Initially, I set up a comparison using 10 rifles that had varying degrees of existing fouling. The plan was to assign two rifles to each cleaning product, and to give each rifle only one cleaning treatment. After using a cleaning product, each rifle would be hooked up to an Outer's (now Gunslick) Foul Out, and the time it took for each bore to read "clean" recorded.

The Foul Out is an electrochemical bore cleaner that uses an electrolyte solution and electricity to basically "reverse plate" copper from the bore to the "cleaning rod."

The Foul Out is an electrochemical bore cleaner that uses an electrolyte solution and electricity to basically "reverse plate" copper from the bore to the "cleaning rod." For my comparative purposes, the less time it took to read "clean" on the Foul Out, the less fouling I considered remaining in the bore after using a cleaning product. With those comparative times, it would be possible to objectively compare how Deaton's does as a cleaner.

After the first five guns, it became obvious that comparison was not going to provide useable results. Two of the rifles had very high quality barrels that came clean very quickly while old Mausers stubbornly held on to their copper. Further, some bores were button-rifled, others cut; some rifles had been fired with bullets having copper jackets, some with gilding metal jackets, and there might have even been a few moly-coated bullets fired through some of the guns since the last cleaning. All of that presented too many variables to make a meaningful comparison.

As a new test, I chose to use only one rifle to eliminate the bore variables encountered in the earlier test. The process was to foul that rifle with a consistent number of shots of a given load, clean once with one of the cleaning products according to its instructions, and then see how long it took on the Foul Out to read clean. The process would be repeated for each cleaning product.

To keep things consistent, when patches were called for, Mayer used only new Brownell's round cotton patches on a brass jag. Brushes used were exclusively Brownell's nylon and a new brush was used with each cleaning product.

To further keep things consistent, when patches were called for, I used only new Brownell's round cotton patches on a brass jag. Brushes used were exclusively Brownell's nylon and a new brush was used with each cleaning product. Immediately after using a cleaning product and before going on the Foul Out, the bore was flushed using Brownell's TCE Cleaner/Degreaser to remove any residual solvent that could interfere with the Foul Out. Fresh Cop Out Plus electrolyte was used each time the gun was put on the Foul Out, and the Foul Out rod cleaned between uses using 0000 steel wool and TCE degreaser.

For the gun, I selected a Marlin bolt-action in .22 Magnum that has Micro-Groove rifling, and opted to fire 10 rounds of CCI Maxi-Mag+V between cleaning products. The CCI loads use copper-jacketed bullets and ten rounds was sufficient to lay down enough copper to clean, but not so much that the gun would be on the Foul Out for extended periods of time.

Immediately after using a cleaning product and before going on the Foul Out, the bore was flushed using Brownell's TCE Cleaner/Degreaser to remove any residual solvent that could interfere with the Foul Out.