hBN (Hexagonal Boron Nitride) vs fouling

Given some of the information provided by others, I decided to pull one alcohol patch through before the dry patches during the seasoning process.

The first patch was rather dirty and filled with lead, then two dry patches later it was really clean.


These were shooting monster redesign pellets at 1040 ft./s.

So, is the hBN doing its job by not allowing the lead to adhere to the bore? It’s still too early for me to tell. I need to find my bore scope.
I would say yes, it's doing a job keeping the lead from adhering.

Are you washing your pellets? I find that most pellets aren't very clean and if lead laying down in your bore concerns you, they should be very clean to begin with.

The flecks of lead that do get introduced into the bore are an interesting puzzle. Do they smear down and stay until they're dislodged or cleaned out? Or do they get lifted and carried out by the next shot or shots? It's a finicky thing to try to study and test, even as it happens right in front of us.
 
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Hey Michael,
I'm way late to this thread and honestly, didn't read all the responses to your post. I just skimmed through them.

When I was shooting PRS with a centerfire, years ago, I tried just about every lube available with mixed results. Then back in 2016-2017 when I got really serious about testing .25 slugs and sharing the information here on AGN, the thought definitely crossed my mind. Back then though, the .25 accuracy was so bad, none of that would have helped. :ROFLMAO:
Most all of the barrels and the appropriate slugs just weren't very good. Shooting .25 slugs in airguns seriously was fairly new. There were of course, a few exceptions like Airforce/Lothar Walther, but in general, most barrel and slug combos weren't great! I remember shooting 50yd, 10 shot groups that were 2-3 inches!

However, in just a couple of years, the performance of both the barrels and .25 slugs increased exponentially! Accuracy increased so much in just a short time that the thought of polishing, waxing, lubing and trying different compounds to squeeze every bit of accuracy out of my airguns crossed my mind again. So of course, I tried all of them that I could. I didn't find any that I felt were worth the time, expense and effort!

The point of this long winded post, finally... I tried most all of them with very little success. I didn't see much different in accuracy or the ability to keep barrels from fouling. Some we're okay but there were no real standouts that made me want to change the procedure I'd been using.

I always thoroughly clean new barrels, shoot them a bit to get some lead in there and get a baseline. Then I clean them again, polish them pretty angressively and wax them lightly with Renaissance Wax. I also always lube my slugs with the WD-40 silicone formula in the silver/blue/yellow can. It's not a magic formula, sometimes it helps a little with accuracy, sometimes it doesn't. It certainly never hurts accuracy though! The big benefit of cleaning, polishing, waxing and lubing is that I rarely clean any of my slug airguns and they're all great shooters... My .25 Skout with the Corbin 48.6gr slugs at 990fps, my .25 RAW with Zan 33gr slugs at 970fps, my .25 MKII with Zan 37gr slugs at 980fps, my .22 M3 with the Zan 30.5gr slugs at 1040fps are the most accurate combos that I've ever owned! I've even cleaned, polished and waxed the barrels of our pellet shooters, the Maverick and Red Panda and they're superb pellet shooters!

These are just my results after shooting lots and lots and lots of .25 slugs. Half the fun of shooting airguns is experimenting, testing, trying new things and shooting some more until you find what works best! When you finally shoot that teeny tiny group, it's so awesome that all the testing was worth it! I never take anyone's word for anything 100%. I listen to what people have to say, use it as a starting point or just additional information and then I test for myself. I always suggest people do the same.

Everybody have a great week!
Stoti
 
Ive been using this for well over a year now and tried many application techniques and mediums, killing anfew barrels in thr process. Alcohol is the best to use. Tried oils, waxes and pastes no no avail. HBN in that size is smaller than the steel molecules. Fire lapping is crucial to get the crystalline structure to 'fracture' and embed itself in between the steell. You can electro statically coat too.

I will cross over worlds here from powder burners and mention lanolin as a binder/lube. Aka wool wax. It's sheep's wool oil basically. No idea if it works here but I used to use it for bullet lube when casting for the subsonic powder burner envelope.
 
Tried out hBN for myself. All I did was sprinkle it onto a tin of slugs and shook the tin. The slugs looked to have been coated evenly. I did not notice any loss of FPS. Not sure how that’s happening to others. I’m using my home made .25 34gr slugs at 950-960fps out of M3 Impact. These were my results at 100 meters.

