellets and CLR, I patched it dry and inspected again with the borescope. Same old story, making progress, but the progress was slow. The picture below is what it still looked like 8” in front of the chamber after all the soaking and scrubbing with C4 AND a ton of elbow grease with VFG pellets and CLR. This is three days in!
You can see that progress is being made, but man, at this rate, it's going to take forever and a metric crap ton of work to get all this carbon fouling out. CLR was not going to be a miracle cure.
FWIW, I think if I had to choose, for this particular job, I'd go with the C4 overnight soak over CLR, it seemed like less work for the amount of progress made. Maybe a long soak with CLR would be the ticket, but I didn't feel like experimenting with that.
I'd reached the point, I'm just not willing to put more hours and hours into this barrel. Aside from the carbon fouling, the barrel just looks like crap inside. Probably most of it from the 1,800 rounds it has on it, but at least some, I think it had some internal flaws when new. I'm seeing some stuff that would explain the copper fouling it has always had.
But, not quite ready to throw in the towel yet.
My traditional cure for a really fouled barrel, for years and years, has always been good old JB Bore Paste on a patch wrapped around a brush. Decided I had nothing to lose, be interesting to see how it stacked up against the carbon cleaners with the borescope.
So I went back old school, with JB the way I have always attacked a nasty cleaning job in the past. I did alternate between my old patch wrapped around a brush and using JB on the VFG pellets, just to try and get a feel. The pellets are kind of neat, I think they do work well, but I can't honestly say that they are any more effective than a patch wrapped around a brush.
So... Using the JB, two patches and two pellets worth, in about 40 minutes, a nearly spotless bore! It's not in good shape, but hey, at least it's clean now!
Chamber neck/leade
Just in front of the leade
8” in front of chamber where the earlier pictures were taken
Lessons learned...
- JB Bore Paste still rocks. When things get ugly inside a barrel, it's time to get mechanical. For this particular barrel situation, it was just way easier and way less time than either C4 or CLR. But! That is not to say, that either C4 or CLR are bad. One barrel, one specific case, they weren't as easy or effective as JB this time. Can't say that would necessarily apply to other situations.
- Apparently, C4 shows blue for carbon? See picture.
- Don't forget to turn the rifle upside down once in awhile during soak sessions.
- While paying attention to the throat area while cleaning is good, don't assume the rest of the barrel is getting clean.
- Already knew this very well, but this was a great reminder that “white patches” do not always mean “clean”. This barrel was showing snow white patches at the beginning of this exercise.
- I better start saving my pennies for a new barrel for this rifle, ha-ha! Will be the fourth barrel for it.
Products used in this exercise.
- DAA
I have a 12 twist Lilja chambered in .22-250AI that the accuracy has fallen off pretty dramatically.
This barrel has always been sort of a problem child. It never got the velocity I have seen with previous .22-250AI barrels. And it has always copper fouled more than any other custom barrel I've ever owned.
But, it has always been very accurate. Agging in the high 2's when new and still plunking down five shot groups in the 3's with over a thousand rounds on it and still chugging along with 3's and low 4's at 1,500 rounds. It always copper fouled a lot, it was a slow barrel, but it shot good. Until it just kind of went to crap last year. With groups opening up into the 7's and 8's. Which, is not acceptable for it's purpose.
The round count is starting to get up there, at 1,800 rounds, and throat erosion has advanced a good bit. So, not hugely surprising that accuracy might be starting to wane. But, I have worn out a handful of slow twist plain .22-250 and .22-250AI barrels and never had one go south like this until closer to 2,500 rounds (the two 8 twist .22-250AI's were toast much sooner).
And as mentioned, it has always copper fouled quite a bit more than any other custom barrel I've ever owned. But lately it has become a total copper mine. Just ridiculous copper fouling.
Anyway... I got a Lyman borescope recently and the first barrel I wanted to look at was this one. What I found was horrifying. Just gawd awful carbon fouling.
The thing is, the throat was carbon fouled, yes, but not horribly so – there wasn't any ring. Further up the barrel, starting about six inches in front of the chamber though, the whole barrel was just carbon fouled all to 'ell. I mean, BAD.
That the throat was cleaner than the rest of the bore I blame on an old habit. Which is, that I always pay extra attention to the throat area when cleaning. Anytime I feel a clean dry patch starts to feel tight in the throat, I break out the JB and work the throat area. But even during routine cleaning, I always pay a lot of extra attention to the throat area. So, this barrel, the result, the throat was the least fouled part of the barrel, ha-ha!
Another thing I saw, is that the bottom of the throat area, was less fouled than the top. This, is not so much an old habit, as getting complacent and lazy and dropping an old habit. From having used a Hawkeye borescope a lot many years ago, I was well aware that a solvent soaking routine would let cleaners pool in the bottom and leave the top neglected. I used to make sure that any time I was letting a barrel soak – as I routinely do with Wipeout – that I turned the rifle upside down for half the soak time. At some point over the years, I got lazy and complacent and stopped doing that. I'm going to start doing it again...
