Smyth Busters: Are Bronze Brushes BAD for the Barrel? 

You don't need to clean your ar15s barrel after shooting 22lr all you need to do is fire a round of 223.

The famous myth of the "AK never needs to be cleaned". As a matter of fact, someone even told me once that the AK barrels were "cleaning themselves automatically".

That a Mosin isn't zeroed from factory with a bayonet. When I tell them that they were zeroed like that, they usually don't believe me.

rumor actually related to this video- “never change directions with your brush inside the barrel” or its sister rumor “never pull the brush back through the crown”. Combine those two rumors and you end up with the method of pushing the brush through, unscrewing the brush / jag, then gingerly pulling the rod back. (repeat for each stroke until you die of old age)

I'm 36 now, but when I was maybe 6, my dad took his single shot 22 to the lgs down the road because it had became inaccurate. They told him to heat the barrel red hot and it'll melt the lead out....

The issue here isn't a bullet. The issue is focusing on the bronze brush. Sure, the bullet can do damage & probably has but the possibility that a bronze brush might ADD additional issues to the already possibly damaged barrel is not helpful. Just because you can use it, doesn't mean you should.

@@wonderblast953 stop being lame. Its a fucking gun. Treat it like it

@@wonderblast953 Look up, it's a 747.

@@wonderblast953 🤣 thanks for the laugh friend ✌️

@@wonderblast953 Lol..This isn't worth responding to.

True. Bronze is softer

@@Smith944 More corrosion resistant too.

Horology can provide some important clues here. Clocks and watches don't have steel "gears". Most have trains of brass wheels paired with hardened steel pinions. Wear becomes apparent on the steel pinion leaves or lantern trunnions long before it shows up on the half-hard brass teeth that mesh with them. That's a well-known fact. Same with glass-hard steel pallets. Escapement pallets show wear long before the brass scape wheel teeth that act against them. And if you haven't seen worn steel pivots, then you either haven't examined many or you don't know how to calculate what the original diameters/clearances should have been in order to measure the wear. Pivot holes "egg" for two reasons: side pressures and contamination of the liquid lubricant. It's not because of the inherent softness of brass or bronze. If you re-bushed the train using steel, the holes would wear FASTER. Jewels serve as hole bearings because they offer superior smoothness and wear resistance--and not just because of their hardness on the Mohs scale. When soft metals go head-to-head with hard metals and a RUBBING action is involved, the softer metal tends to win. That's why clock and watchmakers use copper, brass, bronze and zinc laps to polish hardened steel. Zinc plates are used to polish diamonds. Conceiving of the problem of brushes in gun bores as a simple battle of steel (hard) vs. bronze (soft) leaves out key elements. It's actually steel vs bronze in an environment filled with harsh chemicals, carbon, ash, metal oxides and common dirt. If any of the latter three components proves to be harder than relatively soft modern barrel steel (about 30C Rockwell), then that component will embed in the bronze bristles and wear away the steel. So, your clock experience should tell you that the "Smyth Busters" haven't properly conceived of the problem on this one.

@@PLdemorygray soft metals do not wear slower than steel. Why do you think engine bearings wear out faster than the crankshaft? I'd like to hear you explain the science behind that theory.

@@actionjksn The video repeated the "common sense" misconception that bronze cannot damage steel, because a soft material cannot scratch a harder one. While it's true that soft metals can't, by themselves, scratch harder metals, that's not the entirety of the barrel/brush equation. When you add dirt, carbon and solvents, the situation changes. The exact same thing takes place in crankshaft failures, even though it's a red herring comparison because crankshafts don't normally involve metals in direct working contact. Cranks are designed to work with a .0005 in film of oil between the bearings and journals. When you introduce dirt, excess pressure or excess heat, the situation changes. When an engine experiences "bearing failure" it's almost never a simple situation where the bearings have "worn out" and left the crank journals untouched. The adjustment for wear in this system is built into the bearing side of the equation, but that doesn't mean that the bearing material is what actually wears away fastest. It's often the crank journals that get measurably smaller, or go out of round, or get scored. Journal wear allows the crank to start beating the hell out of the bearing rather than wearing it away. And to be clear, the journals wear because they've been rubbing against a softer metal with dirt and grit embedded in it. The same thing applies to bronze brushes in bores. They're quite capable of damaging a steel barrel that's at 38RC. Will you wear a barrel out by passing a brush through it? No. But the idea that a bronze brush can't hurt a steel bore because bronze is softer than steel is pure hogwash.

