I remember seeing an Erik Cortina video interviewing a benchrest legend who made some comment to the effect of "we buy Iosso by the case."
It got me thinking-- if the most stringent of all accuracy disciplines in rifle shooting is embracing abrasive bore pastes, then what am I so afraid of? I ordered a coupe tubes of IOSSO to try out for myself. It only took a couple cleanings for me to be a complete convert.
But how abrasive are they? Well, I decided to test for myself by putting some on a Dremel felt wheel and going to town on the outside of a section of old stainless barrel. Sure enough, after 30 seconds at 30,000rpm, you could certainly see a shiny spot where the surface had been polished. The felt wheel was black, just like I'd used some Mother's mag wheel polish or Brasso or Semichrome or a similar paste polish.
But the surface appearance was the only thing you could notice. There was no measurable DIMENSIONAL change I could detect with my caliper (resolution: 0.0005")
Now, those 15,000 revolutions of the felt dremel wheel are many, many times more abrasive passes than you will ever put on a rifle barrel. Even if you clean every 100 rounds and did 15 strokes per cleaning, you'd to fire 100,000 rounds to get your bore as "polished" as my test patch. Your barrel will not have any issues due to cleaning habits at 100k rounds.
Moreover, the gentle "polishing" effect of the bore pastes can help maintain the bore in good condition and reduce fire cracking in the throat (cracking tends to feed on itself).
In my experience since I switch to IOSSO, cleaning takes less time and is more effective with less hazardous chemical contact involved. Instead of a million strokes with a brush hoping to get the bore clean, it's faster and less work with the bore paste. Here's my process now:
1) wet patch with CLP. Let soak.
2) Dry patch it out
3) Bore paste on a clean patch, repeat until you can feel smoothness on your cleaning rod. Typically this is 2-3 paste patches.
4) Wet patch with CLP
5) Dry patch it all out. GTG for next time.
I do not use a particular copper remover, nor do I try to remove all copper (I'm striving for "copper equilibrium" which makes a perfectly clean barrel with zero copper a bad idea since your first shots will be re-coppering and you'll see some POI shift).
I was previously using solvent for the "Wet" patches, but I found that a no odor CLP like G96 works as well without the risk of damage to finishes. Plus I like that the CLP leaves a slight oil film remaining-- this is especially nice on carbon steel barrels that will rust.
I have no affiliation with IOSSO beyond being a happy customer of their paste and brushes. I assume JB bore paste (the blue lettering, NOT the red lettering) is essentially interchangeable and works equally well.
Happy cleaning.
It got me thinking-- if the most stringent of all accuracy disciplines in rifle shooting is embracing abrasive bore pastes, then what am I so afraid of? I ordered a coupe tubes of IOSSO to try out for myself. It only took a couple cleanings for me to be a complete convert.
But how abrasive are they? Well, I decided to test for myself by putting some on a Dremel felt wheel and going to town on the outside of a section of old stainless barrel. Sure enough, after 30 seconds at 30,000rpm, you could certainly see a shiny spot where the surface had been polished. The felt wheel was black, just like I'd used some Mother's mag wheel polish or Brasso or Semichrome or a similar paste polish.
But the surface appearance was the only thing you could notice. There was no measurable DIMENSIONAL change I could detect with my caliper (resolution: 0.0005")
Now, those 15,000 revolutions of the felt dremel wheel are many, many times more abrasive passes than you will ever put on a rifle barrel. Even if you clean every 100 rounds and did 15 strokes per cleaning, you'd to fire 100,000 rounds to get your bore as "polished" as my test patch. Your barrel will not have any issues due to cleaning habits at 100k rounds.
Moreover, the gentle "polishing" effect of the bore pastes can help maintain the bore in good condition and reduce fire cracking in the throat (cracking tends to feed on itself).
In my experience since I switch to IOSSO, cleaning takes less time and is more effective with less hazardous chemical contact involved. Instead of a million strokes with a brush hoping to get the bore clean, it's faster and less work with the bore paste. Here's my process now:
1) wet patch with CLP. Let soak.
2) Dry patch it out
3) Bore paste on a clean patch, repeat until you can feel smoothness on your cleaning rod. Typically this is 2-3 paste patches.
4) Wet patch with CLP
5) Dry patch it all out. GTG for next time.
I do not use a particular copper remover, nor do I try to remove all copper (I'm striving for "copper equilibrium" which makes a perfectly clean barrel with zero copper a bad idea since your first shots will be re-coppering and you'll see some POI shift).
I was previously using solvent for the "Wet" patches, but I found that a no odor CLP like G96 works as well without the risk of damage to finishes. Plus I like that the CLP leaves a slight oil film remaining-- this is especially nice on carbon steel barrels that will rust.
I have no affiliation with IOSSO beyond being a happy customer of their paste and brushes. I assume JB bore paste (the blue lettering, NOT the red lettering) is essentially interchangeable and works equally well.
Happy cleaning.
