Brutal barrel-cleaning session with the Bodyguard

Took my Bodyguard 2.0 out to the desert last Sunday and put about 100 rounds through the handgun. It is a respectably reliable firearm; I shot HP and roundnose out of it with nary a hiccup. Accuracy was a different story, however as I got the ”shoots left and high” thing everyone else was seeing. I concur that the rear sight is “Grand Canyon” wide - and would replace it with something more compatible with the very good front.

I took it apart to clean it, there was little powder down the frame and into the trigger group. I ran a brush down the bore with some Hoppe’s #9 BlackStep 1 High Performance Gun Cleaner (this is the stuff that seems to have ammonia and some sudsy foaming stuff in it, not the golden Hoppes that comes in their patented easy-to-spill bottle), and I brushed with a soft oversized nylon brush my Canik TP9SF came with. This combo usually cleans most semi-automatic handgun barrels with little trouble. Carbon came out on my .30 cal bore patch, then nothing. Good. I was done, right?

Not so fast.

I noticed some sort of light concrete-colored deposit in the grooves of the rifling.it was substantial- deposits near the lands clearly were clogged with it. The cleaning had removed some in the middle. Lands were soiled with copper deposits. Clearly my approach wasn’t cutting the mustard..

I haven’t had a proper 9mm bore brush in like 5 years, because I haven’t run into a problem yet… until now. So I broke out the Big Gun - Wipeout Foaming Cleaner. I sprayed it into the bore, chuckled at the stubborn deposit and said, “Sayonara, sucker.” I left it overnight and came in this morning (I have been home since Tuesday due to being laid up AGAIN with the China Virus). I swabbed out the bore, was rewarded with some blue deposits, and saw the lands were now clean… and the bore was still stained with this light gray stuff. I took a dental pick and gently scraped the deposits- you could feel they were catching the pick and there was resistance as they were pulled up.

Now I am quite gentle with tool steel implements touching the barrel - no rough and tumble behaviors there - just enough to know whether I had a discoloration or some well-adhered paste-like deposit in the bore. The Wipe-Out hadn’t touched it.

I had one final card to play: I have some Kroil (“The Oil That Creeps”). I sprayed it in the bore and let it sit a while, came back… and finally got a fairly serious breakdown of the contaminant, which I’m now pretty sure is powder from the cartridges I purchased and fired (Specialty Cartridge Classic Match). I shared this ammo with my new Cheetah 80X, so I checked its bore and discovered very minimal powder deposits - about 10% of what I had observed in my Bodyguard 2.0 AFTER cleaning!

I’ll be receiving some fresh bronze brushes so this won’t continue to be a problem… but some parts of the bore seem rough and poorly cut for a top-line manufacturer. This seems like Smith was hurrying to get these pistols out the door in whatever state of “refinement” they could deliver the product in.

CommunismDelendaEst said:

but some parts of the bore seem rough and poorly cut for a top-line manufacturer. This seems like Smith was hurrying to get these pistols out the door in whatever state of “refinement” they could deliver the product in.

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This is a good example of why I don't care for the Smith semiauto line of handguns. The Model 41 being the exception.

Lots better options for any of the M&P line and/or Bodyguard models, IMO.

My .o2

Smith semi-autos with matte finished barrels have been a thing for a while. The EZ380 in our stable is a perfect example. I don't take any prisoners when it comes to bore cleaning, a philosophy developed from collecting milsurps. I start with the foaming bore cleaner, and it often takes two goes before the blue goes away on the patches. Another trick I use is to scrub the bore with a nylon brush before trying any cleaner, just to break up the surface to allow the cleaner to really get in there.

I observed this with my two 9mm Shields. The first gen pistol was purchased very soon after the Shield was introduced, the Plus model several years later. The barrel in the early pistol is very smooth and cleans easily in addition to being extremely accurate. The Plus barrel looks like it has been sandblasted and, while accurate, does not clean up well.

Good responses - didn’t get the “You must be some kind of a dimwit/Communist/moron!” accusations that I was predicting you get now from literally any social media post you make these days, even over such “highly controversial” topics as “I like chocolate!” and “my favorite lunch is a pulled BBQ pork sandwich.”

I like this pistol, or perhaps I want to like it. I am not sure S&W put enough attention into its manufacture or refinement to ensure I retain it. I ordered a Black Scorpion pocket holster for it late last night, and am taking it to a range today to see if I can determine if I am able to shoot it well-enough to have it make sense for me. I worry that any pistol I can’t shoot well at 15 yards may make a situation like what Eley Dicken successfully countered an impossibility. My new Beretta 80x could allow me to shoot the wings off a fly at 25 yards, it’s almost like you’re cheating. But yes, it’s a far bigger and markedly heavier firearm.

That may be the factor for me - what is the smallest firearm I can wield? Maybe it’s a CSX?

So I shot 80 rounds through the handgun today (I have written up a lengthy review, read it if your dance card isn't too full) and went to clean up the barrel this evening. I had some Iosso bore paste come in and bought a new .38/.357 brush/mop, and I sprayed the Hoppes Black into a real mudfest of a barrel. About 15 strokes with the very tight brush and endless black/gray goop surged out of the thing.


Then I attacked it with a couple of patches of the bore paste.


Then Kroil. A ring of blue gunk came out on the dry cleanout patch, then nothing. It's soaking in Wipe Out right now. It looks cleaner than the VIP bathroom at the White House now. No gray stuff, no copper, nothing. We'll see in a couple of minutes when the Wipe Out gets "wiped out."

So not a bit of residue or copper came out of the bore from the Wipe Out soak, and it is as clean a heart surgery theatre.

Gotta have the right-sized brush and an aggressive touch with a new barrel!

Standard factory gun barrels will still be rough inside after the handful of test fire rounds at the factory. I like to clean/lap any new barrel in by firing with copper jacketed factory rounds, followed by bore cleaning. For the 1st 10, it's fire 1, clean with solvent, dry patch. For the next 30 it's fire 3, clean with solvent, dry patch. For the next 50 it's fire 5, clean with solvent, dry patch. Not really that much effort if you go about in an organized way. Barrels broken in, in this manner, are thereafter easy to keep spiffy clean. It will take as few as 100 rounds or as many as 400 rounds, to break in a handgun barrel, to the point it is grouping well. My preferred bore solvent is Shooters Choice Super Formula.

I've had no luck trying to break in using lead or coated bullets.