I think Chad's correct about oiling bores. I'd suggest Hoppe's No.9 to get the Kroil out. Kroil contains petroleum distillates, and Hoppe's No.9 contains kerosene which is itself a very light oil. "Like" dissolves "like," so Hoppe's No.9 ought to do a good job of carrying the Kroil out. The question becomes how many soaks in Hoppe's will it take? I'm not sure how you'd ever tell. Then it becomes a question of getting the Hoppe's out of the bore.

I use Sweet's and Bore Tech Eliminator along with Hoppe's for my cleaning, and the Hoppe's is always the last solvent applied, followed by three dry patches. I want a light residue of Hoppe's in there for corrosion protection, but reading through this thread has me wondering whether I should douche them out with 91% isopropyl alcohol before I shoot after cleaning. Hhmmmmmmm...

That is the question how do i know its out? With copper and powder the patch will tell ya.

I was actually thinking opposite river. In the oilfield we use a surfractant to remove oil from formation/csg to prep surface for cement. So i thought same principle here might be best????

Danged good question, jorge. You forced me to learn something. Anyone got a band-aid?


The isopropyl alcohol molecule shows surfactant-like behaviors due to one hydroxyl group as the polar end and two methyl groups as the apolar end.

from this link: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jp206733b

If you have any Berrymans Chem-tool in the garage, I have found that it will remove anything oily from metal, I use it when preparing for cold blue touch-ups, etc.. Just make sure it doesn't touch anything but metal, it would be bad news on your guns finish.

When degreasing a gun try Birchwood Casey Gun Scrubber, has worked well for me and is what I use degreasing for cold bluing or on guns that have been stored a while.

Jorge, I would clean out the oil in the bore then user whipeout to clear any copper, strip it down to bare metal then go foul it up by shooting and see what she does.

One other thing, expect the Sirocco bullets to copper foul to the point accuracy drops off quicker than other bullets since they are copper not gilding metal jackets. Great hunting bullets but they will foul quicker than say an Accubond. Love on game performance on game of Siroccos though as I know you do as well from what I have read on here.

I just read msds on b12 chem tool its 85% acetone. Wifes nail polish sparingly might be a very inexpensive alternative. I read up on chemical composition and indeed would break surface tension for the kroil, question is how reactive is iy to the chromoly barrel i put it in. It has a pH of 7 so making it neutral. So in theory, it shouldnt act violently with any metal. Can anyone chemists confirm?

You guys are overthinking it. Shoot the rifle 2 or 3 or 5 times (should burn out the oil) and then clean the barrel with Shooters Choice or Butches Boreshine.

Also, brake parts cleaner is Tetrachloroethylene, which is commonly used in dry cleaning so it appears to be neutral as well. And a suitable solvent.

I am, but at what the rifle is worth erring on the side of caution and taking the time to make sure doesnt bother me.

I would run Bore Tech eliminator down it, let soak for 10 minutes, and push dry patches down it until they look white beginning to end.

Do not make any scope adjustments, hold the same point of aim, let five shots go as tight as you can shoot, measure group width and group height for shots 1-5

Cool the barrel.

Shoot shots 6 through 10, repeat the process. 11-15, repeat the process, 16-20, make notes. If it isn't shoot better, then five more shots may be necessary. If it got worse somewhere in the process then you know where accuracy comes back from a clean barrel, and you know where accuracy falls off from an "over-fouled" barrel. My .260 Rem took 20 rounds to come back to life after cleaning the barrel, but it would hold up for 400 rounds.

Every rifle has a personality, you have to learn the personality of this one.

Once upon a time, I'd have called BS when somebody said they could run 400 rounds through a barrel without cleaning, and still have it shoot good. But I must have 150 rounds through my 260, and the last 5 rounds went into the same hole. I have been forced to rethink things. That said, I can rethink till the cows come home and my 220 Swift will still have accuracy degradation before 25 rounds. Like Fireman says, learn your rifle.

