UPDATED: Need Some Help.....Problem was 39 SBK's!!

[Rick in Oregon]

jo191145: Was not aware of Skipper having the carbon ring problem, but then he's terrified to put a bronze brush into his barrel. I'm not sure why, but bronze is alot softer than barrel steel, and all my barrels still seem to shoot well after a good many years and varmint seasons, but that's his call.

During the heat of our sessions shooting Skippy, I/we usually clean after 30 rounds while in the field. It gives the barrel time to cool, and never builds up much fouling that way. I have one box of 100 39 SBK's coated with WS2, but have not shot them yet, as I would need to totally scrub the barrel "new clean" before putting them down range. Maybe I'll experiment this year with them. I shoot naked bullets in all three of my 204's so far, and really don't want to change.

When shooting my 223's and 223AI, and my 243AI, I always use WS2 bullets, and have never seen any degregation in accuracy in the field, even after going 80 shots with the 223AI, and up to 50 with the 243AI. You're right though, it's a black gooey mess when you do finally clean it, but that's to be expected considering you're shooting coated bullets.

I'm fairly certain I'll stick to naked bullets in the 204, as all those barrels seem to clean right up without any real fuss.

BCB: Have not heard of anyone shooting the stuff. Is there a trade name applied to it, or just the chemical name colloidal graphite?

[Bayou City Boy]

jo191145: ...........BCB: Have not heard of anyone shooting the stuff. Is there a trade name applied to it, or just the chemical name colloidal graphite?

Various BR shooters have used it for years to close up groups (first shot with rest of group) and it also greatly assists in barrel cleaning/copper fouling to fire a bullet down a clean barrel coated with CG as a last step in cleaning. Do some "Googling" and you'll find lots of reading...

For a current day application if you need one, Google Greg Tannel's web site and see if he has any barrel break-in/cleaning applications or instructions. He does.... Any barrel job from Greg typically comes with a bottle of colloidal graphite.

Most hand lapped custom barrels are not going to copper foul simply because of their quality to begin with. Factory barrels that tend to copper foul however can become a lot easier to clean if colloidal graphite is used as part of the cleaning process. I use CG in all my barrels irregardless of whether they are custom or factory.

The most readily available form of CG is Lock-Eze....the lock lubricant available at most hardware stores. You can buy more highly refined CG (smaller microscopic granules), but Lock-Eze has worked for me for years.

When I am done cleaning a rifle barrel, I pass a patch saturated in Lock-Eze down the barrel, leave the barrel sitting muzzle down for 15-20 minutes to allow for the liquid carrier in the CG to evaporate and then I run a clean patch down the barrel to remove any excess CG. This leaves just an extremely thin layer of graphite in the barrel for the first shot down the tube. Next I put the gun back in a gun safe.

Not only does Lock-Eze provide a nice lubricating surface for the first bullet to pass down a clean bore with no metal to metal contact, but it also works as a very fine barrel preservative. I live in the Gulf Coast area of Texas and I have never put oil down a clean barrel for storage since I began using Lock-Eze probably 20 years ago.

-BCB

[Rick in Oregon]

BCB: Excellent tip, and I thank you sir. It also avoids the hassle and mess of coating bullets it appears. Lock-Eze is available here, and I'll be trying it in my barrels this season.

See.....an old dog just learned a new trick!

[MuleyTime]

Lock-Ez.....I may have to try that one. However, what if my problem is not due to copper, but to powder residue. Will this CG treatment still be affective on powder residue?

[Bayou City Boy]

Colloidal graphite is not a cleaner of any type... It will help keep a barrel cleaner however by laying down a protective coating on the barrel steel for the first few shots through a clean barrel.

You use it after a barrel is clean and dry as a last step preparation for the next shooting session. It helps keep fouling in a barrel at a minimum, especially copper fouling, but I have found all barrels clean up easier and faster (both copper and powder) with CG in the bore for the first few shots.... And as I stated earlier, it works in both custom and factory barrels.

I have shot 17 caliber rifles for years and CG in the bore extends the time between cleanings significantly. I have gone as long as 150 rounds through a factory Reminton 17 Rem barrel shooting PD's and never saw a decline in accuracy. And the barrel cleaned up very quickly.

As an aside,to the earlier discussions, someone who is afraid to use a good quality copper brush with good powder and copper solvents in a barrel is asking for problems down the road and will have a heck of a time getting both the powder fouling and the copper fouling out of a barrel after it has become as hard as ceramic due to heat and pressure.

-BCB

[jo191145]

BCB

Lock Ease is what I use to break in unlapped factory tubes. Or any barrel that wants to copper. (I believe we've had this conversation already)

I use it very liberally for break in. And I thought I stumbled onto this procedure all on my own sort of.
I was aware BR shooters use it otherwise I would not have bought it when I finally found it in a store.

