Solvent-Resistant Cleaning Jags

Brass jags perform well for their intended purpose — with one hitch. Strong copper solvents can actually leech metal from the jag itself, leaving the tell-tale blue tint on your patches. This “false positive” can be frustrating, and may lead shooters to over-clean their barrels.

There are now some good alternatives to brass jags. The best may be the Gunslick® Nylon Snap-Lock ™ jags shown at left. These never leave a “false positive” and snap on and off quickly. Larry Bartholome, past USA F-Class Team Captain says: “The best spear-type jags I have used are the GunSlick black nylon tips. I have used the model 92400 for the last couple years in my 6BR and 6.5-284s. Unlike the white plastic jags, these are strong and there’s no brass to worry about.”

92400 22 through 270 calibers: $1.49
92421 30 through 375 Calibers: $1.49

If you prefer a metal jag, MidwayUSA sells Tipton Nickel-coated jags, both individually and as a boxed set. The vast majority of user reviews have been very positive. A few guys have complained that the nickel-plated Tipton jags run oversize, but we use a .22-caliber jag in our 6mms anyway, so this hasn’t been a problem for us. The 22-caliber nickel-plated jag (item 996840) costs $4.49. The complete 12-jag set (item 812503), covering .17 to .45 calibers, costs $22.99 including a fitted box, shown below.

K&M Stainless Jags
K&M Tools offers stainless spire-point jags in .22, .243, and .308 calibers. These are well-made and won’t produce false positives. However, with stainless jags, you need to always keep the jag covered with a patch when inside the barrel. Otherwise you can rub steel against steel — not good. The downside of stainless is the potential for barrel scratching. On the other hand, according to Forum member Dans40x: “300 series stainless steel jags last a few lifetimes”.

Clear-Coating Your Brass Jags
If you’re reluctant to give up your collection of brass jags (after all they’ve worked pretty well so far), try covering the jag itself with a thin, transparent coating. Forum Member BillPA says: “I give the brass jags a coat of clear lacquer or acrylic; that works for me”. You may need to experiment to find a coating that stands up to your favorite solvent. BillPA says: “The only solvent I’ve found that eats the lacquer off is TM Solution. Butch’s, Shooter’s Choice, or Wipe-Out don’t seem to bother it. Most of the time I use rattle-can clear lacquer”. If you’re feeling creative, you could even color-code your jags by adding tints to the clear-coat.

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Bullet Jackets and Neck Chamfering

Shaving bullet jackets is a problem reloaders encounter from time to time. It can be caused by excessive neck tension, burrs on the case mouth, or over-aggressive chamfering that leaves a ragged edge on the case mouth. Larry Medler discovered some rounds where the bullet jackets were getting shaved. Diagnosing the problem, he found that this was caused by his outside neck chamfer. He was using a powered screwdriver to rotate the case, and over-cutting plus tool chatter was causing the case neck to roll inwards. This created a thin, sharp edge that actually cut into the bullet jacket as the bullet was being seated.

Larry has a Load Force 250 measuring instrument that records the dynamic bullet seating force and displays the results on a computer screen. Larry noted that spikes in seating force were associated with the cases where the bullets were shaved. Inspecting the cases, Larry realized what was happening. Chamfering the outside after doing the inside allowed his tools to cut too much. Combined with tool chatter, this actually created a sharp, ragged edge that rolled inward towards the bullet: “I discovered I had rolled the case mouth rim inward while deburring the outer edge. When deburring the case mouth on the outside edge, every now and then I could hear some tool chatter. The effects of this chatter really show in the picture.”

The above chart shows the dynamic bullet seating force for the bullet with the shaved jacket. Note the large initial force used to cut and scratch the bullet outer surfaces. The final seating force of 47 pounds is just before the Wilson Seating Die bottoms out and the force on the load cell jumps. The chart below shows normal bullet seating force.

As a fix, Larry decided to reverse the neck deburring operations. Now he deburrs the outside first. This reduces tool chatter and prevents the edge from rolling over, because the neck thickness has not been thinned by inside chamfering. While Larry uses a powered screwdriver to speed his case processing, the lesson applies to those who chamfer manually as well–do the outside first and never overcut.

Remember, you simply want to remove burrs and create a slight chamfer. You don’t want to thin the brass significantly at the case mouth. This is why it is important to be very careful when using a deep-angle cutter such as the K&M inside neck chamferer. Click HERE to read Larry’s full report on neck chamfering, with more details on use of the Load Force 250 measuring instrument. Using device such as this, or a K&M arbor press equipped with a seating force gauge, will help you diagnose problems with your neck tension and reloading procedures.