How Many Barnes rounds in 375 before you have accuracy degradation from copper fouling

Lots of good info already here. Every barrel is different. I shoot mine a lot, but clean about every 100 rounds. No accuracy loss with my barrel at 100.

One thing you mentioned and was touched on above…. Shoot monos and commit. If you mix cup and core and then go back to copper, you’ll be all over the place and will need to do a deep clean to get accuracy back.

All barrels are different. Even one to the next by the same maker. Some are just better universally.
Was a time when a Remington .17 Rem had to be cleaned every 15 rounds or they'd start keyholing. My Pac-Nor .17 Rem. goes all day(up to 500rounds) & I do an overnight soak with WipeOut foam, no copper on the patch in the morning. My CZ bl. will pick up just a tich of blue for the same treatment. My Oberndorf 9.3x62 fouls badly with just 10 rounds of cup and core. Go figue, but accuracy maintains for over 50rounds.
IT happens.

LeftySixgun said:

Educate me please. I’ve never messed with all copper bullets. Is it a different copper than cup/core copper jacketed bullets? Why would all copper bullets build more copper in the barrel vs cup/core bullets?

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Copper bullets are copper. Cup core bullets are guilding metal, which is a copper zink alloy. Straight copper is more sticky than guilding metal.

I called Barnes and chatted. My results are exactly what they expect.

As I said, some barrels foul more than other barrels. Also, some "copper foul" more than others.
Because my Mauser fouls badly with normal guilding metal jacketed bullets, i will never shoot copper jacketed bullets in it. To expect different results would be quite FOOLISH, wouldn't it?

Again and as others have noted, some barrels cannot mix bullets of copper and guilding metal while others are not effected.
YOU have you find out what your .375 does or doesnt do.
Mine doesn't care, but with the monos running $95.99 for 50, I don't shoot them past sighting in, besides at 2,472fps av. with 300gr. Hornady RN's, thats good enough for me. Besides, tjose are what my brake was designed for.

Wow, you are supposed to clean the barrel? I just trade my rifles every 50 to 100 rounds and apologize for the dirty barrel!

I have a total of six 375's of various flavors the 375 H&H making up 4 of them. I'm now working on building a 375 Raptor. I found early on to stick with the Barnes TSX or TTSX, and I prefer the 300 grain. They have never let me down. I find I can easily go the 60 round to 80 round country import limit or airline weight limit without any really effect on groups or zero.

Remember you are not looking for MOA but MOBuffalo! The one exception is that Croc. there you need to hit a small target, but the range should be close, 60 to 75 yards with the 75 yards being LONG.

I do have one 375 with a 26" bbl. that will hit your velocities, but all prefer 2500 to 2550 FPS. It has been said more than once that a 375 H&H moving a good 300 gr bullet at 2500 fps is all your ever going to need.

It is a fact that if you juice of the velocity, the fouling will also increase. I also use Wipe Out only and I stay away from the more aggressive Barnes, Sweets etc. After the patch no longer come out blue, often after several treatments I will use Hoppes # 9 to get the last of the powder fouling.

I build my own rifles using almost exclusively ER Shaw barrels and some McGowen. I have found that after break-in they all like the Barnes TSX.

As has been stated here always foul the barrel with several shots before departing. If your PH is any good he will insist on a sight-in........ if for no other reason then to check YOU out as much as the zero. That is to see if you handle the rifle safely and competently. But don't wait for that, 4 or 5 rounds at the range before leaving will do the trick, and I believe is a must.

The bullet is the cheapest part of your trip, even a very expensive premium, and while there are for sure cup and core bullets like Woodleigh, Swifts A Frame Nosler partition and Accubonds and the Barnes originals, I have found NOTHING beats the mono.

I have also found when switching to the Barnes Banded Solids with their brass composition , the zero and groups don't change.....so on that point alone, for me it is BARNES TSX all the way.

Gibbs, what is the “break in” procedure that works for you and the Barnes?

I use the procedure recommend by ER Shaw. This is for Chrome-Moly. It is time consuming, the main thing is don't allow the barrel to become too hot for the first twenty rounds.


For stainless because of it's hardness a lot more differing opinions are floating around. The following procedure from AI on the web seems to be most universally accepted. However many people think a break-in for a quality stainless steel barrel is less important.

FROM AI:

Because stainless steel is naturally harder and smoother than chrome-moly, many manufacturers (like Krieger or Proof Research) suggest a less aggressive approach, noting that a high-quality hand-lapped barrel may barely need a break-in at all. [1, 2, 3, 4]
To break in a stainless barrel efficiently, follow this standard step-by-step process: [1]
The Break-In Cycle

1. First 5–10 Shots: Fire one round, then let the barrel cool to the touch. Clean the bore thoroughly with a high-quality Copper Remover
   
   
   Open
   until patches come out clean. Repeat this cycle 5 to 10 times. [1, 2]
2. Next 3 Shots: Fire a three-shot group. Clean the barrel completely. [1]
3. Final Shots: Fire a five-shot group. Clean the barrel completely. [1]
4. Completion: Your barrel is typically broken in when the copper fouling drastically decreases and it becomes easier to clean (around 30 to 50 total rounds). [1, 2]

Sorry about the junk video's at the end of the last message they just copied with the AI passage.

Stainless is tougher than chromemoky, but not harder as it is more easily machined, threading and chambered due to this, than the Ch M.
The toughness makes them last longer.
I use a similar proceedire for breakin as described but 1, 5 shot group is all I've ever needed after the 5 to 8 shots, shoot and clean, etc.
Much depends on the barrels smoothness, i assume.
MacMillon the barrel maker, once wrote that the shoot and clean break-in was merely extra barrel wear.
I would suggest with "factory" barrels, this breakin-in is likely necessary.

Agree Stainless is the way to go for throat erosion, resisting corrosion, and overall barrel life. Only draw back in my opinion is the non traditional look that comes with a coating finish or brush finish to cover the exterior, it just doesn't look right to me in the pictures.....but that is a personal thing and should have no bearing on the discussion.

I do believe from experience that a SS barrel can put a stalk in jeopardy. Even whenkeeping the barrel low and really trying to avoid the sun, they still seem to pick up that one sunlight "Flash" that alerts every animal in the district.

I know a lot of people who look at us like were crazy when you suggest barrel break-in. Their procedures seems to be 20 consecutive rounds for sight in and that's it. Probably with today's super sharp, tough carbide cutting tools and CNC machining, tool chatter is reduced so much that break-in is becoming more of a feel good exercise for many of us.

My Pac-Nor .17 bl. Was "broken in" with 5 shots. It NEVER "coppered" as in "fouled". Every 500 rounds I needed only to use Ed's Red for carbon fouling after running out of carbon eliminator, or whatever it was called.

I use wipeout's Patch-Out, Butches Bore Shine or Wipe-Out foam in my other guns, incl. '06, 9.3's and .375, .45's and .50's. Further, after cleaning the barrels diwn yo bare steel, I run a wet patch of Ed's Red thought the bore, then one dry one, one way to remove excess oil. I read xomewhere this will prevent a dry bore from "coppering" on the first shot.