Would you use a Stainless Steel bore brush to clean your shotgun barrel? My application is a Browning 525 Sporting, and a Browning XT Combo trap gun, shooting ~5,000 rounds a year. Thanks..

Hello Mike,

I wouldn't. Too abrasive. Paper towel around a plastic brush and soaked in Ed's Red gives this result:


Good enough I would say.

Best,

JC

I use Brownell's "Double Tuff" bore brushes. Very stiff wire, with good fit to bore. They clean quickly.

Absolutely no reason to use anything but a phosphor bronze bore brush and a good solvent. Even chrome lined barrels will be damaged from continued use of a stainless steel brush. Wouldn't even use a SS brush on a bolt action Mossberg!

Brownells wad solvent and a patch will clean em. Why use something as hard or nearly as hard as your barrel? Only time I use stainless is if I've got a rusty or pitted bore I'm trying to assess. If you're lookin to backbore it can be done quicker with a reamer ;). Don't shoot as many rds as you but my bores that have been nicely polished come clean now with one G96 soaked patch a 10 min wait and then a clean patch, followed by another G96 patch, then a clean patch. I've gone through boxes of shells between cleanings and this still does it.

I don't believe occasional use of a stainless brush will hurt a modern shotgun barrel, chromed or not. I have a set of stainless brushes sold by Troy Peak, to clean my Beretta 390's gas piston and cylinder. The set includes a stainless bore brush and I bought, at extra cost, a stainless chamber brush. I have not seen any sign of problems with the set, adding that I don't clean the gun very often. The chamber brush did remove a small bit of metal from the chamber of a 100 year-old Iver Johnson.(spun with an electric drill). That being said, a stiff bronze bore brush, wrapped with 00 to 0000 steel wool and spun with an electric drill does a fine job, used with a good bore cleaner like Shooter's Choice. You will not live long enough to measure any metal removed by this method.

If you check the strength and hardness of stainless vs common barrel steel you will never buy stainless.
bill

And I'm sure you will provide us with the "strength and hardness of stainless vs. common barrel steel", won't you? Until then, my opinion is at least as valid as yours, don't you think?

FWIW, I used a stainless brush in an 1100 target barrel and a 686 Beretta for several years just to see what would happen .. nothing. This was manual use on a rod and it was not a tornado type brush though those are stainless as well. The stainless brush I used was a conventionally constructed radial wired bristle brush.

I have seen light longitudinal scoring in bbl's forward of the forcing cones, but think it was likely caused by shooting early steel loads where the shot cut through the inadequate wad material first in use, rather than any stainless brush thing. Powered stainless brushes may be a dif horse, I don't know. I do know that a lot of people use them on portable power drills for carrier bbls. and 12 ga. bbls that use tubes. I have yet to personally hear anyone complain about scoring their bbls. from such use.

I use bronze brushes and Tornado brushes at present for bore cleaning, when necessary. A 'Tico tool' usually is sufficient when preceeded by a piece of paper towel wet w/Ed's Red or a good solvent. For chambers I use appropriate ga. sized [edit: bronze] chamber brushes except in the 12 where I use either a 10 ga. bronze brush on a rod or a 25mm cannon bronze brush mounted on a wooden handle.

edit: I would be hesitant to go sticking a stainless steel brush in a highly polished mirror bore, expensive double or any FN super or other older gun that had a mirror bore, why risk it?

I have only one experience with a stainless brush. It was 30+ years ago, used on a rifle. The rifle was a M700 Remington .30-06. The brush was brand new, and of a prominent brand, I don't remember which.

I had pushed the brush through the bore a few times from the breech when I noticed tiny slivers of what appeared to be steel accumulating on the clean newspaper I used to protect my table. Closer examination revealed similar slivers on the bristles of the brush. The slivers looked like remnants of fine steel wool.

I immediately suspected the stainless steel bristles were gouging my barrel. To my dismay my suspicion was confirmed when I found that the slivers were attracted to a magnet.

I have never used a stainless steel brush on any firearm since, nor will I do so. I strongly recommend against them.

Curl

Interesting. In this case, I have a way to compare if the brush has indeed scored the shotgun tube bore, since the Browning XT combo has two sets of tubes. The unsingle tube has been used for 6 months, and cleaned after each outing, and the doubles tube(s) is unfired. Careful comparison of the two may answer the question. In the case of the unsingle, that would be 24 weeks of shooting at least, two sessions per week, or 48+ times the bore has seen the stainless brush. It appears the unsingle tube seems to have lost it's mirror finish, which is the reason I asked the question in the first place.

First, let me be clear that I'm not a metallurgist, or even a machinist. However, I believe there are many types of "stainless steel", just as there are many different types of steel. It's reasonable for me to assume that the stainless wire used in making bore brushes and the toothbrush types of cleaning brushes is significantly different from the stainless steel used in high quality knife blades, for example. Let me also make it clear that I'm not recommending the use of stainless to others. That's not what my post said. I DO recommend the procedure described at the end of that post.
I would also add that cleaning the bore of a modern shotgun after each outing, is probably more often than necessary. Again, JMO.

