Thread: KG 12 copper remover

Pretty sure there was some quite convincing field tests on KG12 and others. Duley mag? Chucked a Barnes bullet in the test fluids and measured weights before and after. The KG12 bullet was the only one that showed significant weight loss. I like the stuff. Mine comes out black/blue at start with KG12. Some carbon removers do take a lot of copper out. IMO people often overlook carbon fouling. I think in some rifles its worse than Cu. If all the carbon is not gone you may not be able to attack the Cu. Or, you may just have a great barrel for not fouling.

Same as KJ above, I use the KG carbon cleaner & it quite often gets a bit of copper out as well (shows blue on the patch) I’ll run 2-3 patch’s thru with it until the carbon has cleaned up & then put another one thru & let it soak for 15min & it will generally have some copper on it, oil patch & job done.

Originally Posted by kiwijames

Pretty sure there was some quite convincing field tests on KG12 and others. Duley mag? Chucked a Barnes bullet in the test fluids and measured weights before and after. The KG12 bullet was the only one that showed significant weight loss. I like the stuff. Mine comes out black/blue at start with KG12. Some carbon removers do take a lot of copper out. IMO people often overlook carbon fouling. I think in some rifles its worse than Cu. If all the carbon is not gone you may not be able to attack the Cu. Or, you may just have a great barrel for not fouling.

Current wisdom seems to be that carbon is your enemy as opposed to copper. As in get the carbon out and leave the copper till it starts to degrade accuracy, being that it fills in any voids in the bore. Makes sense to me. But I remember when copper was the devil, or maybe the bore solvent companies just perpetuated that??

Copper wash does no harm. Use white spirits to clean carbon out till clean patch. Leave the copper alone unless a serious problem developes.

I use the KG1, KG4 and KG12 products and have been lucky enough to review the results using my employer's $25K Olympus Videoscope. I can catagorically tell you that the KG1 Carbon Cleaner will not remove any significant amount of copper. Nor will Hoppes #9 for that matter. If you run any normal bore cleaner through the barrel the copper will remain and you can look down the bore all you like but it's unlikely you'll see anything untoward. It is not until you run a copper cleaning product down the bore that you will be able to see the copper... then it glows like gold.

With KG12 (and M-Pro 7) I've found you need to leave it in the barrel for a good 20 - 30 minutes to have any effect. Running it through the bore a couple of times then putting a dry cloth through immediately afterwards is unlikely to have any great effect. Leaving it for half an hour then putting a tight wad through typically removes the copper in a couple of goes.

I have some good boroscope photos as examples if anyone is interested.

As for whether or not the copper is a problem........... I'm yet to be totally convinced. I'm happy to be educated either way.

I agree with the carbon enemy thing that seems to be the "methode de genre' for now .... makes sense, carbon lays down on every shot on top of the copper deposited. As the air reacts with the carbon it turns to a hardened layer. My thoughts are that it should be removed at the end of the day at a minimum.

It is well known that KG12 needs to be patched or brushed to work quickly, the instructions on the bottle suggest up to 20 odd passes may be necessary.

This video shows how quickly KG12 can work when swabbed, patched or brushed... skip to 4:15

Gunwerks also has a cleaning tutorial using KG products.

I Use the products mentioned also. An easy way to check for copper fouling in the muzzle is with an ear bud.... hold the muzzle near a light source and put the bud in muzzle, it will reflect light and you can now see inside the end of the muzzle. Works well.

For what it's worth, here are some photos showing copper fouling of a new barrel. This particular rifle settled down quite quickly after only 30-35 rounds and these days shows very little sign of copper after a hunting trip.













You can see the evolution from day one where it had a lot of copper after a 3-shot group, through to reduced levels of copper during the run-in process and finally having next to nothing after a week in the hills. The last photo is a clean barrel after KG12 application.

Cool photos!

KG 12 does work well but I found I needed to leave it in for about 24 hours. My 300 Rum had noticeable copper build up at the muzzle end and after scrubbing barrel with a nylon brush and KG 12 and leaving it overnight it had removed the copper.
I use it only when I can see the build up and in between use Hoppe's Solvent which I have used since I started hunting and has worked well for me. Patches do show green if you scrub and leave in for a day or two so it must be removing some copper.

Originally Posted by stug

Cool photos!

Thats a nice Finnish barrel. You should see a typical "average quality" barrel from our US manufacturers. I'll try and find a picture for you tomorrow.

Awesome photos. I soaked a bullet in Hoppes number 9 overnight (I think) and the copper was definitely breaking down. So it does have an effect on copper.

Tried most things.
Wipe out foam with accelerator is the best so far then gunslick foaming bore cleaner then its kg products then eleminator.


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