New Barrel Cleaning

[sniper1]

Hello all. I am new to the site but not real new to shooting. I am in the process of building my first Savage. I recently installed a Shilen .223 1in 8 twist. After the barrel install, bedding the action I tried to clean the barrel. After about 30 patches of everything I had on hand to get the barrel clean I was still getting black patches. I went and broke it in shoot clean shoot clean etc etc. Never saw any signs of copper just real black stuff. I brought it back home and tried to clean it again. 25 more patches later still getting black patches. 75 patches and still getting black patches. I have tried Kroil, Hoppes9, KG1, KG12, Rem oil the black is not as bad but still kind of aggravating. I have had other custom barrels that cleaned up nice the first time. Any suggestions would be great and thanks in advance.

[geargrinder]

How does it shoot?

I don't believe in cleaning barrels unless I'm trying to identify accuracy problems.

You better check, you may have scrubbed out all your rifling. ;D

[mscott71]

Sounds like with all those chemicals you have used it's probably as clean as it needs to be. I'm of the opinion that more rifles are ruined from cleaning than shooting. It's a good idea to run a patch through to get the powder reside out so it doesn't attract moisture, but that's all I worry about.

[sniper1]

Thanks for the replys. I understand what you are saying about over cleaning. I just figured a new barrel without a shot fired through it should not produce coal black patches over and over.

[us920669]

You might have some roughness in the rifling which is scraping the coating off the cleaning rod. I'm still a fan of JB products, both the non-abrasive cleaning paste and Bore Bright, a polish (very fine abrasive) designed to remove any roughness or tool marks, but I can just hear the moans and groans from the many experienced shooters who loath the stuff. It's kind of like motor oil or whiskey, everyone has to develop their own theories.

[helotaxi]

You wasted your time "breaking in" that Shilen barrel. The lapping process took care of what a normal "break in" period does for a production barrel before your barrel ever left Shilen.

It's possible that the black you were getting out of the new barrel was some remnants of the lapping compound.

[82boy]

Are you using a bronze brush? Without one you will never get the barrel clean.

[sniper1]

Thanks for the replies, I think I finally got it clean. It shoots pretty well, fireforming brass etc. Conditions were less than favorable (30 mph winds). As far as barrel break in it is probably on the top of the list as far as debateable topics in the shooting world. I wouldnt have been too concerned but I have never had a new barrel come out with so many black patches that was that hard to get clean.

[pbcaster45]

The Kreiger on my .260 Remington was shooting like this the first time I shot it. IMHO doing a barrel break-in procedure on a lapped match grade barrel (Shilen, PAC-NOR, Kreiger, etc) is a waste of time. Factory barrels... those I still do.

http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc265/pbcaster45/03FiveShots100yards.jpg

[ghostwriter]

Just my experience so far... I have the Savage 110 BA in 300 win mag caliber. I ONLY used a boresnake the first 100-120 rounds thru the barrel (No liquid or paste cleaners). I inspected the barrel and thru my personal visual observation (boresope) found no trace of copper fouling. I now have over 200 rounds down the barrel, cleaning ONLY by dragging a boresnake thru from Breach to Muzzle and it has settled down and shoots under .5 MOA at 100 yards. (Actually I measured it on 5 shots at a .46" group. To confirm this quality of accuracy basically out of the box on a NEW rifle, I took it out to 557 yards and was able to shoot 2 - 5 shot groups under 3" each. That tells me the barrel doesn't need a bath in any chemicals. When and if it does I'll use some Warthog bore cleaner and follow the directions since it's industrial strength cleaner meant for people who shoot more rounds down the barrel in a week than most people shoot in 5 years, like the military and police shooters.
A match grade barrel is ready to shoot, just enjoy it an don't expect anything biblical until it's got a couple hundred rounds down the bore and the groups size drops dramatically.