I have a Ruger single shot in 22 - 250. After shooting it about ten to fifteen times it seems to have a great deal of copper left in the barrel. Different brands and weights of bullets all seem to do it. My other rifles have never had this much or this quickly. It seems to be a great deal of work to get it out. The chemical foams don't work and the only way I have gotten it out is with J and B on a worn brush with ooo steel wool wrapped around it. But it sure is a lot of work. Any ideas? Lead lapping? Fire lapping? Thanks ahead of time.

I'd consider fire lapping. Get Marshall's tech manual it'll tell you how to do it. If you keep shooting it will eventually lap itself out.

I've found one of outer's foul out II's works the best to take that kind of fouling out.

I'd consider fire lapping. Get Marshall's tech manual it'll tell you how to do it. If you keep shooting it will eventually lap itself out.

I've found one of outer's foul out II's works the best to take that kind of fouling out.

Thanks for the reply. Outers won't even touch it. Where do I find Marshalll's tech manual?

Click this link and look to the left side of the screen for "book".

http://www.beartoothbullets.com/bulletselect/index.htm

Have you tried this product?

http://picsorban.com/upload/gunslickfoam.jpg

2-3 doses of this stuff with hoppes #9 and a few swipes with a bronze brush (in between treatments) gets the copper out of any of my rifles.

Sounds like the bore is a definate candidate for a lapping kit. As suggested, see the info in the Tech notes and order the appropiate kit from Beartooth Bullets.

As an aside, the 22-250 is usually run pretty much full throttle by folks. A fast bullet in a small bore will deposit copper like a house painter with a spray gun. Some bullets will deposit more copper than others - depends on the composition of the jacket material. Pure copper jackets or bullets will contribute to copper fouling faster than bullets of almagnamated jackets.

I know that I have had copper problems with a .300 and .338 Win Mag, but, the foam stuff usually worked great, but, most of my copper problems have been at the muzzle, and a lot of your copper fouling is in areas of the barrel that have tooling marks during the rifling process, and as the bullet passes down the barrel, the marks scrape off some of the copper jacket, leading to excessive copper fouling. I, have never really had major problems with, you, may want to consider fire lapping the barrel, that will smooth out a lot of the burrs and tooling marks that your barrel may have.

Is your rifle new? Breaking in the barrel will help but lapping will speed that up. I've had great results with Sweets 7.62 copper remover. Barnes CR-10 is another good one. I don't have any experience with the other ones.

Is your rifle new? Breaking in the barrel will help but lapping will speed that up. I've had great results with Sweets 7.62 copper remover. Barnes CR-10 is another good one. I don't have any experience with the other ones.
I have considered having a few of my rifles fire lapped, how much will this procedure cost me? I have truly never looked into it.

I have considered having a few of my rifles fire lapped, how much will this procedure cost me? I have truly never looked into it.

Firelapping is something you do yourself. A number of kits are out there with variations in the method. Beartooth Bullets, this forum's sponsor makes one for $45, and you can check it out here (http://www.beartoothbullets.com/bulletselect/index.htm). Hand lapping is what the gunsmith's usually do, though you can learn to cast a lap and do it yourself. Firelapping involves shooting abrasive imbedded bullets down a barrel to smooth it. It has the advantage over hand lapping that it cleans up the throat, as well. I have used this technique on some very stubborn, fouling accumulation prone barrels and cut the number of patches and the cleaning effort dramatically. Often, though not always, there is an increase in accuracy as well.

Thanks for the reply. Outers won't even touch it. Where do I find Marshalll's tech manual?

