I noticed while inspecting my brand new pistol there was some brown in the barrel. it seems to be in a pattern of the rifling. It is not in the lower grooves but in the higher (raised) grooves. The pistol is brand new and the test bullet in the box is only from 11/2010. ran a boresnake through with some cleaner but it didn't seem to do a whole lot. so is this rust? or some other problem? does it go away with shooting or does it need to be addressed immediately? if it is simply cosmetic is it nothing to worry about? this is my first pistol so a little worried.


had to overexpose to make it show up better.

Are you sure it isn't copper?

Grim,

I'd give it a thorough "rogering" with hoppe's #9 and a brass/bronze bore brush, then patches 'til they came out clean. Then call it good-to-go and shoot it/repeat.

Boresnakes are good products, I often use them before leaving the range, but they do not replace (in my estimation) brushes and patches - especially for cleaning a new gun prior to shooting it for the first time.

Mike

Yes, that's likely copper from the factory test fire. Nothing to worry about.

that is good news everyone, thanks. i have Mpro 7 which i believe to be nearly identical to hoppes 9, I will try that. Don't want to get too crazy with the rough brushes if it isn't a dire thing to remove, though.

also found it funny that xd's have this exact same problem. strange.
http://www.xdtalk.com/forums/rusty-t...rrel-rust.html

Not sure why you are calling it a "problem". It's copper from test firing. Any gun that is fired with copper jacketed ammo will show the same fouling.

There is NO NEED to remove the copper from the barrel unless and until it gets so bad the weapon is wildly inaccurate. Copper "fouling" is largely self limiting and any you remove tonight will be right back there as soon as you fire the pistol in the morning. Scouring the barrel with harsh chemicals and brushes is probably more harmful than shooting the pistol.

Copper fouling used to be a problem. Note the past tense. Waaaaay past tense! When corrosive primers were normal the copper would literally plate over the corrosive salts from the primer. Barrel still looked good until the fouling started flaking off as the corrosive salts ate the barrel steel underneath the copper and left large pits.

Corrosive primers haven't been used in US commercial pistol ammo since before WW2 (anyone here alive then?) and the last loading of USGI ammo with corrosive primers was circa 1952 in .30 M2 Ball (AKA .30-06). Before this time it was paramount to get rid of the fouling -- and basic training drill sergeants still use this as an attention-to-detail training tool. Ain't necessary.

Couple this with chrome plated borea and there's even less necessity.

CLP and a bore snake is all ya need.

The only reason there are so many powder and copper solvents on the gun shop shelves is merely because folks will buy them. Even they're largely useless a gun shop has to make money to stay in business. So they ain't explaining now needless the removal of copper "fouling" is.

-- Chuck

lots of good info there. turns out I jumped the gun a bit, ran the boresnake back through about 4-5 times and it was all gone. once just wasn't enough for it.