Rust and BT Eliminator/Carbon Remover
- By m1match
- Bolt Action Rifles
- 37 Replies
In this megathread, @Frank Green talked a little about having his barrels coming back for issues where BT products might have something to do with it.
www.snipershide.com
Well I did have an issue with BT Eliminator and Carbon Remover that had to do with fumigation, high heat and humidity. I live in SoCal where humidity is not an issue. All of my rifles are in safes with Goldenrod dehumidifiers in them and I have had no corrosion issues in any of my guns in the 40 years that I've been an avid shooter... up until now which came from what I think are unusual conditions for me.
To start, let me say I have been using BT Eliminator and Carbon Remover almost exclusively for my precision rifles for probably 10 years with identical cleaning technique. I clean according to the directions on the bottle, then I use 2 patches to dry the bores and then put them back in the safe. Never had an issue with corrosion or anything else. I like and still use BT products because they work well, they are not toxic like most of the other bore cleaning products, and they are easily available.
I had a safe full of rifles and I only found minor rust in 3 of them which all had 416R stainless barrels and all had been very recently cleaned with BT Eliminator and Carbon Remover. I followed the directions for use on the bottle exactly and when I was finished used two clean patches to dry the bores. The rifles were a PVA barreled 223 on a Rock Creek blank, a Bartlein barreled 300 Norma, and a LRI barreled 308. I shot and cleaned these rifles and put them back in the safe after wiping the bores with two clean patches. A few days after cleaning the bores, my house was tented and fumigated for termites using Sulfuryl fluoride gas which all termite fumigators used ahd have been using since the 1950s. The tent developed a leak in it and they had to fix the leak and pump in more gas, so the house was sealed up and gassed for about 5 days in the summer and it got very warm and very humid in the house during this time.
After the fumigation I put a borescope in my rifles to double check, and to my dismay, there was rust in the bores of the 3 previously mentioned rifles, which were also the only three rifles that had been recently cleaned. I had 1911s, ARs and bolt guns that had dirty bores that had no signs of rust. I patched out the bores with Eezox which removed the surface rust and hopefully stopped further corrosion. I've since shot all 3 of these rifles and they still shoot excellent to outstanding groups. So I don't think the corrosion caused a noticeable problem.
In the future, if a rifle is going to be in the safe for a while before the next shooting session, I'm going to finish cleaning with a patch of Eezox or Hoppe's just to make sure I don't have rusted bores in the future. As Frank said, BT is like 90% plus water so I can only conclude that the residual in the bore plus high temperature and humidity and fumigation gas caused the light rust that I found. I also had some small patches of rust on bare steel like on some tools, saw blades, reloading dies ( exterior only I found no rust on the insides of my reloading dies).
For the Love of God, GI Joe and John Wayne.... cleaning and abrasive cleaners
Guys..... This has been beaten to death but you have to watch how your using abrasive cleaners! Here is a 223 barrel with 800 rounds on it. Cleaned after every 75 rounds fired. I know the pitting is from a chemical reaction but I didn't get the whole story. It was cleaned approximately 10-12...
www.snipershide.com
Well I did have an issue with BT Eliminator and Carbon Remover that had to do with fumigation, high heat and humidity. I live in SoCal where humidity is not an issue. All of my rifles are in safes with Goldenrod dehumidifiers in them and I have had no corrosion issues in any of my guns in the 40 years that I've been an avid shooter... up until now which came from what I think are unusual conditions for me.
To start, let me say I have been using BT Eliminator and Carbon Remover almost exclusively for my precision rifles for probably 10 years with identical cleaning technique. I clean according to the directions on the bottle, then I use 2 patches to dry the bores and then put them back in the safe. Never had an issue with corrosion or anything else. I like and still use BT products because they work well, they are not toxic like most of the other bore cleaning products, and they are easily available.
I had a safe full of rifles and I only found minor rust in 3 of them which all had 416R stainless barrels and all had been very recently cleaned with BT Eliminator and Carbon Remover. I followed the directions for use on the bottle exactly and when I was finished used two clean patches to dry the bores. The rifles were a PVA barreled 223 on a Rock Creek blank, a Bartlein barreled 300 Norma, and a LRI barreled 308. I shot and cleaned these rifles and put them back in the safe after wiping the bores with two clean patches. A few days after cleaning the bores, my house was tented and fumigated for termites using Sulfuryl fluoride gas which all termite fumigators used ahd have been using since the 1950s. The tent developed a leak in it and they had to fix the leak and pump in more gas, so the house was sealed up and gassed for about 5 days in the summer and it got very warm and very humid in the house during this time.
After the fumigation I put a borescope in my rifles to double check, and to my dismay, there was rust in the bores of the 3 previously mentioned rifles, which were also the only three rifles that had been recently cleaned. I had 1911s, ARs and bolt guns that had dirty bores that had no signs of rust. I patched out the bores with Eezox which removed the surface rust and hopefully stopped further corrosion. I've since shot all 3 of these rifles and they still shoot excellent to outstanding groups. So I don't think the corrosion caused a noticeable problem.
In the future, if a rifle is going to be in the safe for a while before the next shooting session, I'm going to finish cleaning with a patch of Eezox or Hoppe's just to make sure I don't have rusted bores in the future. As Frank said, BT is like 90% plus water so I can only conclude that the residual in the bore plus high temperature and humidity and fumigation gas caused the light rust that I found. I also had some small patches of rust on bare steel like on some tools, saw blades, reloading dies ( exterior only I found no rust on the insides of my reloading dies).
