Hello everyone. I bought a Savage 12FV a while back. I got the gun used. The gun came with a raised cheek piece that precluded running a cleaning rod down the tube from the action end. That explained why the gun had NEVER been cleaned before I got it. Ha ha.

When I bought the gun, it had copper-orange streaks running down the barrel from the muzzle back as far as you could see. I looked at it and thought-this barrel looks like a barber pole!

Anyway, after buying the gun, I removed the cheek-piece and proceeded to clean the gun using a bore guide and KG-12 copper remover. I would coat the barrel and let it sit for 10 minutes and then swab it with clean patches. I did this for 2 days and could never get all of the copper out. Well, after getting out as much as I could, I took the gun to the range, and I was more than impressed. This is the BEST shooting rifle I have ever shot. It came with a cheap no-name brand fixed 20 power scope with 50MM objective, and target turrets.

After sighting it in for myself, I proceeded to shoot tiny little bug-holes with the FIRST hand-loads that I tried. I got bored with shooting paper and when it was time to change targets, I was setting range brass on the wood with just the shell head facing back towards the shooting bench. You guessed it-I shot each one of them off with a single bullet. This gun is that accurate.

Anyway, after shooting it that last time, I brought it home and cleaned it again. Still the copper streaks are present.

Friday at work, I was reading about electronic barrel cleaning and decided to build one myself. I picked up the parts on my lunch break, and after 10 minutes with a soldering iron, I was in business.

I remembered how badly coppered this gun was so I started with it. It took 40 minutes of running the home-made cleaner to bust all of the copper loose. After that, I swabbed the bore with regular Hoppes #9 to remove what was left in the bore. The barrel came out SPOTLESS. I can see clearly now why this barrel coppers so bad. The machining inside the barrel looks like a metal file! Obviously whatever tool they were using to drill the barrel was chattering something fierce, and has some uneven cutting edges on it. The barrel with the copper out looks TRASHED! At the muzzle end, with the naked eye, you can clearly see the upset metal.

Now my questions... This gun absolutely shoots! Should I be worried about this problem? Or, should I just shoot it again and let it copper up again. With the barrel as rough as it is, I suspect that one shot is all it is going to take to coat the bore again. Should I just leave some copper in there during regular cleaning, or should I use the electronic cleaner to remove it each time? I don't want to do anything to upset the accuracy. I've seen the bullets that are coated with sanding grit that are supposed to smooth the bore, but have read that this route is not a good idea as it wears on the rifling. Any ideas? Should I just leave it alone?