Skipper no longer spares the brush last I heard. I'm quilty of the same thing. My first Kreiger barrel seemed to clean up so easy I did not bother using a brush at first. After a while I could tell I was not getting it clean.
I can skip the brush on it for a few cleanings but eventually one needs to scrub the throat a little. Easier to just use a brush everytime to make sure.

Rick Just my opinion but the black gooey mess is from the powder not the WS2. Or at least a mix of the two.
My old addage for high velocity factory barrels is use a clean burning powder with WS2 or a sootier powder with naked pills if the bore requires it.
I've gone over 400rds with Benchmark and WS2 coated pills and the bore cleaned right up in a smoothed up 204 Sav.
I've gone over 200rds in my 6BR with WS2 and N-133.
I do lose a touch of accuracy over a clean barrel but I seem to gain a little long term consistency with a fully fouled barrel.
I cannot recall mixing 10X with WS2 but R-15 really was a mess. I've shot a whole slew of whole slew of Win748 (considered dirty) and WS2 and never had a greasy goo.
If you can clean every 30-50 it probably does'nt matter.

[Bayou City Boy]

BCB

Lock Ease is what I use to break in unlapped factory tubes. Or any barrel that wants to copper. (I believe we've had this conversation already)

I use it very liberally for break in. And I thought I stumbled onto this procedure all on my own sort of.
I was aware BR shooters use it otherwise I would not have bought it when I finally found it in a store.

I first heard about using colloidal graphite in the early 1980's while living in West Texas - in the Midland/Odessa area. Jeff Fowler had a BR shooting supply house between the two towns and I heard about it while in there one time. I tried it and it had an immediate impact on the factory 17 Remington barrel that I mentioned. Remington was not turning out too many good barrels in 17 caliber back then (most fouled quite a bit), and it improved its performance significantly. Since then, I've kinda' used 150 shots through a 17 barrel as a barometer for when to think about cleaning when in a PD town. Better barrels today give better results.

Truth is...in the early 1980's no one was turning out consistently good quality barrels in 17 caliber... I also got involved in 20 caliber rifles at roughly the same time while living out there. Back then, today's "new" 20 Practical was called a 5MM-223...

-BCB

[Hawkeye Joe]

Here's what my Savage did with 10X and 39 grain BK's in the PD postal shoot at 200 yards. Haven't tried it since. Still not sure what happened . The groups were shot from top to bottom.

[MuleyTime]

Well....I tried a lot of things mostly cleaning the crap out of the barrel. MY conclusion is that I got a BAD barrel. It would shoot very tight the first two or three rounds (mostly two) and then get so bad it was scary. Example....I decided to setup a steel target at 200 yards and after a good cleaning, the first two shots were dead nuts on. The third I saw hit in the snow about 2 feet high and at least 2 feet to the right!!

I called Savage and after long conversations, they are working with me to get it replaced.

I got thinking about how hard I wanted to try to resolve this issue on my own (which I did put a lot of time and money into it) and you know, even if this barrel would shoot great for 10 rounds without cleaning I would still consider it a bust, and I would send it down the road. I have a coyote tournament at the end of the month and there are just too good of factory guns out there to be dealing with this any longer. I was going to trade it in or sell it and go grab a new one off the shelf, but then Savage started to come through and offered me a replacement. I will keep you posted

To be continued.........

[jo191145]

The one bad barrel I got from Savage would shoot the first 2-3 rds within .2" inches at two hundred yards.
It would then begin walking to the right one bullet at a time but still touching for another five or so then go crazy. At its worst it was 2.5 moa which is totally unexceptable.

With lots of work and expierimenting it would shoot up to but not always ten rds at .25moa at 200 and then go nuts. Still not good enough for my needs but it was potentially the most accurate barrel I ever had.

To get one 2 feet high and two feet to the right its most likely not the barrels full fault. You have a tube that will not shoot the 39 bk's.
Join the club. I've never had a Sav tube that would digest them properly. I've had so much trouble with them over the years I have never trusted them enough to shoot them in competition. I've never trusted any 204 bullet enough to shoot in comp unless it was made by Berger.

I've seen tumbling,jacket separtion and blow ups with the bk's in four different barrels. These are the only explanations for bullets veering off two feet.
Yes the tube is partially to blame I'm sure. The chances your new one will be any better are slim in my expierience. Keeping the velocitys low helps greatly. I'm not particularily fond of low velocitys in the 204.
Even when I find a load that shoots the bk's well in a Sav tube I always find a Berger load thats much more accurate and faster.

What other pills have you tried?
For my own personal edification. Is this a chrome moly barrel or stainless steel?

