The Copper Fouling Lie ~ Don’t Fall for It!
BY Herschel Smith1 year, 8 months ago
Recall when I recently asked the question why anyone would work hard and put harsh solvents down his barrel to remove copper when the first shot after cleaning will simply refill the discontinuities and imperfections with copper all over again? And I asked why it wasn’t better to leave it alone?
I can’t locate that post at the moment, but I know I posed those questions.
This experienced gunsmith is telling you not to worry about it.
That’s good enough for me. I have never worried about copper fouling before, I don’t now, and I don’t intend to in the future.
On March 27, 2023 at 12:31 am, Miles said:
I’ll relate my experience.
A good friend bought a Remington 700 .243 win off a co-worker hard up for money.
Had a good scope on it, power/brand I can’t remember
Using Remington factory ammo, neither my friend, nor I, couldn’t get it to shoot any better than a 6″ group @ 100 yards, even after checking everything over from the scope mount, to the bedding of the receiver and for any binding of the barrel in the stock.
Leaving only the condition of the bore as the final cause of the crappy grouping, I then used the old original model Outers electronic Foul Out and using the solvents for both powder and metallic fouling about 4 hours later had a ‘clean’ barrel.
Using the same factory ammo as before, I then shot several 3/4″ groups at 100 yards at the same range as before.
The man in the video is correct. The DOD never regarded metallic fouling to be problematic. Of course, the DOD didn’t and doesn’t care all that much about smallarms barrel life, or the money involved in scrapping a possibly salvageable barrel, because if a barrel develops any accuracy problems, the problem doesn’t get resolved, the barrel is simply replaced. Ask me how I know.
The man is also correct about gilding metal jacketing ‘filling in’ the irregularities in a bore, but then makes the illogical leap that therefore metallic fouling is not a problem. Of course he then goes off the rails with calling those who don’t go along with his belief liars.
The man has his opinions from his experience. Take them for that. At least he’s not a FUDD when it comes to ARs & other semi-auto magazine fed rifles.
On March 27, 2023 at 9:18 am, Bill Sullivan said:
I have a 1903 Springfield with a rough bore, and many thousands of rounds through it. I would shoot it, then just put it away, over and over. Then I helped a friend sight in his light weight .30-06 sporter, with 220 grain loads. Went over to my ’03, with medium handloads, and my recoil was twice his. I scrubbed the bore with ammonia- came out purple. Recoil went way down, and accuracy went way up.
On March 27, 2023 at 1:14 pm, Ned said:
Miles – that’s my experience with a 358 Norma Mag. Starts shooting erraticly and a treatment from the Foul Out always restored it.
I’m not sure why that Foul Out system is no longer sold by Outers. Makes me wonder if it caused some problem or was removed from the market for being unpopular.
On March 27, 2023 at 7:50 pm, RHT447 said:
Mr. Sweet begs to differ.
https://www.leraa.com/articles/jim-sweet-the-shooting-optometrist
On March 28, 2023 at 12:30 pm, elysianfield said:
Just another “gunsmith” with an opinion. He is full of crap. As a former gunsmith, precision rifle barrel manufacturer, and precision shooter, and one that owns a borescope, I can tell you that jacket fouling exists, and is deleterious to accuracy.
Oh, and tell the old windbag that there are numerous recipes for jacketing material…and that bullets travel at different velocities…and rifle bores are not uniform, in size, degree of bore finish, or material composition.
On March 31, 2023 at 8:18 am, BRVTVS said:
GunBlue a gunsmith? The last time I checked his videos out, he said he was a retired New York cop.