By: Steve Schmidt
There was no rest for Tim's trigger finger, as he sighted down across the shallow draw that separated us from the infestation of prairie rats some 350 yards out. He had already sent at least forty V-Max bullets sizzling down the tube of his Rock River Arms AR-15, when I broke our cadence of gunfire to give my old Sako .22-250 a good cleaning. This was a rare, almost heavenly experience for the both of us – shooting a virgin prairie dog town that hadn't seen the likes of a couple mangy varmint hunters all summer long. I hated to stop shooting now, but ripping 40 grain Nosler BT’s down the bore at 4,000 fps has the tendency to lay down some serious copper jacket fouling, and my accuracy was quickly falling by the wayside.
Fact or fiction? CopperMelt will outperform your
favorite copper solvent handsdown. You decide!
For the sake of my poor barrel, I went AWOL so it could be rid of copper and allowed to cool for a while. Although this was my first prairie dog hunt with my buddy, Tim, I had lots of range experience and had gotten pretty good at knocking out the majority of copper fouling with J-B and Kroil. But, I soon realized this combo works best when you're not battling South Dakota winds and have soap and water on hand to wash up afterwards.
I can hardly wait to get back to that dog town again. And, I know next time I’ll be cleaning faster and easier than ever before, because Brownells Gun Tech Nate Bardole put me onto a great new product for high volume shooters. Actually, Nate has no first hand experience with Hunter's Extreme CopperMelt®, but he’s heard quite a stir about it lately and suggested I give it whirl for this month’s Cleaning Clinic. If you're a regular reader of WebBench, you might have already concluded that Nate is my go-to guy for project guns. I guess you could say we have kind of a love-hate relationship. I love project guns for Cleaning Clinic, and Nate hates to clean them. Usually, both of us come out ahead – unless, of course, I wreck something!
After some 25 years of gun cleaning, I'll admit I'm a tough sell when it comes to buying into some of the hype brought on by new-fangled cleaning products. I’ve seen quite a few cleaners come and go – not only from the Brownells catalog – but completely out of existence! So, when I read the Hunter's Extreme claim – "CopperMelt will save the average shooter at least 30 minutes of cleaning time when compared with other leading firearms bore cleaners (when the object is to get the bore thoroughly clean)" – I was a bit skeptical to say the least. I also realized in order to stay atop my soapbox, I needed a barrel caked with copper, so I could disprove this claim with real physical evidence.
Later in the day, I sent Nate an email asking whether he had anything tucked away in his gun safe that showed obvious signs of heavy copper buildup in the bore – he said he’d check. I was expecting him to bring in his Colt AR-15 that saw some action at the last DPMS match we attended. So, when a gorgeous, custom, African big game rifle appeared at my desk the very next day, I almost fell over. I knew from past experience Nate’s heart belonged to pistolsmithing, but this work of art showed me this boy also has some talent when it comes to long guns!
Nate’s rifle is a work in progress that started about eight years ago with an Enfield action and a Shilen barrel blank. What’s really special about this particular gun is that Nate put hundreds of hours of his own sweat and blood into building it. It’s such a fine piece of craftsmanship that any safari hunter worth his salt would be darn proud to carry this rifle in Africa. I can’t imagine the painstaking months of shaping and inletting its beautiful stock from an extra fancy blank of English walnut. As if that wasn’t challenging enough, Nate went ahead and added a graceful, shadow line cheek piece, a skeleton grip crap, and an ebony forend tip. These classic touches really transform the rifle into a piece of eye candy. He did say he’ll never carve another stock from scratch, but I told him "never say never."
Our test animal was a beautiful, custom Enfield chambered in .375 Ackley. With 75 to 100 rounds of copper jacketed bullets down the bore, it was a prime candidate for this month's testing.
Despite the aesthetic appeal of the stock work, I was struck by Nate’s ability to blend functionality with elegance. He skillfully machined an attractive, yet robust sight ramp with flip-up rear sight, then milled in an integral dovetail for a set of Warne vertically split scope rings. It’s quite an awesome package. And, the fact that Nate chambered the rifle for the powerful .375 H&H Ackley Improved wildcat means he’ll have just enough gun to hunt those areas in African with set legal minimums of 3,870 foot-pounds of energy! Since Nate has been "putzing" around with this project for some time now, I’m hoping this month’s field test is the extra little persuasion he needs to finish up the bluing and checkering. I also hope he shares the entire story behind building this treasure in a future WebBench.
