As mentioned, Frank Green showed some fairly damning images of a barrel that was confirmed to be cleaned with a bronze brush & an abrasive. Admittedly, I think the barrel owner may have used a battery drill in the process & really flogged that barrel nevertheless, the evidence did appear to be convincing &, with this info coming from such a reputable source, I think it fair to say that you should proceed with some caution.
Match grade barrel fouling after 40rds?
- Thread starter AustinCar32
- Start date
So we are looking at heat expansion, slightly out of spec chamber or brass sizing, or a combination of the above.
One thing you need to remember is the barrel under that carbon fiber is very thin. Your barrel may be 1” at the muzzle but it is a pretty light contour under all that carbon. I have a carbon Bartlein on my 6.5 creed and it will usually go around 250 to 275 before I see the groups open up.
Yeah im only getting 40 rounds through it before groups open up, even after letting it cool for hours/days. When your groups do open up, do you experience a major velocity increase with pressure signs?
No it’s not heat expansion unless it is just opening the chamber. Just a dumb guess, carbon is building up in the neck portion of the chamber, this changes your headspace which results in over pressure indications. I am a novice at reloading so if you measure your loaded cartridge and post the neck diameter, neck length, shoulder setback and overall length, maybe smarter people can say if it looks right. If it is the you have a barrel issue, if not these fine people can help correct the load.
Once i rule out a carbon ring tomorrow, which I am hoping the new products i ordered will take care of, ill pick up a couple boxes of factory ammo. Once its hitting pressure again, ill switch to factory ammo and see if the velocity is climbing with that as well.
What are the chances you are just charged too heavy and it works for the first couple dozen until the rifle gets fouled and then starts being more obvious? There are some REALLY esoteric (and thus incredibly unlikely) suggestions in this thread but the most obvious to me is that you are (despite what “book max” might be) over pressure. If your “pressure signs” are heavy bolt lift, you could probably back off by a couple of grains or more. Heavy bolt lift is way down the overpressure road.
Is it me or is that an excessive amount of fouling on the necks? I'm betting it builds up at the neck and causes your pressure to increase.
Does it even seem like it's harder to chamber the closer to 40rds you get?
Does it even seem like it's harder to chamber the closer to 40rds you get?
That could definitely be whats going on, i have never experienced that with my other rifles i load for, so i never put much thought into it. Is it possible a barrel could take 40rds to foul/settle in?
On a clean bore, i ran up to 59.2gr before i got very faint ejector marks, no heavy bolt lift. At 58.3gr i have zero ejector marks until 40ish rds, then i get marks followed by slight heavy bolt lift.
I found a very stable velocity node between 58.0-58.5 so i was hoping i could stay there, but of course ill change it if i have to. When the gun hits pressure again ill switch to factory ammo for a while and keep an eye on the chrono
This could be very likely as well. Would shooting factory ammo be a good way to rule out an error in my reload process? Or is this more likely to be a chamber issue? Fwiw im using redding competition dies.
I have not had any trouble chambering a round, regardless of how dirty the barrel is. With that said, i am using a weatherby/howa action, and while its not bad, its not the smoothest action either. So its possible i am not noticing a difference
It sounds like what you see with a really dirty or carbon ringed bore but after 40 rounds doesn’t make sense. I think there’s two different concepts at play. “Fouled in” is what happens as copper is laid down in the lands and takes 5-10 rounds. It’s the erratic data after cleaning followed by better data after a short bit. But “fouling” in the perjorative, is carbon “dirtiness” that can cause erratic results if the throat or bore is overly coated in hard carbon deposits. Your bore should be fouled in by 40 rounds but won’t be “fouled”. And in my opinion, your problem is not heat, carbon wrapping, trim length, chamber, or cleaning solution related. I wouldn’t go crazy with abrasive pastes or a borescope. A decent wipe-out with Hoppes or Boretech is all you need for cleaning.
If it was mine, I would back off the charge weight by a fair bit and shoot past/through the 40 rounds mark. You need a couple hundred rounds on it to see what the velocities will be, you need to stop confounding the data by cleaning it, and you need to find a powder and charge weight that will allow you to shoot your intended use without cleaning. If nearly 60 grains was where pressure started, back off 5 to 7%….to 55-57 grains at least and shoot 100 rounds. See where your velocities are and if the pressure indications come back after the first 40.
Also, what are you using the rifle for? Hunting? Plinking? Competition? Benchrest? 40 rounds is a lot for any but one of those. Maybe it just doesn’t matter because you can clean it every few dozen rounds anyway. If you need to shoot 250 rounds between cleanings for a competition weekend….well…
If it was mine, I would back off the charge weight by a fair bit and shoot past/through the 40 rounds mark. You need a couple hundred rounds on it to see what the velocities will be, you need to stop confounding the data by cleaning it, and you need to find a powder and charge weight that will allow you to shoot your intended use without cleaning. If nearly 60 grains was where pressure started, back off 5 to 7%….to 55-57 grains at least and shoot 100 rounds. See where your velocities are and if the pressure indications come back after the first 40.