Jim
Tensil strength of common stainless is in excess of 50,000 lbs and the steel used in common grades of "soft" barrels are around 20,000. When I say common soft barrels I mean Browning supers, Parkers, Flues,ect. Some of the newest barrels may stand up to a stainless brush. It appears that you are the kind of guy that needs to use tornado brushes on his best so the value increases with the ease of cleaning. Ryerson service centers used to publish the you are requesting.

Yup, there are different types of SS. All are alloys of chromium, nickel, some have manganese. They are classified into three types: 400 series martensitic, 400 series ferritic and 300 series austenitic. Martensitic types are hardenable having enough carbon to harden by quenching and others don't have much carbon and are not hardenable in the normal sense. The austenitic types "work" harden quite readily. SS does not automatically infer hardness but it could certainly be harder than barrel steel depending on how it was heat treated in manufacture. That may be more information than most readers would be interested in.:-)

CptCurl,

You might have checked to see if your SS brush was attracted to a magnet. Mine are.

OB

That must be the SSS or "Says Stainless Steel" variety. What does tensility have to do with relative hardness? I have Tornado brushes and don't use them. As I recall, the theory was that bristle ends scratch; complete loops with a smooth round section and of a hard material which does not trap and embed abrasive grit would not. Anecdotally, when I WAS using them, it wasn't hard to get a choke tube carbon/plastic deposit which would easily defeat their ability as scrapers. I like crud-busting solvents and I like 4/0 steel wool.

jack

1. Like Rabbit, I don't believe tensile strength has any relation to hardness.
2. I said modern shotgun barrels.
3. I don't even own a Tornado brush.
4. Your perception of "what kind of guy I appear to be" is as meaningless as the rest of your unwarranted attack in my simple opinion.
5. I didn't request anything from Ryerson, OR from you.
6.Get a life, Bill. We already have more than enough pot-stirrers here.

I'm probably doing something wrong when I clean shotgun bores. Mea culpa and so what, but the topic does raise a couple of other questions which I have to ask. Has anyone used a wrap of those copper "scrubbies" which are using to remove lead fouling from revolvers? I have and this material appears to have a pronounced and efficient scraping action on bore desposits. Does anyone think there are "mirror" bores on old guns based on what the naked eye sees from one end or the other. Dragging a bore mic thru a few was enuf to make me discount that notion.

jack

It get worse, martinsitic stainless converts to austenic with work hardening. This takes a tough hard alloy and makes it very hard. This is common with 301 types which have less nickel than 304 types but there are many types after that i.e.318L,200 and muffler stock type 400. We used 301 to cut costs and to take advantage of the hardening effect so we could use a smaller blank. As the stuff stretched it hardened as it thinned and continue to pull metal from areas that had not stretched. The product was thin but real tough because of the hardening effect. I strongly recommend sticking with brass-bronze brushes. By the way if it is magnetic it is either 400 series or work hardened 300 series. That's way more than anyone wants to know about SS.
bill

FWIW - I used to shoot a lot of registered trap. I shot the enough to have to remove plastic buildup as well as other grime. I found the most effective method of cleaning the barrel of both an 870TB and 1100T (early 1980's guns) to be a Hoppes tornado brush. I have used the a tornado brush on these two guns for more than 20 years. No signs of any ill effects. I have put at least 75,000 shells through the 870 and 20,000 through the 1100.

Can anyone out there tell me how to get Ed's Red by mail order? Thank you. Frankf1221@comcast.net

Frank;
You can simply mix up Ed's Red yourself from components easily availabe at home centers & auto suply. Not sure if has ever been made as a commercial product or not, but I believe the name was trade-marked by it's originator, Ed Harris. You may remember Ed as a former member of the American Rifleman Technical Staff, back when they had useful articles. Do a Google on Ed's Red & you can find a link to it I beleieve, with all directions for mixing & a discussion of it's use.

Bill,
It gets even worse than that, austenic stainless converts to microbiotic when used too vigorously. Hardened compounds such as that really wreck your bores.
This is a common problem with the older types which have less nickels than others; then again, it can happen to others on a periodic basis.

Personally I use white pack and hit early, so that I can take advantage before the hardening effect. As the stuff gets older it hardens; then, as it thins, it continues to coagulate on areas that have not stretched.
I strongly recommend avoiding brass-bronze brushes. They are a real PITA, By the way, if it is magnetic it is either terminal or a sure sign that you need to feed your bores a different diet!
I guess that's way more than anyone wants to know about SS.

;-)
In jest,
Km.

frankf,
Brownells sells Ed's Red premixed. http://www.brownells.com/aspx/NS/store/ProductDetail.aspx?p=19936&title=

Rabbit, Jim,
With steel alloys, hardness and tensile strength go together like Hansel and Gretel. An increase in one, increases the other. But, I'm not getting in the debate over whether a SS brush is o.k. or not. Just providing a point of data for you future reference.

Kool. And frankf, don't take a bath in that Ed's Red. Pretty rough on the hands.

jack