I don't know why it made me laugh as hard as it did. I guess I'm just a big kid cause I was cracking up at Caleb then again with above comment 🤣

People would take a standard cleaning brush and wrap some pieces of 100% copper Chore Boy scrubber to help remove the lead.

Not that I can think of right now in terms of smithing, but there are plenty of products on the markets that aren't helpful to our everyday health yet they still profit. So you could make the same argument, "if there was an issue, manufacturers wouldn't sell them" yet they do & they still play havoc on our health. Apply that logic to smithing & perhaps you can find maybe 1 or 2 products that isn't/aren't very helpful yet is still available for sale? Just a thought

@@wonderblast953 Guns and ammo, are not good for my....................wallet.

@@wonderblast953 I can think of 1 for smithing. The upper receiver clam shell vice block. It is used to hold your upper in place inside a vice so you can install a barrel nut or muzzle device. It's terrible for the receiver because it only holds the receiver, thus putting all the torque on to the indexing pin and the thin aluminum where the pin sits. Which ends in breaking either the upper receiver or the indexing pin on the barrel. What you're supposed to use is a reaction rod. It's a long rod that is squared off on one end so it can be clamped into a vice. The other end locks into the barrel's star chamber. It also has a "sail" that locks into the channel the charging handle rides in. This locks both the receiver and barrel together and transfers all torque into the vice.

@@wonderblast953 Big pharma........

Manufacturers will sell anything that people will buy

Agreed. I prefer ProShot products myself.

Possum Hollow makes great ones specific for different rifle receiver dimensions.

We hired a guide in Louisiana and he was very boring. A video on him would also be boring.

I've used Otis type Ripcord Nomex rods in my handguns for 4+ years, no issues, no flaws. Simple CLPs like Slip 2000 EWL or Clenzoil work fine. ✅️

Think i remember this.. On MAC?

@@michaelcabada2933 You have a good memory.

What? No way. I even clean my barrels after dry-fire practice, or if I open my safe. Also before and after Thanksgiving dinner.

@@Paladin1873 I watched that episode on MAC too. That guy must have OCD to wear out a barrel 🤣

@@mikewithers299 He was an interesting chap.

Uh why...

That’s what I Use One Shot 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

You bet! 👍 Otis is what I use for my lever actions and my .22 rifles.

Otis Ripcords are ✅️. I use them often; Glock gen 4, gen 5. Walther PDP Compact 9mm. I avoid reloaded or lead style bullets. Newer non lead training loads.

40+ years of the Dept. of Education...smh...

Put some heat shrink tubing around the base of the brush so it won't scrape on the way out and into the bore

Don't push the brush all the way out of the muzzle, reverse it before it exits or remove it before you pull the rod back then start over.

I follow the same procedure when using cleaning jags. When going back though the bore I guide the jag back in to avoid hitting the muzzle crowm.

Slow and easy and I use a carbon rod so it will wear that carbon rod out before anything

Anything soft on a cleaning rod can have embedded dirt, abrasives abound in the left over primer and powder residues in a barrel. I much prefer a burnished single peice bore rod with a swivel handle, bronze brush wetted with cleaner of choice and a properly fitted bore guide.

Keeps the solvent out of the action and trigger too.

Stop making sense...!

Most likely from the steel cleaning rods.

I second the steel cleaning rods being the cause.

That is a good idea...just wondering how well the nylon coating holds up over time and heavy usage (we are past kinda anal about cleaning firearms)...

That’s what SHE said! 😂

Yes, Mr. Bycroft, I recognized the double entendre as soon as I posted it. Petunia, I used a couple of nylon coated cleaning rods for around twenty years, with no noticable wear of the coating. Fourteen of those years participating in monthly NRA Highpower Rifle matches, (80 rounds fired for score per match, and about 100 round practice shoot between matches. Cleaning after every trip to the range.)