Also, what are you using the rifle for? Hunting? Plinking? Competition? Benchrest? 40 rounds is a lot for any but one of those. Maybe it just doesn’t matter because you can clean it every few dozen rounds anyway. If you need to shoot 250 rounds between cleanings for a competition weekend….well…
It would be interesting to see. Cost of 3 boxes of ammo to test. Its possible whoever chambered the gun used a reamer with a really loose neck or one that was out of spec.
Even my suppressed rounds I've popped primers in don't show that much fouling on the necks.
Regarding factory ammo…imagine if you were not a reloader and bought the rifle and a case of ammo. You would shoot it. And not get too hung up in the details. Don’t let reloading cause perfection to be the enemy of good.
Thank you, i will give it a try. During load development i had good accuracy at 57gr (but creedmoor speeds) so ill start loading that up and see how long i can go without issues. I currently have about 12rds through it since the last cleaning, so ill start putting 20-30rds a day through it and post the results.
I built this rifle as an introduction to long range shooting (beyond the 650yards i currently shoot my factory rifles at) but i went with a carbon wrapped barrel for weight, so i could also use it as an Eastern Oregon hunting rifle where longer shots are more common. I am primarily a blacktail/roosevelt hunter, and have plenty of rifles for those hunt distances.
Ill try the reduced loads before i buy the factory ammo, its cheaper that way. Maybe the excessive carbon on the necks is caused by the load being too hot, or i should leave my necks longer? Ill experiment with both
I don’t know you, friend, and I have no beef with you at all.
But if I have to choose between Mr. Green and you, I’m going with Frank.
Now I followed that thread as it developed but don’t have it memorized. My impression is that Frank had issues w abrasives on brushes….not issues w abrasives in general and properly used.
Specifically, he strongly recommends using them sparingly and using a mild abrasives (mon a patch wrapped around a Parker Hale style jag and running it back and forth 10-15 time without letting it exit the muzzle and then working over the throat area a bit.
The issue he had, if I recall correctly, was abrasives on a brush.
@AustinCar32 -fyi.
Yeah im going to avoid doing it, ill use it on a patch as a last resort. I spent way too much money on this barrel to risk screwing it up, even if that odds are slim.
I think you may have come to the wrong conclusion.
It was the abrasive compound coupled with a non-rotating cleaning rod that caused the damage. Just keep abrasives away from your brushes. Literally 1000's, if not millions, of people have used bronze brushes over the last few decades with no damage.
My conclusion was that I suspect the guy used a drill with the bronze brush & Iosso due to what appeared to me to be swirling gouges.
I've used bronze brushes for years without issues but, lately I don't really bother with them as I now use liberal amounts of Acetone applied with a patch or mop then scrub with a nylon brush. Nylon is cheaper & as effective when using Acetone.
Accept nothing, question & test everything!
About the only thing you'll see with mag primers is worse sd/especially, in 6 5prc. I've used cci br2 and 200 in 4 different 6.5prc barrels and 1 7prc. I've never had althea problems you are having. How long has the ammo been loaded? I've saw bullet weld to brass that caused all kinds of issues, not all did it and they had been loaded for several months. They would actually pop when you ran them through a bullet seater to seat bullets .002 deeper. I think your barrel is the culprit, I just don't know the mechanics of the problem, besides fouling. I assume this is more hunting rifle than dedicated steel banging rifle? If so, while temperamental, it is still predictable and I assume you would start hunting with a clean barrel, not need many shots to secure zero and game, and then clean afterwards. If it is a hunting rifle, and it does shoot accurately for you....I'd just clean before you get to speed up and not worry about it.
My experience is with 1 carbon barrel, a proof 6creed. I bought it used(100rds) and worked up a load with 107smk@2990fps(22"). It has stayed extremely consistent with as much as 100rds on dirty barrel. But this is just 1 example.
Abrasive compounds, stiff bore brush, and a drill were used to fuck up that barrel. Bronze brushes will not hurt a bore. Used correct size brushes for bore size, no abrasive cleaners, hand run cleaning rods and don't change directions of brush inside bore. Following these simple rules, there is almost no way that a softer material brush can hurt a harder material barrel. Start throwing lapping compound or drill powered brushing in and all bets off. In that thread, it clearly showed where that guy sat the brush&abrasive at and washed the rifling out with a drill. Reading some of the "how to get carbon ring out" threads make me cringe. If a drill is part of your cleaning regiment.....you're tarded.
