[Unclenick]

Doyle,

There are mixed thoughts about it. What you describe has been called Carbon Tunnel Syndrome by Merrill Martin. He found some guns did not seem to shoot without it. .22 Rimfire, in particular.

The other extreme would be Howa's break in method. They want not only every trace of carbon out, but all traces of hydrocarbons as well for the first ten shots. They claim premature filling of a bore with carbon will bias the effects of heat toward walking and will prevent the metal from burning over the carbon-trapping pits to prevent them from becoming such deep carbon traps to begin with.

I think its a balance game. You want the bore smooth enough that it doesn't build copper fouling quickly. That same smoothness makes most carbon tend to clean off more easily. I had one barrel that could not get through the Service Rifle National Match Course (50 rounds) without the copper getting so thick that groups fell apart during the last 20 rounds, and the last 10 in particular, which is during slow fire prone at 600 yards, when you need good grouping most. It would then take the ammonia cleaners available at the time (Sweet's 7.62) hours to get it cleared for the next day's match. A fellow on another forum had and even worse barrel that could not get through twenty rounds without precision falling apart. So no "good" fouling could be brought about.

Anyway, if Yggorf is trying to get a barrel into shape, letting Gunzilla have a few weeks to penetrate and clear it would be a good thing to do initially. Especially if he is thinking of doing any firelapping to smooth out rough spots, since you don't then want the steel protected unduely. Post firelapping, if you've cleaned thoroughly along the way, you have fresh metal exposed at the surface. That's the time to try Howa's trick. Once complete, then the carbon tunnel experiment can be tried.


P45,

I keep hearing about Frog Lube here, mainly, but it's one I have yet to try. I still have shelves full of cleaners I've tried in the past, and haven't recently felt like evaluating a new one. I'll probably donate the others to our club. When I get used to the idea that's made room on the cleaner shelf, I may give Frog Lube a try.