Cleaning Schultz & Larsen Barrels

[South Pender]

The point is that 'cleaning' a barrel solely with oil and felts is no better than to hope that a car will be clean after having stood in the rain. The advice by S&L is not worth the paper it is written on.

Well, that's your opinion, I guess, but I have to ask why Morten Krogh would provide this advice quite definitively if there weren't merit to it. Krogh would know more about the barrel steel and barrel-making procedures in S&L rifles than anyone else. Perhaps it's of a different alloy than most barrel steels, or perhaps his advice is based on the particular hardening that is required in S&L barrels noted by ejg above in Post # 19. Perhaps it relates to the fairly-unique rifling method (for factory-rifle barrels)--single-point cut rifling, followed by lapping and final polishing--not found with most factory rifles. In any case, I definitely wouldn't write off this advice as worthless.

 

[webley701]

Well, that's your opinion, I guess, but I have to ask why Morten Krogh would provide this advice quite definitively if there weren't merit to it. Krogh would know more about the barrel steel and barrel-making procedures in S&L rifles than anyone else. Perhaps it's of a different alloy than most barrel steels, or perhaps his advice is based on the particular hardening that is required in S&L barrels noted by ejg above in Post # 19. Perhaps it relates to the fairly-unique rifling method (for factory-rifle barrels)--single-point cut rifling, followed by lapping and final polishing--not found with most factory rifles. In any case, I definitely wouldn't write off this advice as worthless.

Single cut rifling followed by lapping etc is the standard method of production adopted by the better specialist barrel makers (for carbon steel & stainless) - these barrels are fine being cleaned by the normal methods (i.e. patches & bore cleaning solvents etc) and that’s what their makers recommend.

 

[Hunter 6.5]

Very good rifles heavily regretted the sale of my 22-250. Fouling in their barrels is noticeably less than any other rifle I owned. Manufacturer recommendations for using only oil is a bit of overstatement. Don't be afraid to use normal cleaning regime and methods,I personally wouldn't use bronze brushes.

 

[MontyDachs]

With mine I only use the VFG cleaning system, it's cleaned after every use.

 

[J@son]

With mine I only use the VFG cleaning system, it's cleaned after every use.

I do exactly the same. Don't use anything else - except a pull through with a boresnake. Seems all that is needed to maintain excellent accuracy on both my S&L rifles (.243 and .308)

 

[TundB]

I also use only VFG pellets and a little bit oil. Never had any issue with copper fouling on S&L barrel and I rarely clean it.

 

[ejg]

A few weeks ago we had guests from Denmark who have also used and tested S&L barrels. There seems to be a bit more behind S&L's cleaning madness. One of my guests has been involved in years of cleaning regime optimising and barrel life checking on military precision rifles. The final outcome was that the worst you can do is chemically remove copper! Remove carbon yes but not all copper. Mechanical polishing most of the copper away but leaving copper to fill the fire cracks seems the way to go to extend barrel life and keep accuracy steady. We were shown the cleaning regime and will use that in the future. When I had issues with rifle accuracy in the past I had more faith in mechanical carbon/copper removal than chemical... served me well so far.
edi

 

[South Pender]

A few weeks ago we had guests from Denmark who have also used and tested S&L barrels. There seems to be a bit more behind S&L's cleaning madness. One of my guests has been involved in years of cleaning regime optimising and barrel life checking on military precision rifles. The final outcome was that the worst you can do is chemically remove copper! Remove carbon yes but not all copper. Mechanical polishing most of the copper away but leaving copper to fill the fire cracks seems the way to go to extend barrel life and keep accuracy steady. We were shown the cleaning regime and will use that in the future. When I had issues with rifle accuracy in the past I had more faith in mechanical carbon/copper removal than chemical... served me well so far.
edi

So what exactly is the full cleaning regimen that your guest employs with S&L barrels?

 

[HonestJohn]

So what exactly is the full cleaning regimen that your guest employs with S&L barrels?

Ballistol, nothing else