I think the problem they are saying is a bore scope doesn't really tell you how it will shoot or if it needs cleaning. It will make people go crazy trying thinking there are issues or the gun is dirty when it's really not . We see people make posts here all the time bitching about bore scope pictures and virtually every response is the same. Well how does it shoot?Yes, don't get a bore scope.....then you can be just like this
View attachment 8651911
With a bore scope...yeah, you might well come on the board in a panic about nothing after misinterpreting what you are seeing. But you will then learn and going forward find that a bore scope is a VERY useful tool to evaluate cleaning and helping to identify any defect/issue in the barrel...like a carbon ring.
I burn up about 3-5 barrels a year. I have tried just about everything cleaning short of of abrasives. After about 5 cycles of cleaning with the strongest solvents out there, the first 10-15 inches of grooves still are packed with hard carbon. I could do 100 cycles and still not get it out. It doesn't effect how the gun shoots whatsoever. As long as you pull the copper and carbon off the lands, clean the chamber and throat up, it should shoot as well as clean. And only take 1-3 rounds to foul it back to consistent velocity.
Now if I judged my barrel by the bore scope I would pull out what little hair I have left. It's a good tool to look from copper streaking or other issues but as far as how a barrel shoots or how long before it's burnt up, IMO shooting the gun is the only way to know. The results are what matters, not how it looks.
My cleaning routine for a carbon ring concern is to soak a slightly oversized mop in boretech carbon cleaner and insert it into the chamber and let it sit for 5-6 min. Remove and use a nylon chamber brush to gently scrub the chamber, patch dry, then clean the bore. Finish off with oil to protect everything.
I don't actually disagree with any of this ^^.
Yes, a scope will not predict barrel end of life or how it will shoot (and god knows that Savage has proved that over the years lol).
And I personally base my cleaning schedule off of round counts and not looking thru a bore scope. I'm cleaning fairly often these days just cause its easier to keep the bore clean if I do. But, and as you may remember, I don't compete so it is not very often that I put 200 rounds or so on a barrel in a weekend.
I do find one very helpful to eval post-cleaning condition (though again that's not a predictor of how the barrel will shoot post-cleaning) and examining for carbon ring, brass build up in the chamber body, etc. Helpful to see where the neck of your your resized brass ends relative to the little step up to the free bore.
And yes....we've seen (and maybe even been haha) folks who get a bore scope and come on the board in a panic about nothing. But, as I said, they learn....we all had to learn at some point. So, I continue to believe that a bore scope is a valuable tool for some purposes.
Well i got up and started shooting at sunrise this morning, starting with a round count of 12 on the clean barrel. I reduced my charge 1.3gr which in turn brought my velocity down ~80fps.
Unfortunately, my problem is getting worse. By round count 20 I started seeing a bump in velocity. By round 25, i was getting pressure signs. I found a box of factory eldx in my ammo bin, it only had 2 rounds in it but i decided to shoot them anyways just to see what happens. I hit pressure on both factory rounds.
My order of bore tech eliminator and iosso will be delivered today, ill work real hard to clean the barrel to remove a possible carbon ring and repeat this test using ONLY factory ammo one final time before i send the barrel back
Unfortunately, my problem is getting worse. By round count 20 I started seeing a bump in velocity. By round 25, i was getting pressure signs. I found a box of factory eldx in my ammo bin, it only had 2 rounds in it but i decided to shoot them anyways just to see what happens. I hit pressure on both factory rounds.
My order of bore tech eliminator and iosso will be delivered today, ill work real hard to clean the barrel to remove a possible carbon ring and repeat this test using ONLY factory ammo one final time before i send the barrel back
OMR says on they're site... button rifled barrels.
Button rifling has got nothing to do with cut at all. Button rifling displaces the material and does not remove the material during rifling. It's basically a cold swaging process.
Just a fyi.
Yep...
You use it and your on your own. OMR might not stand behind it etc...
If I was the OP I'd contact OMR first and ask them for suggestions or help on the issues the OP is having.
To put things into perspective here. This is a 6.5 PRC and a hunting rifle. If you are going through 20rnds when hunting, you are doing something wrong. If it's shooting up to 5 rounds just fine after a few fouling shots on a clean barrel, then I don't see there is a problem. What is the most reasonable number of shots on game in one encounter, 2-3 at the most/worst scenario? Just a thought.
It will be used very seldom for hunting, ill be using it in Eastern Oregon about once every 2 years for hunting, but the majority of my hunting is blacktails which i use my short barrel 6.5 creedmoor for, and 7prc for elk.
i plan on putting 1k+ rounds through it this year alone target shooting. Which is still fine, as I always bring my cleaning equip when im out shooting all day anyways. I was more concerned about there being an issue with the barrel that may get worse over time until its either not grouping or becoming dangerous. Its my first quality barrel so im not sure how they are supposed to behave.