I suspect you are speaking of the Outers bore cleaning chemical. Bob is referring to the Outer's FoulOut (version III is now the one commonly sold), which is an apparatus. It is an electrolytic cleaning system that works by reverse electroplating the copper off the steel and onto a stainless rod you suspend in the barrel. This not only will touch it, but get the bore microscopically clear of copper if you use it properly. The laws of physics pretty much make it impossible for this not to work unless you've shorted it out or failed to get good electrical contact with the bore or otherwise are not using it correctly. The patent has now expired on this system and you can build your own. The version I designed for Father Frog's web site is here (http://www.frfrogspad.com/imprvdcr.pdf). {Oops! Put link to wrong plan in; corrected now!}

If you want to use a chemical cleaning agent, look at BoreTech Eliminator (http://www.sinclairintl.com/cgi-bin/category.cgi?category=CPSCSO&item=03-3195&type=store). It is far and away the most aggressive metal fouling remover I have ever tried. The link goes to the 16 oz. bottle which is less than half the cost per ounce of the 4 oz. bottle, but you can by either. It is so aggressive you need to use a plastic jag and nylon brushes. Brass jags and bronze brushes turn a patch wet with it blue faster than you can push it through the barrel, so you will never know when you are finished if you don't use plastic or steel jags and plastic bristle brushes.

That's $45 for the first gun. The cost goes down after that. A $10 box of, say, .30 calibre lapping bullets, should do 2 or 3 .30 calibre rifles. There's enough lapping compound in the can for several hundred bullets. I certainly recommend buying the book and reading it carefully before lapping anything.

Bye
Jack

That's $45 for the first gun. . .

I meant to mention that. Thanks. This is really a very inexpensive way to make guns much, much easier to clean.

My old DCM Garand's barrel would foul so badly that after just ten rounds it required six patches of Iosso Bore Cleaner (soft abrasive, like JB), 20 strokes each, with two patches of Sweet's 7.62 allowed to sit 10 minutes each between every abrasive patch before it was clean. Using Sweet's alone, it would take four to six hours of repeating application every 10 minutes to clean after a 50 round National Match course. (That's how I spent my evenings with it at Camp Perry.) After firelapping, two patches of Kroil followed by 10 strokes with one patch of Iosso, followed by two patches of gun oil, and it was done!. From hours of work to 10 minutes of work. Running a patch of Shooter's Choice or Sweets proved no copper remained.

I should point out this was the gun's original military barrel. It probably had fewer than 1000 rounds through it when I got it. I cleaned it very thoroughly, and after my first post-match cleaning marathon with it, I tried a break-in sequence. Nada. Zip. No difference made at all. I think that approach helps strop cut-rifled barrels when they are new, but I never saw it help a used barrel or a button rifled or a hammer forged barrel clean more easily, and gave it up for firelapping.

Nick, thank you very much, sir, I am definently going to look into fire lapping.

Nick, thank you very much, sir, I am definently going to look into fire lapping.

Another one that I considered is the Tubb Final Finish Bore Polishing System:

http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/templates/links/link.jsp?id=0003181214206a&type=product&cmCat=search&returnPage=search-results1.jsp&QueryText=david&N=4887&Ntk=Products&Ntx=mode+matchall&Nty=1&Ntt=david&noImage=0

I have used the Tubb kit and the BTB kit. Go with the Tubb if you are lazy and/or aren't on a tight budget. As mentioned you can lap a bunch of barrels with the bear tooth kit, it's just more work.

Many production barrels I've seen that foul badly do so because they have a constriction near the breech end of the bore that you can feel when you slug the bore. My Garand barrel was a good example. These constrictions are most often in mass-produced barrels whose blanks have been contoured without stress relief being done first, so the bore relieves itself by expanding most where the contour is thinnest and least able to resist the residual stress. Thus, the tightest part of the bore winds up where the contour is thickest. This is near the throat where the thickness of the barrel is nearest the diameter surrounding the chamber.

My understanding from the literature about the Tubb system is that it is not a firelapping system, but a fire polishing system. Tubb uses it on his match rifles with high quality barrels that do not need a constriction cut out, so he starts with a finer abrasive than a firelapping system does. I was using the NECO kit at the time I firelapped my DCM Garand and it took 20 rounds of 240 grit loaded bullets before the absolutely awful constriction in that bore finally was gone. Twice what NECO considers normal and twice the number of bullets they include in their pre-embedded bullet kits for that kind of hard cutting. I don’t think the Tubb system would successfully remove these constrictions. It is, as the name states, a Final Finish, or resurfacing system.