Okay, so there are the consequences of some bad habits. But what about the old ways, still being best? Well...
I had by far the worst case of a carbon fouled barrel I have ever been faced with. There was just a crap ton of really hard, cooked on carbon fouling for most of the length of the barrel to deal with.
I have Boretch C4 on the shelf (and, not for nothing, but have used it a good bit on this barrel already...). So, I started with that. Wetting the barrel with C4, 20 strokes with a bronze brush re-wetting the brush occasionally, patch out dry, inspect with borescope, repeat. The patches showed it was getting some of the carbon out, but it was a slow, hard labor process and after over an hour of hard work, I could see that it was going to take DAYS at the rate it was going.
It was at this point I remembered the Lyman scope can capture pictures. I wish I had started taking them at the beginning, but this was when I took the first pic. This is about 8” in front of the chamber, AFTER an over an hour scrubbing with C4.
Boretech states that it is safe to leave C4 in the barrel “an infinite amount of time”. So I wetted the bore real good with C4 and let it soak over night (upside down, ha-ha!). Then brushed the bejeezus out of it again with another new bronze brush. Patched dry and inspected. Progress, for sure – the overnight soak was helping. But still a LONG way to go. So I did the whole thing over again, let C4 soak overnight, bronze brushed the crap out of it, blah-blah-blah. More progress, but STILL a HECKUVA LOT of carbon fouling remained. It appeared this method would eventually get it all out, but it looked like it was literally going to take weeks. Eff that...
BTW... I had always kind of wondered about the blue I get on patches using C4. Kind of thought it was getting some copper too. Except when I have used it, it has usually been after I think I already have all the copper out and want to get any carbon left behind. Turns out, C4 turns blue with carbon? This is a wet patch pushed through after an overnight soak. Note the blue on top of the suppressor mount though. There was some carbon build up there so I wiped it with C4 to let it soak too. You can see that it also turned blue.
So... I decided to go new school aggressive. I got some VFG “intense” pellets and grabbed the CLR out from under the kitchen sink. Worked those pellets hard, up and down the bore. Didn't dare let the CLR soak too long, never let it sit more than about half an hour – I just don't know what it might or might not do if left to soak a long time. After about two hours scrubbing the crap out of it with the VFG pellets and CLR, I patched it dry and inspected again with the borescope. Same old story, making progress, but the progress was slow. The picture below is what it still looked like 8” in front of the chamber after all the soaking and scrubbing with C4 AND a ton of elbow grease with VFG pellets and CLR. This is three days in!
You can see that progress is being made, but man, at this rate, it's going to take forever and a metric crap ton of work to get all this carbon fouling out. CLR was not going to be a miracle cure.
FWIW, I think if I had to choose, for this particular job, I'd go with the C4 overnight soak over CLR, it seemed like less work for the amount of progress made. Maybe a long soak with CLR would be the ticket, but I didn't feel like experimenting with that.
I'd reached the point, I'm just not willing to put more hours and hours into this barrel. Aside from the carbon fouling, the barrel just looks like crap inside. Probably most of it from the 1,800 rounds it has on it, but at least some, I think it had some internal flaws when new. I'm seeing some stuff that would explain the copper fouling it has always had.
But, not quite ready to throw in the towel yet.
My traditional cure for a really fouled barrel, for years and years, has always been good old JB Bore Paste on a patch wrapped around a brush. Decided I had nothing to lose, be interesting to see how it stacked up against the carbon cleaners with the borescope.
So I went back old school, with JB the way I have always attacked a nasty cleaning job in the past. I did alternate between my old patch wrapped around a brush and using JB on the VFG pellets, just to try and get a feel. The pellets are kind of neat, I think they do work well, but I can't honestly say that they are any more effective than a patch wrapped around a brush.
So... Using the JB, two patches and two pellets worth, in about 40 minutes, a nearly spotless bore! It's not in good shape, but hey, at least it's clean now!
Chamber neck/leade
Just in front of the leade
8” in front of chamber where the earlier pictures were taken
Lessons learned...
- JB Bore Paste still rocks. When things get ugly inside a barrel, it's time to get mechanical. For this particular barrel situation, it was just way easier and way less time than either C4 or CLR. But! That is not to say, that either C4 or CLR are bad. One barrel, one specific case, they weren't as easy or effective as JB this time. Can't say that would necessarily apply to other situations.
- Apparently, C4 shows blue for carbon? See picture.
- Don't forget to turn the rifle upside down once in awhile during soak sessions.
- While paying attention to the throat area while cleaning is good, don't assume the rest of the barrel is getting clean.
- Already knew this very well, but this was a great reminder that “white patches” do not always mean “clean”. This barrel was showing snow white patches at the beginning of this exercise.
- I better start saving my pennies for a new barrel for this rifle, ha-ha! Will be the fourth barrel for it.
Products used in this exercise.
- DAA