It didn’t take a Sherlock Holmes to figure out Nate had done some serious fire forming with his rifle prior to handing it over for this article. I heard him say something along the lines of 75 to 100 rounds down the bore without cleaning. It was also apparent he hadn’t fired it for quite some time, because the buildup of copper on the lands had tarnished to a brilliant shade of green – it normally takes many months for this to occur. I knew this would be a great project gun, but I also expected it to be a pain in the keister to get all that copper out – no matter what product I used. Would CopperMelt be up to the task, or would it fall short of its seemingly outlandish claims?
| Before reading the instructions on the back of the stainless steel bottle, I broke loose the cap on the CopperMelt, and heard it pop and fizz like a can of soda – this stuff was under pressure! Lesson learned – always open new products slowly and read the warning labels before use! Judging from the strong smell of ammonia, my initial thoughts were that CopperMelt was a take-off of similar concentrated ammonia formulas like Sweet’s 7.62, Montana X-Treme Bore Solvent, and other respected copper busters. However, after reading through the very comprehensive info sheet supplied with the bottle, I was surprised to learn CopperMelt is a water-based formula with a small amount of ammonia and some copper-eating enzymes. Apparently, this combination works by enzymatic action to literally dissolve copper, brass, powder, and plastic on contact – even lead, but at a slower rate than the other types of fouling. |
 
Without the right bore scope attachment, it's difficult to photograph deep in side the barrel. Nonetheless, after inspecting the rifling at the muzzle, we had to wonder whether Nate's barrel actually grew copper or had he really fired the rifle that much.
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As I continued reading through the product literature, CopperMelt's next claim to fame was that it was non-abrasive and inert to steel, stainless steel, and aluminum. It wasn't supposed to harm blued and browned finishes either. After reading this, I was preparing to roll up my pant legs – never before in all my experience with ammonia-blend solvents had I seen a manufacturer support such ridiculous claims. In fact, I knew my old bottle of Sweet’s read, “Do not leave Solvent in barrel for periods longer than 15 minutes,” and I had first hand experience that if left in the bore too long, it was highly corrosive.
My initial thoughts were if this stuff worked as well as the manufacturer claimed, there had to be some undesirable side effects to the barrel steel they'd forgotten to mention. With this in the back of my mind, I was reluctant to start cleaning Nate’s rifle without first testing a small amount of CopperMelt on a highly polished piece of scrap steel. I had witnessed Gun Tech Dave Bennetts perform some fantastic metal prep on the buffing wheels in our R&D room, so I asked him to provide one of his mirror polishes to a piece of scrap steel I’d picked up for an earlier article.
Three drops of CopperMelt were applied to a highly polished, steel plate and allowed to dry for four days. The solvent formed an unusual crystal lattice type pattern similar to frost on a windowpane. |
Each bottle of CopperMelt is supplied with a bulb applicator, and the instructions are adamant about using it in a sterile manner to prevent contamination of the solution. I drew a small volume of solvent into the applicator tube, then placed a few droplets onto the steel plate and moved them around to cover an area about the size of a fifty-cent piece. When this was done, I set the plate aside to allow the solvent to dwell a while.
It didn’t take long for the solution to dry on the steel, and as it did it formed an unusual crystal lattice type pattern similar to frost on a windowpane. I’d never seen anything like it before and suspected the CopperMelt was in the process of etching the surface metal. I wouldn't be able to make this determination for another four days, when I decided to clean up the plate for further inspection.
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There was also the nagging question of whether CopperMelt was really safe for contact with blued finishes. Luckily, one of the other fellas at work was planning to bead blast and reblue his STI frame and slide in the near future, so he allowed me to apply a small amount of CopperMelt right on the STI logo stamped into the slide. As I applied the solvent this time, I immediately noticed hundreds of tiny bubbles jetting around in the solvent, as if a chemical reaction was taking place. The slide was then aside for the weekend.