Do it to a .22lr, load up some ratshot, and shoot Mo-Skeet!

grooves

That sounds very interesting to me. None of my weapons have this level of precision - they are mostly service weapons from different times between 1884 and 1990. But also sporting weapons in .22 caliber or historical lever-action rifles and muzzleloaders. In addition to nitro powder, I also use black powder, since historical weapons are not allowed to be loaded with nitro powder. I clean the barrels with black powder with soapy water and then wipe them dry and oil them - everything with fleece patches. Typical service weapons such as my Sweden Mauser m96 in caliber 6.5x55 but also my Swiss infantry rifle model 1896/11 in caliber 7.5x55 I only clean with a cleaning cord. Both guns are almost 120 years old and I don't know how they were cared for before me and how much was shot with them, but they are in good condition. Both weapons have roughly the same groupings: at 50 m around 1.5 cm, at 300 m under 10 cm and at 1000 m you still hit a target for their original use. I clean the guns the same day I use them, whether it's just one shot or forty shots. To do this, I use one of these modern cleaning cords with an integrated bronze brush and pull it dry four to five times through the barrel in the direction of the shot. After the first wipe, no powder residue can be seen with the naked eye and it shines like a mirror. When I had to clean my G3 assault rifle with the chain and nylon brush used in the military around forty years ago during my service, cleaning the barrel took forever compared to today. It was particularly bad to remove the melted plastic residue from the blanks. Very rarely, and usually only when I want to shoot an old gun for the first time and the barrel is really dirty and uncleaned, which is unfortunately very often the case with used guns, do I also use a chemical cleaner. I then very gently wipe down the barrel with fleece pads soaked in soapy water to remove any chemical residue before preserving it with a light coat of oil. As I said, these are not bench runs, but normal runs that are also suitable for sporting competitions.

I prefer Otis Ripcords. They are Nomex coated. Easy to use, compact. I own a few M&Ps & Glocks. Gen 4, Gen 5. Solvents like Hoppe 9 & CLP: Slip 2000 EWL are +.

It is not a pistol but the manual for my Winchester SX-4 states that it comes from the factory with a coating of a product that is a rust inhibitor and not an lubricate. The manual states one needs to apply a lubricate before using the firearm. I have purchase new handguns that seemed too wet and others that appeared too dry. One had a barrel so dirty that I could not tell if the riffling look good until I cleaned it.

Most firearms can go that far before cleaning, or even more...the worst, and the one we shoot most, is .22...doesn't matter the firearm or the ammo, the gun is going to get dirty...we have a couple of lever actions that become noticeably rougher after 100+ rounds fired, come 200+ and the guns groaning 'clean me'...we do belong to the over clean crowd, if even 1 round fired the gun gets cleaned...just wired that way, we think easier to trust a weapon knowing it is clean...

You can't over-clean a gun. You can only do damage by using the wrong tools (steel brushes) or the wrong solvents or abrasives. If your gun runs fine for 1000 rounds without cleaning, great. But then you might get a problem at 1010 rounds. Now if you had cleaned it well, you'd be 1010 rounds away from a problem. If you didn't clean it, you're only 10 rounds away from a problem.

The steel used in a barrel for a firearm is extremely hard and durable more so than most people think

Same. Brass & copper brushes can be abrasive. They also can make it hard to use copper solvent. I only use nylon brushes myself.

There are multiple videos out there on that

Gunsmith may be able to recrown the barrel

Midway is a good source for recrowning a barrel

Actually, the barrels were damaged from the corrosive nature of the primer compound they used in the cartridges. In fact, part of the cleaning kit that came with the rifles was a metal bottle of alkali salts to neutralize the acidity.

@@6Sally5 Good information ! Thank you

Gunblue had a video about this I watched the other day. It was about cleaning the copper out of the barrel. He said basically the same thing about cleaning. According to him when you shoot you are putting a copper coating inside the barrel and to be more accurate it needs to stay there. All you really need to do is clean the carbon out of the barrel because that is what attracts moisture and destroys barrels.

​@@oldman-zr2rugunblue is definitely someone who knows what he's talking about! He's convinced me to change my ways on several things.

that's going on a new coffee mug...

@@CalebSavant HAHAHHA YES! i’ll buy one

@@CalebSavant Do it. I dare you. LOL

The tornado brushes work best in shotguns to remove plastic wadding residues. About 10 passes on my Saiga 12 barrels and they're good for final patches. A bronze brush would take all day to get the plastic out.

Couldn't this be mitigated by timely replacement of brushes?

Brake cleaner or other non copper erasing solvent does wonders. I've scrubbed plenty of lead and brought the brush back to shine. Just don't use them with the copper erasers.

I don't know...most of the dirt in bores is remnants of lead, or copper, powder, and whatever else could be...even if embedded in the brush during cleaning those materials are still softer than the steel barrel...i'd think what some us see as a scratch in the bore is actual a clean area that was raked by a contaminate, and the area on either side of the scratch is still coated by the dirt that wasn't raked (I can't think of a better word for rake, sorry)...

No bad idea!

That’s when you break out a Otis cable