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.