Brass brush versus chemicals.

[Treeman]

Last night I was cleaning my .270 bore and the thought occurred to me AGAIN !, "What is this stiff brass brush NOT cleaning out?"

As close to nothing as you can get was my conclusion, the brass brush scrapes and scours the barrel clean down to a possible micro level. A good new brass brush will clean everything that matters out the barrel, there may be stains, molecular level deposits that only chemicals will remove, but as far as affecting your shooting level clean, a good few more than normal strokes with a brass brush will do it.
I am almost at a point now where I will not be using chemicals at all, abrade it all out.

[janfred]

I agree with this. I have never jad problems with carbon rings or "hard carbon" since I stated rifle shooting.

It is actually a phosphor bronze brush making it harder than gilding metal and brass, but still softer than barrel steel.

Unfortunately I still have to use chemical removal for copper fouling in my rifles. The bronze brush, being softer than steel, wears away long before it has removed all copper fouling on even a light fouled barrel. For this reason you have to treat these brushes as consumables. I get around 4 to 5 cleaning cycles per brush before it has worn so much that it no loger cleans in the corners of the lands.

[Treeman]

Yes, I agree, I have 2 brush's on hand all the time. I use the older ones first and end last proper clean strokes with a new to almost new brush. The new brush affect is preserved a bit longer this way.
The RAM brush's are really throw away crappy. Parker Hale is just so much more expensive - I mean better.