VJP: For our purposes, the strong suit for Ed's Red is plastic residue removal from shotgun barrels. Unless you have an extremely rough bore, I expect this would mainly be one piece plastic wad residue in the forcing cone area. I made up a gallon jug of Ed's Red a number of years ago, and have had to use it only sparingly ever since. I have lengthened the forcing cones on most of my oldie shotgun barrels, but I have always made a serious effort to polish out all the reamer tool marks with stones and flex-hones....so I've had small need to use much Ed's Red.
Pay attention to the instructions to store it in a GLASS bottle....as it EATS plastic in its several forms.
For rifle and shotgun bore cleaning I use BreakFree/CLP. Give the container a good shake before use, and give the CLP a bit of time to do its work. Whatever the active ingredient is in CLP (Cleaner Lubricant Preservative), it has an affinity to metal, and moves and loosens anything in its path to unite with the bare bore metal. A good tight patch pushes out all the crud.
It has worked for me, and have not found the need to look else where. You'll notice that BreakFree/CLP comes in a SOFT plastic container. There's a VERY good reason for that. DO NOT STORE IT OR DECANT IT INTO A HARD PLASTIC BOTTLE. Ask me how I know!!
YMMV.
