Removing HEAVY copper fouling from muzzle brakes?

[Wheres-Waldo]

Looking for advice on getting muzzle brakes that have been neglected back to a clean state before starting them out on a regular cleaning cycle.

Please spare me the “I don’t clean my muzzle brake/crown”, good for you, I do.

How can I clean a copper mountain off of SS /nitrided brakes without killing the nitride or SS?

Have tried vinegar & hydrogen peroxide, SS tumbling, CLR, ultrasonic cleaning.

 

[spife7980]

Flat screw driver and a pick after a chemical soaking is the easy answer. With that said, I’ve never noticed copper building up in a brake like that.

 

[AllenOne1]

Soak it in Bore Tech C4 or similar copper remover. Keep it wet for a while then scrub it out with a brush and a pick.

 

[jcmullis2]

Copper solvent and any decent scraping tool. You indicated that you clean your brake and that’s a good thing. I’m thinking you should probably clean your brake more often. Like others have said, I’ve never seen that much copper on one before.

 

[Brux]

Never seen copper in a brake

 

[Baron23]

Soak it in Bore Tech C4 or similar copper remover. Keep it wet for a while then scrub it out with a brush and a pick.

Yep, good stuff and you can leave it in there without damage to the steel

 

[wade2big]

Must be shooting a .308 through a 6.5 brake. Tight fit to shave copper. Lol

 

[Wheres-Waldo]

Been sitting in some Hoppes 9 for a few hours. This will take a while.... I don’t know if I can handle the wife complaining about the smell all day.

 

[Jumper]

Ha, I hear ya. My wife feels the same way about the smell. Ammonia removes copper, won't harm stainless steel if you don't let it dry on it. I'd submerge it in ammonia. Not going to hurt anything. Drop it in a water bath to wash off the ammonia. Electrolysis in sodium carbonate would probably work to.

 

[JGR1953]

Must be shooting a .308 through a 6.5 brake. Tight fit to shave copper. Lol

That's what it looks like....

 

[Ridgeback80]

I've used kroil to strip out ss barrels, works very well. Never used it for your situation but I don't see why it would not work.

 

[Wheres-Waldo]

Situation update... Fuck Hoppes

 

[JBattles]

Bore Tech C4 should work - it's good stuff.

 

[salks]

I don't know how far you went with CLR. I use the CLR in the grey bottle on my brakes and just let it soak in a small container of it.

 

[Wheres-Waldo]

They spent 6-8 hours in CLR... that got 100% of the carbon off but didn’t touch the copper at all.

It has been in Hoppes for 6 hours or more and the big copper doughnut hasn’t budged.

I’ve scrubbed the black off of it that at this point I might as well sand blast it and blue it.

 

[mgoodrich]

I have always used Sweets 7.62 to remove copper fouling. Should work on your brake as well. No need to soak the whole brake, just use a q tip saturated with it and rub down the copper, and then use a nylon brush to scrub it down. Probably need to do this a few times. I wouldn't leave the sweets on it for more than 2 hours at a time.

I too have never noticed any copper fouling on my brakes, would you mind sharing what bullets and load you are shooting?

 

[Sieg]

Soak it in Bore Tech C4 or similar copper remover. Keep it wet for a while then scrub it out with a brush and a pick.

Yep, good stuff and you can leave it in there without damage to the steel

Bore Tech C4 should work - it's good stuff.

And another vote for Bore Tech C4.

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[Wheres-Waldo]

This was a brake I bought used. Ironically, I wanted to move away from a brake with angled ports because I felt that my APA G2 LB was an ass pain to clean and the Impact brake has nice flat/open ports for cleaning. My APA never built up copper though.

I mounted and shot this one anyway, and decided to go back to my APA.

I don’t know what the previous owner shot through it. Not a big deal though. It was used and no one would have known it had a mountain of copper in it until they did a heavy cleaning on it.