Sweets 7.62 and foaming bore cleaner?

MPFD

MPFD

Active member
I have been working again at getting all the copper out of my AR and man is ever turning into a job! How long is it safe to leave 762 in the bore? I scrubbed and scrubbed last night and I just can's seem to get a clean patch. I have been alternating between sweets and foaming bore cleaner. Last night before I left for the ball game I soaked the bore down with sweets and left it in for about 4 hours after I had scrubbed on it for about 3 hours previous. I got home and ran a patch through and got a super scuzzy blue gel out. I am gonna keep at it but I'm not sure I will ever get it back to bare metal. Last time I attempted a complete strip I worked at it for a week every night with hoppes 9 and never did quit getting green patch's, finally gave up. I was hopeing that sweets was high powered enough to get it all this time. Anybody got any tips? I bought a new bullet I've never tried before to try to get my groups back into what they were when I first got the rifle as the Varmint Nightmares are just not working. I'm gonna try to get it back to bare metal and try Sierra 52 g. Match HPBT's. Any opinions are welcomed at this point!
 
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I use Sweets after PD shoots to clean after lots of rounds. My experience is to leave it in the barrel no more than about 1 hour, (dont let it get completely dry) then run some patches and apply Sweets again. Mine comes totally clean after 2 or 3 Sweets treatments. Sounds like your AR barrel is really rough and could maybe use a JB bore paste treatment.
 
My opinion.....First I'd pull the barrel off. Next I'd buy a tomato plant. I'd plant that tomato plant where it would would get lots of sun. They like sun! Then I'd use that copper fouling barrel for a stake to assist the newly purchased plant to grow tall and proud and produce big, plump, juicy tomatters. Yummy!

Then I'd seriously contemplate buying a decent barrel for that AR and installing it. After all the AR isn't much use without a barrel.

I can't imagine going to all the trouble you are going through to get the copper out. It shouldn't be that hard or time consuming. It must be extreamlly rough? What make AR is it? Who made the barrel?
 
So would leaving in the foaming bore cleaner over night be a better option? I've heard alot of different opinions so far from my local gunshop experts /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smiliesmack.gif. I really wanna start fresh with a clean barrel and see if its the cheap bullets or the copper fouling thats got my groups opened up!
 
It's a Wilson barrel, upper came from J&T distrubuting, with a DPMS lower assembly.
 
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A Wilson barrel is (should be/supposed to be) a decent barrel. Not top-o-the-line by any means, but decent enough for most of us. I have had several AR's with Wilson barrels and I never had one that copper fouled like you are describing. Maybe you just happened to get a bad one?

Somebody above mentioned JB paste. Your barrel may be a good canidate for the treatment. At this point I don't think you could hurt it.
 
I'm not sure. I made a point to get a Wilson barrel on this rifle, and this second AR doesn't shoot as good as my first one did with an ER shaw! The AR I got rid of that was a model 1 sales kits shot light out! But I had the same trouble with getting it clean too. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused1.gif
 
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Your answer is easy. Use JB Bore cleaner on a good bronze bristle brush, follow with Sweets, let the sweets sit up in the bore for no more than 15 minutes.

Brushing with JB will do a little polishing. Use good bronze bristle brushes available from www.sinclairintl.com
are the quality you want to use.

Your barrel probably was over looked for lapping, hence the roughness.

Shooting bullets with a lot of bearing surface will promote copper buildup faster, Bullets such as the 60g and heavier are what I am talking about. A bullet such as a 55g Sierra BT for yotes or a 55g Sierra Blitz king for p. dogs would have much less bearing surface than the 69's and heavier.

You should consider cleaning your rifle frequently to aid in copper removal.

The problem with Wipe out is that it is a time activated chemical reaction that takes over night soakings to work properly.

I had a cheap custom barrel installed on a 22PPC just to see how a bottom of the barrel in quality would shoot if chambered with a custom match reamer. It would shoot in the .600's from the get go, and the barrel would turn solid copper after 60 rounds. After about 600 rounds, the rifle started grouping in the .300's. I cleaned the bore on this copper fouling pig with the JB and a brush as I mentioned.

Good luck!
 
You mean that you didn't clean it for 600 rounds or it took that long to settle down with regular cleanings?
 
First, switch to a nylon brush so the green you are seeing is not coming off
of your bronze brush. It will never show perfectly clean with a brass brush and jag. Second the best copper remover available is wipe out with the accelerator.
There was a very extensive test and thread on the hide with all the different
copper solvents. Wipe out won hands down.
 
I've been using the foaming bore cleaner alone for over a year and my accuracy dropped off a little, a month ago...hadn't really shot the rifle (DTech AR) much since last Fall...

I picked up some "Pro-Shot" copper remover and applied a ten stroke process that Mike suggests, using a nylon brush and my patches are coming clean in about six patches. I apply the "Pro-Shot" after the foaming bore cleaner and while I don't have a bore scope, I'm unable to see any signs of copper and the bore is shiner than it was before..using a very bright bore light...
 
By a long, long way, the best ever bore cleaner for getting copper out of a barrel is KG-12. I live in a no-lead zone in California and I shoot Barnes bullets exclusively. KG-12 is a water-based solvent used by the military to clean 105 and 155 howitzer bores. It can be left overnight without damaging the barrel. In tests, it removes 4 times as much copper as Sweets 7.62 without the damaging effects of ammonia (both solvents equally following Sweets 15 minute rule).
I use Hoppes on my first pass to remove general fouling. For the second pass, I soak a patch with KG-12, run it through the bore a couple of times and let it set about ten minutes. I put a little more KG-12 on a nylon brush and make 30-40 passes with it. Dry patch number one will have a lot of copper in it. Dry patch number two should be clean or all most clean. In 15 minutes or less, I have a bore completely free of copper fouling. If necessary,(and I've had to do this only once) I will repeat procedure.
 
Sweet's 762 is a great product. I use it on all my barrels that are not chrome lined.

There has been a lot of good advice given on this thread. I will say this much...I run a patch soaked with Sweet's and let it sit for ten minutes. Then I run more patches down it until they don't come out blue anymore. Then I repeat this process until the barrel is clean and no more blue or black residue comes out. This method has always worked for me.

It sounds like you may have let the barrel go too long without removing copper.

Just keep at it.

You'll get it clean. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
OK maybe, I'm not doing this right? I am running sweets soaked patches through the bore running a nylon brush through maybe 15-20 times then running another soaked patch through and letting it sit say 10-15 minutes. Then dry patches till they come out clean. Fill with foaming bore cleaner let soak 30-40 minutes run dry patches through till clean and repeat the process. I have probably put each chemical in 4-5 times a piece now. I have never stopped getting blue patches when using sweets and green when using foam. Maybe some is coming from the rod but I have a hard time believeing that all this color is from the rod only. I will admit that it probably has been 250 round since its last chemical cleaning. I usually run a bore snake through between hunts and range sessions, and clean about every 200 rounds.
 
I am no expert by any means, but I wouldn't mix chemicals in my barrel. Others may disagree and that's okay too.

I would nix the brush after the first few times. After brushing and cleaning out I just go with patches soaked with Sweets. I run a wet patch through it, then let it sit 10 minutes. Then I run another wet patch, and another. I let the solvent from my last patch sit for another ten minutes and repeat this process until it is clean.

This is just my own method, which has worked for me.
 
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