"Burnt" barrels and the .17Rem?

[scalerman]

This may not be the place for this question but there seems to be alot of discussion of this issue on this thread so I am going to ask it anyway. Based on what I hear you guys saying is it true that with care not to heat the barrel up too much that shooting out a barrel will take a long time or is there a certain point where this barrel is shot out regardless of how carefully it has been cared for? I ask this question because I have my dad's rifle- it is at least 40 years old- it used to put two bullets practically in the same hole, now not so much. My brother had it for a number of years and he said that it was getting progressively worse as far as accuracy was concerned. He says it is shot out. I have fired it and yes the accuracy is not what it once was but I am certain that he did not shoot as much as dad did years ago. I am hearing in this discussion here that there may yet be some hope for this rifle if I were to give the barrel a good cleaning to get out the copper fouling. Forgive this stupid question- How the h@ck do you do that?