I figured it out...

[Coues Sniper]

Well, recently I posted about my hunt in Mexico and how my rifle pretty much sprayed bullets like a shotgun all around the deer I killed. I hit him 3 times out of, well let’s just say more than 3 shots, and had to switch to the old man’s gun and then proceeded to put one right in the crease at 475 first shot. I couldn’t understand it as my gun had shot so well up till then. Dumbfounded, I started playing around with the gun trying to figure out what the deal was once we got back. It shot all over the place. I’d be 14” low one shot (at 400) and dead nuts in the bull the next. At first I blamed it on a slightly loose brake and the new factory loads I was shooting as my old handloads still shot fairly well. But I kept tinkering and soon the handloads shot like garbage. I had less than a week to go till my next hunt, and I was pretty freaked out as I was holding about a 2 minute group, at best, and the zero seemed to switch every time I cleaned her. Finally, I had enough and went to a Gunsmith here in town that a friend recommended. He did the once over on her, took the scope off, cleaned the rings, made sure all the screws were tightened to specs, the works. He spent about an hour checking her out. Then he asked “when was the last time you cleaned it?” I told him just about 30 minutes ago as I had shot about 9 times that morning. He says “just for kicks let’s run a few patches thru and rule out the easy stuff first.” He slowly ran a patch thru and it had a touch of blue. The 2nd had even more. Then patch after patch came out blue. It took about 20 before the blue was gone. Now, I thought I was pretty anal about cleaning my rifle; I always used my Sweet’s and never really let her get dirty (about 12 shots is my max), but apparently I was doing a crappy job because here are these 20 blue patches thru my rifle. We then walked over to his indoor 100 yard range and shot a few times, and she shot really well. I really hoped that was it, but the real test would be when I took her out to 400 yards the next morning. I went home and decided to spend as much time as it took to get her as clean as I could. I followed the same method the smith did and slowly pushed soaking wet patches of Sweets thru the tube, and by the time I had a clean patch there was a pile of at least 50 patches. I spent another 20 getting powder residue out and making sure it was spotless and the Sweets was gone. I couldn’t believe it. I guess I just was going too fast and never let the Sweets do it’s work. I usually run about 4 wet patches thru and then a nylon brush about 15 times and then patches again till it was clean, usually 10 to 15. That wasn’t cutting it obviously. The next day I went out and got her dialed at 400 which took about 6 shots and then shot about a 2” 3 shot group. Sweet! That was all I had time for as I had to get to work. So I went out again this morning with the intent to shoot out to 700. After one fouling shot I shot the gong at 400 – touching the bull, nice! Backed up to 500 and shot again – almost dead center of the bull and touching my shot from 400. Backed up to 600 – great up and down and about 3” left but I had expected that as the wind kicked up just a touch. Had time for one more so I went to 700 and shot about 7” low. I’ll probably shoot once more to verify all that and see if the 700 yard shot was me or if I need to add a few clicks, but I feel pretty confident that the problem is solved. The gun was just dirty. I don’t know if the factory loads I was shooting were fouling the barrel more than my handloads (I had just started to shoot the factory loads a couple months ago) or what. Anyhow, I am relieved to say the least. Thanks for reading that whole mess, maybe some can learn from my dumb mistake.

 

And if you’re in Vegas and need a good ‘smith, Matt Babb over at Bentwood is about the nicest guy you’d ever want to meet, and really seems to know his stuff. He even taught my wife how to shoot a pistol while we let my barrel cool between strings. By the time we left she shot about a 2” group with a Glock 19 and had never shot a pistol before (I don’t own one). He spent about 3 hours with us total. He got a customer for life for certain.

[Browning'sCustomMeat]

Thats great Kevin, glad you got it figured out. Happy Shooting!

 

-Jeremy-

[CouesWhitetail]

Thanks for filling us in and glad you seem to have it figured out! I guess I better triple clean my gun the next time too!

 

Amanda

 

[longshooter]

Glad you got it figured out dude in time for your hunt..

[jeepers creepers]

Great story/info. Thanks!

 

 

I think I NEED to go clean my GUNS!!!!

[Coues 'n' Sheep]

Great story/info. Thanks!

 

 

I think I NEED to go clean my GUNS!!!!

 

 

+1!!!!

 

 

Glad you got her straight, Kevin!

[azhuntnut]

I have had very good results using Butchs Bore Shine on all of my barrels for about the last ten years. I like to really soak the barrel and then start running wet patches. It has turned good barrels into great ones. David

[TAM]

Good deal!

[audsley]

I found this very interesting, Couessniper, because I clean guns about the same way you do. I'm fairly quick about it.

