Educate me on this infamous thing called a Carbon Ring.

[mtnbound]

I grew up in a family of hunters and shooters, and I have been shooting for decades with various cartridges and have never experienced a Carbon Ring buildup in a chamber. Yet I see it mentioned fairly regularly. I do not clean my rifles (other than black powder ones), and I have not cleaned them for a long time, so, in my experience, it's not caused by lack of cleaning. I have no supporting evidence, but I believe most people actually clean their rifles because it's always been done that way. I watched a guy at the range recently clean his rifle after every 4 shots. When asked why, he said it was to reduce carbon buildup and improve accuracy. I said ok and went back to shooting my uncleaned 223 rifle.

Is this carbon buildup from a particular powder manufacturer, powder burn rate, powder volume used in a case, shooting too little, shooting too much, weather, using inappropriate cleaning products, aliens, or what? I have a hard time believing that I, or anyone else in my circle, have just been lucky and never experienced one.

 

[kswaterfowl]

I could be wrong, but it sounds like an issue with barrels that have tight chambers.

 

[akhunter3]

My understanding was this mainly impacted fancy custom rigs with extremely tight chamber tolerances

 

[Dave Thomas]

If you're not cleaning your rifle you will have a carbon ring. It might not cause you any problems but it's there. Look in your barrel with a borescope and you'll see it.

 

[Wrench]

Imagine shooting through a doughnut made of incredibly hard grit. Every shot adds copper and carbon. At some point the hole in the doughnut gets smaller than the bullet is in diameter and strips the bullet which eventually stops the rifling from working in extreme cases.

 

[Gadjet]

I believe it's mainly a PRC thing. In other words, cartridges designed with tighter than average tolerances. I have a 7PRC and it builds up a carbon ring.