Originally Posted By: RahlowI'm going to start the argument here. LOL
Being a machinist by training, and having some welding and heat treating experience. I fail to make the connection of a brass rod and brush being an issue with a hardened steel bore, pushed thru by hand.. I think the issue is more or less tied to the amount of shooting you do, the more rounds down the barrel the greater the wear, which is obvious, and wear has not one thing to do with the cleaning equipment or process used.
ban me now mods LMAO
You are right and wrong. You are exactly right on the number of rounds fired contributing to the wear, and if you shoot and clean little, obviously you are not going to have cleaning rod wear on the throat. Rods are not brass, they are steel and plastic coated steel, and Tipton are graphite.
Check the coefficient of friction in the machinist's manual:
steel on steel
Plastic on steel
I doubt if there is graphite on steel
You are in for a shock.
I have had barrels "set back" several times, and by 6000 rounds down the bore, you will see cleaning rod wear in the throat and lands if you have not used a proper cleaning rod.
I have a two 223 Hart barrels that started off 26" long that are now 22 and 23" long after being set back, bore wear being measured with deltronic pins. Some calibers wipe a bore out for 10" in front of the chamber.
A great rod guide will never wear out, other than O rings on the snout that goes into the chamber.
These inexpensive Lyman bore scopes are great for telling how much fouling is left in the barrel and seeing barrel imperfections. They are a digital image, not a true optical image like the Hawkeye bore scope, but the Lyman is plenty good enough.
Like the OP, I have tried a ton of cleaning techniques and various chemicals. Success boils down to elbow grease and brushes, chemicals help to various degrees.
We have seen a lot of progress in shotgun patterns on this board. They often mention the fact that plastic in the barrel will open up patterns. We found this product that is so good that the Marine Corp is now being issued small packages to clean their guns, it is an amazing product. The product will clean plastic out of a shotgun barrel very quickly along with powder fouling, and I would urge all to use the product that want to shoot their shotguns a lot with tight patterns. I am playing around with it with a 7 mag where I am shooting 73g of R#25 to see how it gets out the powder fouling.
this stuff smells like kerosene, not bad.
I am thankful That the OP brought up CLR, I will go to the store and get some this afternoon. I shoot a LOT, so anything that helps out is a good thing.