 

I have a bottle of Hoppes BenchRest copper solvent. This stuff is strictly for copper, and I've taken guns that seemed to be clean and run this stuff through only to get deep blue on the patch. I asked someone about the need for special copper solvent and was told it's not necessary as long as you're using something like Sweets or Barnes CR-10 that also attacks copper. But I'm thinking I'll keep using the Hoppes copper solvent just to check myself. If I'm still finding blue with the copper solvent, that probably means I'm leaving power residue as well.

 

The only shooting task I dislike more than trimming cases is cleaning bores, but it's important to do it well.

[billrquimby]

Hate to say it, but a bore fouled only with residue powder and copper would not result in the wild misses you described. It was the goop you left in the bore after excessively (obsesssively? ) cleaning it. Modern non-corrosive primers and smokeless powder do not require that you clean a bore after every few shots.

 

My favorite rifle is a 7 mm Rem Mag on a Mauser action that I stocked myself. I've probably fired 300-400 rounds through it, developing loads, checking zero and taking at least 50 animals with it in North America, Africa and Asia. I have never once run a patch through that rifle and I still can shoot 1-inch groups with it.

 

I'm happy with any rifle I own if it will give me minute of animal in the field under hunting conditions.

 

Bill Quimby

[shortpants]

Thanks for sharing. I learned the hard way as well.

[SO I HUNT]

Thanks for your story, I'm sure we all have learned something from this and can use something from it next time we are cleaning a gun

[Coues Sniper]

Hate to say it, but a bore fouled only with residue powder and copper would not result in the wild misses you described. It was the goop you left in the bore after excessively (obsesssively? ) cleaning it. Modern non-corrosive primers and smokeless powder do not require that you clean a bore after every few shots.

 

My favorite rifle is a 7 mm Rem Mag on a Mauser action that I stocked myself. I've probably fired 300-400 rounds through it, developing loads, checking zero and taking at least 50 animals with it in North America, Africa and Asia. I have never once run a patch through that rifle and I still can shoot 1-inch groups with it.

 

I'm happy with any rifle I own if it will give me minute of animal in the field under hunting conditions.

 

Bill Quimby

 

Bill,

 

I have read many of your posts and greatly respect your opinion, but I disagree with you on this one. When I was cleaning the rifle I was very careful to never leave "goop" in the barrel after my "excessive" ( ) cleaning, and MANY smiths and shooters that I have tried to glean as much info as I possibly can from about shooting have told me that a fouled barrel will do EXACTLY what happened to me. And after all, the gun shot like crap, we cleaned it properly, and it then shot just like it did when I first got it. What else could it possibly have been? I have friends that have stories like the one you described with your 7mm, but they are the exception rather than the rule. Just another small point - I shoot out of the back of my truck when I shoot long range. I lay in the back of the truck with the gun on a bipod on the tailgate. The gun is also braked. There is a LARGE (16"diameter) area stained with residue from the powder escaping from the brake. This is just from the 30 or so rounds put thru her trying to figure out what was happening. (I do clean the truck every once in a while as well ) If you run your finger over it, the tip of your finger turns black and you can feel the residue if you rub your finger tips together. Obviously, this very same residue is building up in the barrel as well if not removed. How could this residue (not to mention copper build up in the rifling) not affect bullet flight??? The conditions would not be consistent, therefore it would seem to reason bullet flight wouldn't be either.

 

Also, how old is your 7mm? Thanks

 

Kevin

[billrquimby]

Hate to say it, but a bore fouled only with residue powder and copper would not result in the wild misses you described. It was the goop you left in the bore after excessively (obsesssively? ) cleaning it. Modern non-corrosive primers and smokeless powder do not require that you clean a bore after every few shots.

 

My favorite rifle is a 7 mm Rem Mag on a Mauser action that I stocked myself. I've probably fired 300-400 rounds through it, developing loads, checking zero and taking at least 50 animals with it in North America, Africa and Asia. I have never once run a patch through that rifle and I still can shoot 1-inch groups with it.

 

I'm happy with any rifle I own if it will give me minute of animal in the field under hunting conditions.

