Hello all.

Had an interesting discussion with an experienced gunsmith today about barrel cleaning on doubles. I use boretech eliminator on my rifles and find that it gets rid of all of the copper and carbon. I mentioned that my Merkel 470NE copper fouls after relatively few rounds and asked what his thoughts were (I had been cleaning it back to steel after each shooting session).

He has the same rifle in 500NE and is of the opinion that there is no requirement to clean copper fouling out (no harm in doing it, just that it doesn't do anything for accuracy). He only cleans out the carbon with a quality oil and a brush but leaves the copper alone.

The logic being that barrels in doubles have a number of inconsistencies compared to a bolt gun/ single barrel as a result of the soldering process and adding the rib. Allowing copper fouling to build fills and rounds out these inconsistencies and in general smooths the bore for consistent shooting.

This is a school of thought I have heard previously but it holds more sway when a gunsmith experienced in doubles voices his opinion.

I'd be interested to hear others thoughts and opinions.

best regards

Nathan