Accuracy comes in a yellow box. Berger

[MuleyTime]

jo191145- You're a life saver! I have to admit, I was calling BS on my problem being the 39gr SBK when I read your post last night. However, I woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat thinking about it. I had tried the Berger 35 with the same results, so I thought. But what woke me up is I realized that I never tried the Bergers after it started tumbling. So this morning I loaded some Bergers and off to the range I went.

WOW.....no tumbling and good groups for 20 rounds (that's all that I loaded up for the test)!! I even setup my 10 inch steel plate at 300, 400 and 500 yards. Shooting 2 shots at each distance...I went 6 for 6 all without one patch down the barrel!! I was having so much fun with the distance shooting that I wished I had loaded up 20 more.

I am still completely in amazement that the problem ended up being the fact that my barrel just absolutely hates the 39 SBK. Maybe the fact that the Predator only has a 22" barrel.....that with a twist rate factor....... might be the reason. Are there any other Savage Predator shooters out there that have witnessed this? There just has to be...... Anyway, if you have a Savage Predator, beware the 39 gr SBK!!!!

I have never seen a rifle act such a way with a hated bullet. I can understand not grouping good, but tumbling and not even being able to hit a 16X16 sheet of paper at 100 yard is incredible....

Anyway...all is well, thanks jo191145 for embedding that thought in my mind.

[jo191145]

Calm down Muley

What it comes down to is this. The bk's are the most fragile 204 bullet on the market.
Heres some homework. Get two beefy pliers and bend a Sbk in half. Now try that with a Berger or any other 204 bullet you have on hand and you'll instantly see the difference.

So for some reason the bk's are tumbling. (I've seen plenty of that myself) I'm willing to bet a 40 v-max or any other long for caliber bullet would not tumble. (I've never seen one)
Therefore its not the twist thats the culprit but jacket strength. IMO all factory tubes should be an 11 twist as opposed to the normal 12 twist everyone offers.

So why the bk's? I conclude it comes down to the lightweight jacket as I've seen it with the 32bk's also.
Normally I blame it on copper fouling or carbon rings obturating the jacket past its structural design . Throat erosion or new chamber burrs could also be a culprit.
It just occured to me tonight the long jump to the lands could easily be the culprit. Or a mix of all three.

Any way we found a bullet that will work for now. That should get you through the Coyote Tournament with your present rig as is. I know what its like for a load to go south just before a comp. My 200 yd p-dog target looks worse than Hawkeyes Thats the day tube #4 decided it would no longer shoot 40 Bergers into little holes and it never has since It now shoots the 35's pretty well but hated them when it was new.

Stick with what works for now and kill some yotes. (the 35 Berg is great yote medicine by the way)
Once the pressures off you can play with different powders,primers and bullets or send it back to Savage.

If it were me I'd order a bead blasted McGowen 11 twist 24" long in magnum contour. All chambered up and ready to screw on. Love that barrel nut You can paint a bead blasted easier I imagine.
I just bought one they made for a customer who changed their mind for cheap. It was shooting 40V-max .5moa while fireforming brass with CCI BR4's. It gave me one group of .255 with CCI-450 primers. Now that I have 50 pcs of once fired brass I'll start over with the 450's and see what happens. Its gonna need to warm up outside a little tho. Good Luck.

[MuleyTime]

Thanks jo191145.....I am going to keep the rifle for now, but I am going to do a brain delete on the 39 SBK's.....I couldn't ever trust 'em enough to ever go back.

Just wierd that the 39 SBK is the most popular bullet on this forum and you are the only one who mentioned that they may be my problem.......

I actually started with the Bergers as I am a Berger fan and believe in your statement "Accuracy comes in a little yellow box", but then I had to try the SBK's and they shot better groups, so I stayed with them. But I do like the Berger's better for yotes; in other calibers as well. So, I came full circle back to the bullet that I originally wanted to shoot.

I may just do the McGowen if some one could do the snow camo dip that Savage does on the Predator. It might look a bit odd to have my stock and action in snow camo and a ss barrel. Maybe not....that kind of sounds cool....

[Hawkeye Joe]

You could just paint the barrel white. Or sell the rifle to me on the cheap . If you like the 35's as I do, I'm sure you'll be able to tweak that load and get it as accurate as the 39 BK's. My Savage VLP that I wish I hadn't sold loved the 39 BK's and 40 Vmax bullets. For some reason it didn't like the 35's. Probably twist rate issues ..... Now it's nothing but Berger's for both 204's. The 35gr Varmint Match Berger in .204 and the 55gr Match in .223 are two of my favorite bullets for accuracy in both calibers. Both are flat base bullets. For my type of shooting I love that little yellow box. Every thing else just gathers dust.