Part of the test was to determine whether CopperMelt would have any adverse affects on hot salts, blued finishes. Note the apparent carbon dioxide bubbles in the solvent as it's applied to this blued, STI frame. It looked to me like the solvent was attacking the metal finish. This was not the case. |
A look at the dried solvent three days after applying it to blued steel. It required a little scrubbing action to completely remove this residue from the STI slide.
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| When I returned to work on Monday, I sprayed the slide with TCE and noticed it took some extra scrubbing to totally remove the residue left behind by the CopperMelt solution. But, to my amazement there was no visible sign of corrosion or discoloration where the puddle of solution was allowed dry. This was impressive, but I knew the true test would be the bare, unprotected scrap of steel, which I would clean up the following day when time permitted. |
A look at the blued finish after degreasing the slide with TCE revealed no visible signs of etching.
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The very next morning, I performed the same routine on the scrap of steel, dowsing it with TCE and scrubbing a little bit to lift off the remaining residue. It was difficult to see any discernible change of the metal surface. But, several of us thought we could see some slight discoloration about the size of a dime. We used a magnifying glass to determine whether we were imagining this contrast in hue, or, if indeed, there was something of significance here. After several minutes of inspection and discussion, we all agreed there was a color difference, but none of us felt comfortable enough to say it was the start of corrosion.
The small tinted area did appear to follow the lines of the crystal lattice pattern that originally formed on the metal surface. But, we could not detect any pitting or elevated areas that would further suggest rust. Because this blemish was barely noticeable to the naked eye, we felt confident it was nothing that would be detrimental to the inside of a gun barrel. My personal feeling was that nobody in their right mind would allow an ammonia solvent to remain inside the bore as long as I'd allowed it to contact the test plate. So, in my opinion, CopperMelt passed the corrosion test with flying colors.
Only after several hair-pulling attempts with lights and camera, was I able to capture a glimpse of what the techs and I noticed after examining the polished, steel plate. Note the "fingerprint-like" stain in the center of the photograph. None of us could definitively suggest what it was.
A money-back guarantee printed on the back of the CopperMelt bottle states: if in the first typical use you don’t find CopperMelt to be the best, quickest, and most effective gun cleaner in the world, Hunter’s Extreme will refund the purchase of your first bottle. This made it obvious that CopperMelt could talk-the-talk, but now it was time to walk-the-walk!
| The instructions for using CopperMelt were straight forward. Because it’s formulated to work on contact, the recommended cleaning technique doesn’t get much easier. Hunter’s Extreme recommends wrapping a cotton patch of the correct caliber for the bore around a nylon bore brush small enough to fall through the bore. Avoid brass jags and bronze brushes, because they contain trace amounts of copper and will give false positives for copper on the patch. Bore brush selection is made easy by following the specification table provided in the product literature. |
When using CopperMelt, all that's required to touch the inside of your delicate bore surface is a soft, cotton patch wrapped around a nylon bore brush.
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I selected Brownells #4 (2-1/2" square), heavy-duty, cotton flannel patches and a 3-Pak of our soft, Nylon Bore Brushes in .30 caliber. However, I soon discovered a drawback to using heavy-duty patches. Not only were they too thick to run down the bore at full size, but the woven fibers, designed for superior scrubbing, were far too tight for adequate absorption of the CopperMelt solution. This allowed for a lot of waste, because the solvent dripped off the patches like water rolls off a duck's back.
A plastic, bulb applicator is provided with every bottle of CopperMelt. To prevent contamination and maximize shelf life, the manufacturer emphasizes not to return unused portions of solvent back to the bottle. During testing, I discovered thick, tight-weave patches, like the "Heavy Duty" cotton flannel one shown here, had the tendency to block solvent absorption. This led to runoff and a lot of wasted solvent. Stick with standard, cotton flannel or cotton twill patches when using CopperMelt.