So far i have 40 rounds of factory ammo through it after a cleaning and still no pressure/velocity increase. Im going to put another box through it today just to be certain, but this is starting to indicate a problem with my handloading
I said pretty much exactly same thing 7 or 8 posts up. It's annoying, but if it shoots good and is truly a hunting rifle, I'd just let it bump.
Hi Frank - thanks...and yes, I knew that about button rifling and just used awkward (and incorrect) wording.
Thanks for jumping in.
Cheers and best to you and yours.
A 1000+ rds this year? FYI, 6.5prc is pretty much same case capacity as a 6.5-284. Those used in f class generally get set back at 800rds and then replaced at 1200ish rds. At least you won't have to deal with the barrel much over a yr, lol.
That is true lol. I am also currently building a 6.5 creedmoor for long range target shooting so that could pull some round counts away from the prc, but i am okay with having to replace the barrel yearly. Small price to pay to feed this addiction
I like carbon for a hunting barrel, but if it's gonna bang steel and maybe hunt every 2 yrs.....I'm gonna get a med palma steel barrel and save 400-500.00 on every barrel.
After putting 40 rounds of factory ammo through it, everything was still fine. Started firing the third box and around #55 the velocity started creeping up, i had pressure signs on the brass #58-60. Picked up one more box of factory ammo and just shot a few more, had pressure signs on all 3. Pulled a dry bore snake through the barrel and shot again while the barrel was still warm and the velocity dropped back to normal with no pressure signs. This confirms that there is carbon building up in the throat causing the pressure spikes, and my handloads just speed up that process.
Thank you everyone for your help, i've learned a lot about barrels and have adopted a better cleaning method using better products. I have decided i am just going to live with it, and when i am out shooting i will commit to pulling a bore snake through it every 10-15rds, with a thorough cleaning every 30-40rds. As others have mentioned, i will probly wear this barrel out in a year anyways.
I am still extremely happy with my purchase and the accuracy of this barrel. I own a lot of factory rifles in all different calibers, and i get excited when i can group 5 shots sub moa (doesnt happen all that often). Using the handload that this barrel likes, the other day i was able to shoot 5-shot groups of .47, .34, .49moa prone/bipod/squeeze bag. Couldnt be happier about that!
Thank you everyone for your help, i've learned a lot about barrels and have adopted a better cleaning method using better products. I have decided i am just going to live with it, and when i am out shooting i will commit to pulling a bore snake through it every 10-15rds, with a thorough cleaning every 30-40rds. As others have mentioned, i will probly wear this barrel out in a year anyways.
I am still extremely happy with my purchase and the accuracy of this barrel. I own a lot of factory rifles in all different calibers, and i get excited when i can group 5 shots sub moa (doesnt happen all that often). Using the handload that this barrel likes, the other day i was able to shoot 5-shot groups of .47, .34, .49moa prone/bipod/squeeze bag. Couldnt be happier about that!
Attachments
I am glad you have got it figured out. There something about that hand load recipe that speeds it up. With a good cleaning pattern you seem to be good to go. Enjoy
Thank you! Ive spent so much time (and money) figuring this out that i no longer have the desire to figure out why the handloads speed that up. Im just going to shoot the damn thing!
Brother, I think I'd rather have a root canal than have to pull a bore snake thru my rifle ever 10-15 rounds.
When you get a bore scope (you didn't cancel doing this, did you?) examine that throat area very carefully. I just can't imagine how rough a throat (free bore and leade) would have to be to pick up so much carbon in such a short period of time. Its have to be a rough as a cobble stone street.
And your experience with factory ammo...you can't get thru 3 boxes of ammo without it speeding up and having pressure signs.
Hey, if you want to live with it...no skin off of my back....but its not right. There are lots of folks here shooting 200 rounds on their rifle before cleaning (think multi-day clinic or a two day PRS comp) and don't have pressure signs just pop up.
Look for a carbon ring....look at the FB and leade....what you are describing just isn't right, IMO.
Last edited:
Yeah i totally get what your saying, i just got burnt out on diagnosing it and really want to get back to shooting. Waiting for all my parts to come in to build this gun felt like a kid on Christmas eve. The thought of removing the barrel, sending it in and waiting, reinstalling and starting load development all over again sounds miserable especially since its starting to become shooting weather.
I didnt cancel the borescope, i ordered the Teslong everyone talks about and its getting delivered tomorrow. Ill get some pics with it tomorrow evening and see what you guys think
Lol thats alright, most people in this state spend their money on drugs and blue hair dye. I think im making the right choicesWelcome to the world of semi-custom rifles. Your standard for “accurate” just got reset and it’s going to cost you
Over the years, I managed to live in Boardman, Baker City, Medford, Forest Grove, Warrenton, and Halfway. Some places are a bit bluer-haired than others. Some places strike a pretty good balance and some need to advance into the modern age. There’s a little something for everyone.