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I spent some time testing HBN in my Bandit pistol today. It’s been too cold to shoot rifles outdoors so I benched my pistol indoors at 10M. It’s not the most accurate pistol on the planet but it provides me with some trigger time in the cold winter months. I tested it on CPHP’s and JTS16 pellets and compared results against lubed pellets and pellets straight from the tin. I shot the pistol in carbine form and also in a pistol form. Long story short, this pistol shot more consistently using pellets straight from the tin.

Keep in mind that this is a sample size of one and what works for this may not work for yours so it’s best to test to see what your particular air gun prefers.

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Hey Michael,
I'm way late to this thread and honestly, didn't read all the responses to your post. I just skimmed through them.

When I was shooting PRS with a centerfire, years ago, I tried just about every lube available with mixed results. Then back in 2016-2017 when I got really serious about testing .25 slugs and sharing the information here on AGN, the thought definitely crossed my mind. Back then though, the .25 accuracy was so bad, none of that would have helped. :ROFLMAO:
Most all of the barrels and the appropriate slugs just weren't very good. Shooting .25 slugs in airguns seriously was fairly new. There were of course, a few exceptions like Airforce/Lothar Walther, but in general, most barrel and slug combos weren't great! I remember shooting 50yd, 10 shot groups that were 2-3 inches!

However, in just a couple of years, the performance of both the barrels and .25 slugs increased exponentially! Accuracy increased so much in just a short time that the thought of polishing, waxing, lubing and trying different compounds to squeeze every bit of accuracy out of my airguns crossed my mind again. So of course, I tried all of them that I could. I didn't find any that I felt were worth the time, expense and effort!

The point of this long winded post, finally... I tried most all of them with very little success. I didn't see much different in accuracy or the ability to keep barrels from fouling. Some we're okay but there were no real standouts that made me want to change the procedure I'd been using.

I always thoroughly clean new barrels, shoot them a bit to get some lead in there and get a baseline. Then I clean them again, polish them pretty angressively and wax them lightly with Renaissance Wax. I also always lube my slugs with the WD-40 silicone formula in the silver/blue/yellow can. It's not a magic formula, sometimes it helps a little with accuracy, sometimes it doesn't. It certainly never hurts accuracy though! The big benefit of cleaning, polishing, waxing and lubing is that I rarely clean any of my slug airguns and they're all great shooters... My .25 Skout with the Corbin 48.6gr slugs at 990fps, my .25 RAW with Zan 33gr slugs at 970fps, my .25 MKII with Zan 37gr slugs at 980fps, my .22 M3 with the Zan 30.5gr slugs at 1040fps are the most accurate combos that I've ever owned! I've even cleaned, polished and waxed the barrels of our pellet shooters, the Maverick and Red Panda and they're superb pellet shooters!

These are just my results after shooting lots and lots and lots of .25 slugs. Half the fun of shooting airguns is experimenting, testing, trying new things and shooting some more until you find what works best! When you finally shoot that teeny tiny group, it's so awesome that all the testing was worth it! I never take anyone's word for anything 100%. I listen to what people have to say, use it as a starting point or just additional information and then I test for myself. I always suggest people do the same.

Everybody have a great week!
Stoti
I would be very interested in knowing your method of polishing and waxing. I too have been shooting .25 almost exclusively over the years and just received my new Skout Evo with the 34.5" barrel so would like to start out right. Thanks!
 
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I, along with many other people have made posts here on AGN in the past about polishing and waxing. It's been a while.
Most important is to go slowly, whether you're using a paste or very fine grit sand paper...1000-8000grit. I use Renaissance wax but it's a lot less important than the polish and getting it right the first time.
Stoti
 
I would be very interested in knowing your method of polishing and waxing. I too have been shooting .25 almost exclusively over the years and just received my new Skout Evo with the 34.5" barrel so would like to start out right. Thanks!
I'm not sure if those Skout bores need that attention? Aren't they aleady manufactured from the factory with some slick coating?
 
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The Epoch manual says not to use any brush, metal or “plastic” in their barrel. The Evo manual doesn't but I thought it was the same barrel. Perhaps they should include that with the Evo manual as well as I would not have normally read the Epoch manual. The Epoch manual does state that the barrels do have some sort of Teflon-like coating. Would Evo's barrel makeup be different?

Apologies, I have taken this thread off topic. Back to hBN discussions.....
 
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