Modern “gentle” copper solvents utilize chemicals that are harmless to steel, and won’t harm your bore even if left in for extended periods.

However, it can etch the steel in your barrel, too, particularly if it’s left in for more than 10 to 30 minutes, depending on the strength of the solvent.

It works great on copper, dissolving it in pretty short order.

Traditionally, the active ingredient in most dedicated copper solvents is ammonia. If your rifle is of suitable design, always clean from the breech and use a good bore guide to protect the rifling leade from abrasion caused by the cleaning rod.Ĭhoosing a good copper fouling solvent is critical to the health of your bore. Once you notice a reduction in precision, or maybe before you begin working up and tuning a new handload, or even just because you like knowing your rifle’s barrel is in good health, occasionally you need to give your barrel a good deep cleaning. The bluish streaks inside the muzzle are copper fouling, which oxidizes over time. Gunpowder residue and copper bullet jacket residue both periodically need to be removed from your rifle barrel. Very smooth bores with minimal machining and tool marks usually can be shot far more times before accuracy begins to drop off. Just how many rounds you can fire before degradation occurs depends on the quality of your rifle’s bore. Typically, the faster the velocity of your cartridge/bullet combination, the faster fouling builds up (both carbon and copper) and the heavier it builds.Īt some point, accuracy begins to degrade, and to regain top performance you’ve got to clean all that fouling out. It’s copper residue that’s basically smeared off the bullet into the pores and microfractures of the steel barrel. It’s the soot-type residue left by the burning gunpowder.

The least detrimental to accuracy and the easiest to clean out is carbon fouling. Two types of fouling build up in rifling.

R wipe