So got out this morning with the 7 mag, ran 7 rds to foul barrel after getting the kroil out and what do you know. Gun is shooting even tighter. Put down 4 strings of 154sst/64.5gr 7828. Noticed slight vertical strining. Ill bump up by .3 gr increments. Thanks chad and everones insights.

Oh and same poi too

That's great to hear. I'm glad you got it behave the way you like.

Yeah. I was pulling my hair out. Funny thing the old timer shot his 223 right along side me and ran his kroil all morning. Group never opened up more than a nickel for 30-35 shots. Go figure huh.

Good to hear. So, was the old timer running Kroil every few rounds?

Yep, every 5 hed run a patch till he got powder residue out and it was a clean wet patch. Then 3 dry ones. I wont go through that hassle when i dont need too. He is doin load development on his 6.5x57 and he didnt run kroil same as his 223 and his flyers all did same thing as my 7. Changed poi significantly they all grouped well but i saw exactly what you were saying. I mentioned everything you said and he still is a kroil fan lol.

My weird lubricant preference is for 3-in-One oil. Really old-fashioned stuff that I prefer for wiping the outside surfaces down, and for small mechanisms like receiver sights, etc..

Exactly. Ok, so by him putting Kroil down the barrel nearly every shot, he's keeping a fairly consistent bore to shoot from. This is what I'm talking about. If he's a benchrest shooter, and has his methods and is only shooting 100 yards off a bench, his method can work. But it takes using Kroil every few rounds. My question is "WHY!!!!?????" If I let him shoot his rifle his way, and then gave me his rifle to shoot my way, I will out shoot his method hands down, and my ammo will be much more consistent with a much tighter extreme spread on the ammo (velocity wise).

So, yesterday I decided to get the 220 Swift and shoot a group or two - to check grouping and make sure the POI is where it needed to be. It has a 21 inch Douglas barrel and has always been a great shooter. Calm day and little wind and I shot a loose group (which I didn't measure) of something over an inch. It was ugly and non-typical of that rifle. I mentioned earlier that it tended to copper up in less than 25 or so rounds, and I suppose I've shot that much or a bit more since the last cleaning. Time to clean it. Got mucho copper and still getting copper. I may be at this a while - me and the Boretech Eliminator. When the barrel is clean, whenever that is, I'll shoot for groups again and expect 1/2 inch or so.

That 260 of mine has spoiled me. I can shoot it for what seems forever and it never fouls. The 220 is high maintenance in comparison. I should give it a girl name...

Your on to something there. I ran 25rds thru the 7 mag. Next range trip this friday will tell me if it needs a female name as well, hopefully not.

Yes, different calibers will have different amounts on how many rounds before cleaning. Faster rounds and rounds with a solid copper bullet will need more cleaning.

Charlesb has, in my opinion, explained the matter very well for most barrels.

I suppose if you kept your bore lubed with Kroil as this ol feller does, you'd get fairly consistent results, but I'd echo Chad's question: WHY?? Seems like it would be a real PITA.

I think there's some merit to it all, though. This has made me think of the things I've seen shooting .22 LR out of some relatively accurate rifles. I've tried a lot of different .22 LR ammo, and some is way more consistent than others. I always liked Federal Auto Match, it's fairly consistent and especially for the price. Wolf Match Target is almost always a consistent performer and IMO can't be beat for the price. The thing about the Wolf ammo is that the bullets are lubed with something that tends to get all over the place, and that kind of puts me off as far as use in the field goes (never mind the lower velocities and diminished killing power, presumably). But still, it's great ammo for punching paper targets. Anyway, what I noticed was that after shooting 20 or 30 rounds of the Wolf, just about any other ammo will shoot great for several rounds---maybe five, or ten shots, then that ammo's typical accuracy will start showing itself again. It's that Wolf lube in the bore. So, that's my point. Lube can be beneficial in some cases. I'm not going to be trying it in my 6-284 anytime soon, though.