The dark, blue-green stripes on the first patch make it easy to see that the patch picked up a lot of copper as it followed the twist of the rifling. |
After finally getting the first patch trimmed down to proper size and dampened with solvent, I wrapped it tight around the nylon brush and carefully guided it through the bore with a Dewey coated rod. Hunter’s Extreme recommends 10 to 30 back-and-forth passes per patch, or until it cannot absorb any additional fouling. After a mere five passes through Nate’s rifle barrel, the patch was striped such a dark blue-green color, I couldn’t bring myself to going the minimum of 10 passes. You could literally see how the patch had followed the lands, picking up layers of copper as it rotated along the twist of the rifling. I think I stood in the R&D room for at least a minute with my jaw hanging in amazement. Never before had I seen so much copper come out of a barrel, and certainly not in only five, painless, back-and-forth stokes with a soft, cotton patch wrapped around a nylon bore brush. This stuff was remarkable.
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| Could I be falling for all the CopperMelt hype? I dampened a second patch and sent it on its way down the bore, 10 passes this time and noticed right away a lot less green came out. This stuff was hardcore and worked remarkably fast. For all practical purposes, it took only 6 patches, 10 back-and-forth strokes each, to remove the majority of copper. The next 4 patches dampened in solvent had only a very slight tinge of green. And, the second from last patch exited the bore without a trace of copper. I ran one final dry patch down the barrel to soak up any residual solvent as instructed by the product literature. All in all, it took just 10 patches to rid the bore 100 percent of all copper. I could have easily gone more strokes per patch to cut down on patches, but I needed some way to quantify the amount of effort required to get the job done, so I chose to go 10 passes per patch. This was fantastic, considering there had been 75 to 100 copper jacketed bullets fired down the tube prior to cleaning. The best part – it took only 15 minutes! |
A look at the cleaning progression from start to finish shows how quickly CopperMelt extracted the heavy copper buildup. Many high volume shooters use two to three times as many patches to get this kind of result.
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Using a bore light, I peered down inside the barrel. And, quite honestly, I couldn't distinguish it from a fresh barrel blank. The lands and groves looked square and sharp and were such a nice, silvery-gray color, it looked like this barrel had been button-rifled yesterday. I have to admit, and have no problem doing so – CopperMelt is the most effective copper solvent I've ever had the pleasure of using. I can see how it would yield a huge cost savings in patches, brushes, and solvent. I could also foresee longer barrel life as there would be substantially less trauma and wear to the bore, since nothing more than a soft, cotton patch had to touch the inside of the barrel. CopperMelt eats powder fouling for breakfast, so there would be no more need for coarse, phosphor bronze, bore brushes, either – I like the idea of that!
A final exam of the muzzle after cleaning with CopperMelt shows the rifling has been stripped of every last bit of copper residue. This is quite impressive considering the amount of green that was present before field-testing this new, miracle solvent.
In closing, I thought I'd better share the other little test I performed while working up this month's article on my home computer. As I pondered how well CopperMelt had worked to clean up Nate's rifle, I became ever more suspicious about the degree of copper fouling that might still exist in the barrels of some of my favorite varminters – particularly my Remington 700 chambered in 6mm. I'd fired several hundred rounds through this rifle the previous summer. And, as I recalled, there were no detectable traces of copper remaining in the bore when I tucked it away in the safe last fall. Nonetheless, curiosity got the best of me, and I decided to find out for sure whether I'd gotten the bore as clean as I thought had.
Since I had a good supply of absorbent, twill patches and undersized, .22 caliber nylon brushes on-hand, plus the CopperMelt sample I'd used for initial testing, I decided to make one last ditch attempt to prove to myself that my current copper solvent was on par with the competition. After fetching the rifle, I secured it in my gun cradle, removed the bolt, installed a bore guide, and began the cleaning regimen. Ten minutes and six, blue-green patches later, the bore was now completely copper-free, and I'd proven to myself CopperMelt was superior to my old, mainstay solvent.
Every once in a blue moon, its nice to see a new, innovative cleaning product that actually meets or exceeds the miracle claims set forth by its supplier. I think every high volume shooter owes it to himself to give their trusted copper solvent a run for its money. At $29.95 for a 3.5 fl. oz. bottle, CopperMelt isn't cheap. But, considering the calculated average of 218 cleanings per bottle for a .30 caliber rifle and the cost savings in patches and brushes, I think it’s the bargain of the century!
If you have questions about different cleaning products or techniques you want us to test, be sure to let me know at WebBench@Brownells.com.
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