Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles How often, agressivly to clean barrel?

I'm the guy with the coopered up barrel. This has been my way of cleaning over the years, before deerseason run patches 5-6 wet with hoppys #9 then a dry patch. I then sight in the rifle and unless I get rained on bad don't clean till after season. Have had my A-bolt now 14 years. During these 14 years the rifle has pretty much bin sub moa with b-tips and a-bonds. A few years ago I decoppered the barrel don't remember if I got it all or not but I tried. Well this year was getting about 1 1/2 groups @ 100yds. I normally shoot 30-50 rounds in the offseason. When the gun was new ( and I was younger) maybe 200 rounds or more in a year. Yea I like to shoot, these were reloads or I would be bankrupt now.
I don't like the idea of wearing my barrel out cleaning it. My guess is that if I ever get the copper out I would probably not need to do that again for maybe 2 years. What say Y'all.

Think I've purchased a few of your guns in the past I picked up a Rem 700 in 30-06 that took me weeks to get the copper out. Soaked barrel for days at a time. Finally got the copper out of the barrel and took it to the range. Damn thing was a copper mine. Now that action sits in my safe with a 280 ai Krieger barrel.

I can't tell you how often to clean your gun, let your rifle tell you. If it shoots better fouled then don't clean as much. I've got several rifled that shoot much better clean than dirty so they get cleaned more often. I've found Wipeout does a good job of removing copper.

The rifle seems to shoot great with a powder fowled barrel but probably not with copper fowled barrel. I know from experience that in my gun, the first and maybe second shot out of a swabbed bore go a bit out side the group formed after fowling. Not much but enough that you don't want to count that first group.
As much copper as is in there maybe I should try .264 bullets.

You're really not shooting very much. Maybe the barrel is a fouler and a candidate for Dyna Bore Coat, IF you can get it truly clean first.

There probably isn't a term for a miss that hits the adjacent bulls-eye like that, but there ought to be.

It seems copper fouling really hit everyone's attention when Barnes came out with their X bullet which did produce copper fouling problems more often than other bullets made with gilding metal. Now IMHO folks are paranoid about it.
If your rifle is shooting accurately, don't worry about the copper. When it starts to open up groups, run some Wipe-Out or similar cleaner through it and see how it shoots. Running a cleaning rod through your bore often can damage the bore much more than shooting. Besides I am lazy and would rather squirt some Wipe-Out in a bore and let it sit overnight than push a patch or brush back and forth.
I wouldn't expect 40-50 rounds to produce enough copper fouling to be a problem unless you have a very rough bore in which case I would fire lap it with some Tubbs Final Finish bullets so cleaning once a year should work for you.

I didn't mean 40-50 rounds between copper removal. But that is about what I shoot a year. Probably had been 3-4 years since I had done more than just run a few patches through with Hoppys 9, dry patch and oil; doing that maybe 2-3 times a year.
The Shooters Choice quickly got me to light blue patches, but looks like it will be a while before I see a clean patch come out signaling me that I'm done. Gonna try patch wrapped around brass brush and see if that helps.
Signed aggravated in WV.

Shooters Choice is really good at removing copper, AND eating away at a phosphor bronze bristle brush in the process of cleaning a barrel. As long as you're using a phosphor bronze or brass brush, with Shooters Choice, you're going to see blue patches after using the brush, no matter how many times you do it.

Judging from what you're saying, I think if you go to a nylon brush and do another cleaning, you will see the patches come out clean after using the nylon bristle brush, at least that was my expereince when I first started using Shooters Choice years ago.

Try a Dewey aluminum jag, you should start seeing less blue!

dye7 gave the best answer => let your rifle tell you.

I have one that never seems to need to have the bore cleaned. I'll put a couple of hundred rounds through it in a year and only then will it ask for cleaning the bore (by seeing .5-.75" groups grow to 1.5-2" groups). Once cleaned, it takes THAT rifle about 20 rounds to get fouled enough to start shooting the tightest groups.

Other rifles shoot from a clean bore only. The aforementioned rifle is one of two in the same caliber. The other in that same caliber I have to clean after 100 rounds. It needs a DEEP cleaning after about 300. The first one MIGHT get a DEEP cleaning (to the metal and all of the copper out)once a year or year and a half. The second one gets one every 300 rounds or so.

Both are from the same manufacturer and the barrels and actions are about 6 years apart.

The first has over 3000 rounds through it, the second has more than 4000.

Yea I see where Dewey sells an aluminum jag. I either need to get one, or when I see the light blue patches coming out figger that I'm done. Which is what I just done with the 270WSM, now to start to work on my 270WIN 700 Rem. Bet I find some copper in its barrel too.

If you want to see some white patches coming out, get out the Wipe Out..

Thanks fo the info Bbear, I think thats about what I'm finding with both my 270 win and 270wsm. They will both shoot a lot of sum moa groups lightly to moderately fowled but go to hell quick when the copper starts building up. I am going to keep copper remover on hand and only use when I see the groups opening up. In between a few patches with Hoppys 9 now and then. Just waiting for a break in the weather to see if the tight groups are back.

270WSM, Get you some wipe-out. When you DO have to clean the copper and other crud out, it works. And it's faster than almost anything else I've tried.