Originally Posted by babs

Now here's a question for the pro's..

I went to the range Saturday (concealed carry class.. yay!). So I cleaned the P226 that night, soaking the barrel in with patches of Hoppes 9.

I go back clean clean clean with bore snake w/ brush, then patches (chamber to muzzle) until dry and no residue. I think, let's try a dab of militec-1 on a patch and see what happens... A completely new run of patches with crud on them, indicating the hoppes 9 didn't break it up and remove everything from the bore.... hmmm

I figured the hoppes 9 would have been the far better cleaner, but a little dab of the M-1 showed me there was more crud to remove from that bore.

... is this some revelation to go to something different for bore solvent?

Well I am no pro but I've been using Hoppe's for several years (you can make that over a decade if you include the times I used to help Dad). I've definitely noticed Hoppe's isn't entirely thorough from time to time. It seems to be most lacking when it comes to polygonal-rifled barrels. I can scrub a barrel for an hour straight and not get all of the crap out using Hoppe's exclusively.

One time I accidentally let used cloths sit overnight after I extensively scrubbed a polygonal barrel with Hoppe's. The next day I noticed copper oxide (blue-green crap) on cloths at the top of the pile. From this I've concluded that Hoppe's is suitable, but not best for getting rid of copper fouling.

If I'm not mistaken the P226 has a threaded barrel so it may not be the same thing. Still I think it's worth checking. See if you can get more dirt out of the barrel when you think you've got your barrel clean and let the cloth sit overnight. If it is blue-green the next day, then you've got some copper buildup in your barrel which can be more efficiently cleaned with something other than Hoppe's.