 

Bill Quimby

 

Bill,

 

I have read many of your posts and greatly respect your opinion, but I disagree with you on this one. When I was cleaning the rifle I was very careful to never leave "goop" in the barrel after my "excessive" ( ) cleaning, and MANY smiths and shooters that I have tried to glean as much info as I possibly can from about shooting have told me that a fouled barrel will do EXACTLY what happened to me. And after all, the gun shot like crap, we cleaned it properly, and it then shot just like it did when I first got it. What else could it possibly have been? I have friends that have stories like the one you described with your 7mm, but they are the exception rather than the rule. Just another small point - I shoot out of the back of my truck when I shoot long range. I lay in the back of the truck with the gun on a bipod on the tailgate. The gun is also braked. There is a LARGE (16"diameter) area stained with residue from the powder escaping from the brake. This is just from the 30 or so rounds put thru her trying to figure out what was happening. (I do clean the truck every once in a while as well ) If you run your finger over it, the tip of your finger turns black and you can feel the residue if you rub your finger tips together. Obviously, this very same residue is building up in the barrel as well if not removed. How could this residue (not to mention copper build up in the rifling) not affect bullet flight??? The conditions would not be consistent, therefore it would seem to reason bullet flight wouldn't be either.

 

Also, how old is your 7mm? Thanks

 

Kevin

 

Hi Kevin:

 

It's been a part of me for so long that it's hard to remember exactly how old that rifle is. As best I can figure, it's 33 to 35 years old.

 

I may have been a tad conservative in saying it had killed 50 animals. Most of my out-of-state and overseas hunting took place from 1983 to 1999, and that rifle went all over the USA, plus to Canada, Mongolia, Spain and five countries in Africa, where it took up to a dozen animals per trip down there. It looks like it's been through both World Wars and a couple of John Wayne movies, but it continues to do whatever it is asked to do.

 

My only experience in hunting with a muzzle brake was with the .416 Weatherby Magnum the Weatherby company loaned me for the lion that appears with my posts so I don't know much about them. It could be your brake had something to do with those way-off-target misses you had. Or it could be barrel bedding or loose action screws ... or something else. My experience with my 7 Mag and other rifles tells me that a barrel fouled from only a dozen or so shots does not cause a rifle to suddenly shoot 14 inches off point of aim and as erratically as you described.

 

We used to compete in 20-round and 40-round metalica silueta matches in northern Sonora in the late 1960s. Shooters were not allowed to touch their rifles except to shoot. Consequently, nobody cleaned their bores between shots, even though we were shooting offhand at targets 200 to 500 meters away. With pre-match practice shots, we typically fired 30 to 50 rounds every day we competed. If barrel fouling affected accuracy as much as you described, the 500-meter borregos would have been impossible to hit.

 

The only time I've ever seen a rifle suddenly go haywire as yours did was when my .270's barrel gave out after firing maybe 2,000 rounds in those matches. In the course of perhaps 75-100 rounds, it suddenly went from shooting 0.75- to 1.5-inch groups to shooting all over the place. The gunsmith who replaced that barrel sawed its chamber open and showed me how the first two or three inches in front of the throat had been burned away.

 

Incidentally, SCI founder C.J. McElroy used only two "smallbore" rifles -- a .300 Weatherby Magnum and a 7 mm Remington Magnum -- to take more than 325 record-book animals on six continents during his long hunting career. (He used a .458 Winchester Magnum for elephants, rhinos and tigers.) He also never cleaned the bores of his rifles. The only time I saw him shoot was in Zambia, when he borrowed my 7 Mag and hit a running defassa waterbuck three out of five shots at more than 250 yards. He celebrated his 81st birthday on that hunt, and that waterbuck was the last animal he killed before he died a few years later.

 

Bill Quimby

[Coues Sniper]

Thanks for the info Bill. I think I realize now that we were talking about two different things . I didn't mean to infer that I thought the rifle was fouling after only a dozen or so shots. What I was trying to say was after the 200+ shots down the tube and my consistent ineffective cleaning the rifle had become fouled. I wasn't letting the solvent do it's work and the copper kept building up until it got to a point where it affected my accuracy. That and the brake was a bit loose as well which probably threw the harmonics a little haywire, but accuracy was inconsistent even after I fixed the brake. The reason i asked how old your rifle was is because I have been told the barrel makers are getting tighter and tighter on tolerances and fouling is affecting newer barrels more. I'm not 100% sold on that one, but it does make a bit of sense. Also, if you have a very high quality barrel that has been well lapped with a clean throat (I would imagine you do ) it will foul less. (Less reamer marks to create the copper dust and vapor. Even the rifling process has an effect on how much copper fouling is created.) Also, good quality hunting bullets that have pure copper jackets to control expansion will tend to foul more than match type bullets. Barnes bullets for example have a very bad reputation for copper fouling. I was using Noslers and Scirocco's, but plan on playing with Bergers this Spring. Again, thanks for your input and information Bill. I appreciate it. And I wish you further succes with that 7mm of yours. I bet that thing could tell some stories