Another barrell cleaning question

chill123

Well-Known Member
Many thanks to eveyone who replied to my recent thread .I am going to deep clean and then test my rifle to see what cleaning does to it . After each shot i pull the boresnake throught the barrell .My next question is how often should i deep clean the barrell ?


Chill
 
Many thanks to eveyone who replied to my recent thread .I am going to deep clean and then test my rifle to see what cleaning does to it . After each shot i pull the boresnake throught the barrell .My next question is how often should i deep clean the barrell ?


Chill

When it needs it ;) as said before each and just about every barrel is different so once the grouping starts to drop off it's time for a good clean. I would give it a good clean if the rifle got abnormally wet just to be safe.

Now I know that quite a few don't subscribe to taget shooting and testing but I am afraid it's the only way to determine how long between a good cleaning is.

i.e how many rounds fired before fouling effects grouping ability.

Personally I would never use bore snake and do not have one an won't have one. I have a couple of original pull throughs for the 303 rifle and they are wound as they came and have never even been unwrapped. Doubt they ever will be either. For cleaning I use a solid rod, bronze brushes, brass jags with cloth and P-H 009 Nitro Solvent.. For jacket fouling removal Forest Foaming Bore cleaner.
 
Chill123

A bore snake will not realy clean the barrel , do as Brithunter has replied you wont go wrong i like butches bore shine for cooper removal but do use forrest foam. you will have to see what your rifle likes and how many rounds is shot before accruacy drops off .

As an example my .308 deer gun only get cleaned when the bore gets wet and this shoots 3/4" @100m consistanly i'm not after any more . my .243 Sako i use for the longer range varminting and paper you see the groups opening up & accruacy drop off after about 150-200 rounds she then gets a full de-cooper and clean.

both rifles then like 3-4 fouling shots through to bed in again

As a start for you i would give the barrel a de-copper and nitro solvent until fully clean ,then record your results and shoot a target see what you get then shoot some more all the time record the results/keep targets you will find what the gun likes.
 
Many thanks to eveyone who replied to my recent thread .I am going to deep clean and then test my rifle to see what cleaning does to it . After each shot i pull the boresnake throught the barrell .My next question is how often should i deep clean the barrell ?


Chill

If you want to maintain any semblance of accuracy and consistency you should clean your barrel as little as possible. Just a Yankee's opinion...~Muir

("deep clean" a barrel?? Never heard of it.)
 
I'm not sure why some people are so dead set against the bore snake?

Brithunter wrote that he uses- (bronze brushes, brass jags with cloth). Taking a look at my boresnakes, (I have three) they consist of a braided woven absorbent rope around a bronze brush. I realy can't see that there is much to choose between them. What I would say, and we are probaby in agreement here Brit, is that using a fresh clean patch is the only way to know if the barrel is actually clean.

I tend to pull a snake through when abroad or away from home, and when my full cleaning kit is not with me. Even then they are only used if the rifle has had a good soaking.

I have heard tales of snakes breaking in the barrel, but never had that happen to me. I wonder if either the snake was a dodgy copy or was the wrong one for the calibre. I can remember my Dads tales of soldiers being charged if the patch found by the armourer in their blocked rifle barrel was any larger than 2"x1".

Buckup
 
It is not neccessary to clean a barrel after every shot. Far from it.

If I'm going through a period where I'm getting plenty of use and shots put through it, provided it's dry I don't clean it.

I clean it after each outing when I know that it isn't going to get used again for a while - a couple of weeks or so.

My Sako seems to shoot just as accurately clean as it does dirty so I've never been a religious cleaner or a lazy non cleaner.

DC

P.S Life's too short to be worried about cleaning and deep cleaning your rifle every day!
 
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I posted on the other thread showing what a good cleaning does in terms of POI with my rifle. I should also point out that some time back I took the decision to give my rifle a really serious cleaning and I used some KG12 to get the copper out. It was a long story but the bottom line was that it took me about 50 rounds to get my poor rifle back to shooting consistently. The groups weren't bad and they weren't miles away from my point of aim but they weren't as good as they should have been.

So, be careful. Every time the rifle is out, and when I take it out of the safe again to take it out, I will put a tight dry patch down the barrel. Part of this is a routine to ensure there is nothing in the barrel that might cause a blockage hence why I put the patch up it when taking it out of the safe but it is also to ensure there is no dampness or loose material left in the barrel. I always store the rifle with the moderator off. Once in a while I will put the brass brush up the bore with butches bore shine on it. I only pass the brush up in one direction and after getting lots of butches into the barrel I would let it sit for a little while and then patch it out. I might give it another going over with butches and the brass brush and patch dry. That is what I consider the maximum level of cleaning it gets but I am pretty certain that going at it for longer, with different chemicals etc. will remove more dirt but I can see no advantage in terms of accuracy in doing this, in fact it has a negative effect on accuracy.

How often? Well if I go to the range and shoot 50 or 100 rounds then I will usually clean when I get home. If I am stalking then the rifle can go several months with no more than a dry patch down it and to date I've seen no problem with this and it means that I know where not only the first shot out of the barrel will go, but also where a group of 10 or even 20 shots will go. When stalking I might commonly put up a target for a wee practise off sticks and so on so I'd guess that the rifle might be cleaned every 50 - 100 rounds but those would be fired over quite a few months, maybe 3 - 6 months.
 
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