Camera: Teslong Professional Borescope. Available
on Amazon.
A (C) [Carbon] cleaning is 25 down/back strokes with nylon brush
and KG1, followed by (usually 2-4) dry patches, followed by MILTECH-1
oil scrub.
A (Cu) [Copper] cleaning is 25 down/back strokes with bronze brush
and KG12, followed by dry and wet patches, followed by MILTECH-1 oil
scrub.
A deep (Cu) cleaning will be KG2 bore polish or Montana Extreme Copper
Creme on tight patches 25 down/back strokes each, followed by an oil
scrub or brake cleaner flush to neutralize the active ingredients and
flush out the abrasives.
Cleaning rods are all either Carbon fiber, or coated steel (my preference is Gunslick Carbon), using correctly sized jags, patches, and nylon or bronze brushes as noted. The cleaning rod carries a lot of the solvent/loose material and is wiped down on a rag whenever it is removed from the bore. During the 25 repetitions the rod is not removed and the brush is allowed to fully exit the muzzle before the return trip.
A correctly sized Possum Hollow bore guide is used except when cleaning the chamber and locking lugs.
Great care is taken to ensure the crown of the muzzle is not damaged.
Storage:
Rifles are stored muzzle up, bolt closed. The location is in the
desert, humidity rarely exceeds 35%, and even on rainy days the humidity
in the shop never exceeds that number. The storage location is
insulated and temperature controlled to between 55-80.
AR's are stored horizontally, bolt open.
Barrel survey is a video record of the length of the barrel usually
from chamber to muzzle.
As the operator, I may seek out features as they appear. The
flexibility of the camera hardware makes precision distance and angle
recording impossible, so return-to-feature is impossible. To
compensate, video can be frozen and analyzed as stills or
frame-by-frame.
Searching during a survey consists of watching the area around the
mirror, as well as the image reflected in the mirror. Rotating and
'hunting' back and forth to pause momentarily on items of interest,
provides the opportunity to pause playback and/or create a screen shot.
Case neck, leade, bore and muzzle are areas of interest in the survey.
Initial Survey - Rifle as been cleaned. Primary interest is in
chamber alignment.
Below is a snapshot of the gas port.
This rifle was the last one that Russ Haydon blueprinted.
Russ threaded and installed a Shilen Heavy Varmint 30 caliber barrel,
and hand chambered it using his 308 WIN piloted match reamer.
Initial Condition & Survey:
This rifle was (C)+(Cu) cleaned, stored muzzle up in the rack for about
four years.
Two years ago, I fired a few rounds at the range and returned it to the
rack.
Some of the 'artifacts' looked a lot like stress cracks!
What makes me think there could be a stress crack?
Well, during load development, I inadvertently put 175 SMK's into cases
loaded with my 168 SMK Varget charge.
It didn't take long for me to figure out there was a problem! In
fact, at the time I was worried that I might have permanently damaged
the barrel.
However, subsequent use has shown the barrel still shoots into about
0.3-0.4 MOA consistently.
The barrel received a (C) cleaning, and here is the result.
Now that the barrel is shiny inside, the heat checking is nearly
impossible to see.
All of the 'gunk' has disappeared, and very little Carbon, and no Copper
are obvious.
Initial survey - Rifle has been cleaned, stored muzzle up for about 18
months.
Initial Survey - Rifle was Carbon (C) cleaned with KG1 and left
standing muzzle up, bolt closed for about 10 months.
The rifle was given another Carbon (C) cleaning followed by two more Carbon (C) Cleanings.
This is the 'patch sequence' from left to right.
The first 5 patches are from the second Carbon (C) cleaning.
The next 6 patches are from the first Copper (Cu) cleaning.
Patch #6 was a KG4 oil scrub.
Patch #9 was a KG12 Cu scrub.
KG1 was applied in 25 down/back strokes of a nylon brush.
KG12 was applied in 50 down/back strokes of a bronze brush.
This is the initial barrel survey from muzzle to chamber.
There was so much fouling of both Carbon and Copper that it was very difficult to run the camera down the bore.
This barrel was supposed to be a sub-MOA shooter.
It consistently came in at 2.0 MOA with everything from match ammo to GI
issue to carefully assembled hand loads.
When I finally got frustrated enough, I cast the chamber and discovered
the reamer appeared to have been about ... wait for it ...
2 MOA off co-linear to the bore at the origin of the rifling.
The Proof barrel is it's replacement, but that's a story of another page
... (coming soon I hope!)
This barrel was cleaned before it was decommissioned. It was not cleaned for this survey.