Stuck bore snake

[Alantoo]

no this was Norman Clark several years ago, however isnt it strange that two of the finest riflesmiths and barrel fitters in the UK have the same opinion?

I wish I was surprised that so many people think they know better than people who have a combined experience of over 5 decades dealing with rifle issues and who have forgotten more than most people on here will ever learn about gunsmithing and rifle husbandry.

A boresnake is often used instead of cleaning properly with a one piece rod. Thats the issue.

Will the cloth ruin a crown? No- will the cloth with glass hard miniscule fragments youve just removed from the lands? Quite possibly. Were the 'tests' mentioned previously done with a clean boresnake on a smooth piece of metal such as the outside of a barrel or were they done with a dirty boresnake on the crown ?

If you have one for field use if you plug barrel, fair enough, although for me it would have to be a big plug of mud to get through the over barrel moderator. I do carry a nylon covered pull through and a patch if needed which I keep in the vehicle and will return to uae if I must.

Ah good, that's two well known rifle smiths then. I did think it a bit strange that only one of them had that view. Let us hope some others chip in with more information to support their contention.

As far as thinking one knows better than experts...we can only decide if we agree with what they say based on our own knowledge and experience.

I only have my 50 years experience of hands on working with (forging, machining, manipulatiing, abrading and polishing) metal professionally to gauge what I think is going on with a bore snake as opposed to any other cleaning system. Of course I may be wrong, I certainly do not dispute that. Hopefully I am still learning and open to learn where I have been going wrong.

It is true I have only been cleaning my own guns for just over 40 years and using bore snakes regularly for just 4. Presumably though, given their opinion, the rifle smiths quoted have not used bore snakes much themselves at all, and there must be a large element of conjecture on their part that a boresnake was solely responsible for damaging their customer's barrel sufficiently to require replacement...unless they were present at every cleaning or responsible for causing the damage with the boresnake themselves.

Do you think that any glass hard miniscule fragments removed from the lands by a tightly fitting cloth patch on a hard jag are any less likely to damage the crown or bore than those on the slightly squishier bore snake? Same amount of abrasive particles in the barrel whichever bit of cloth carries them along the bore and out of the muzzle. Arguably the boresnake may retain some of those particles, and if not cleaned (I shake mine out every time, but wash it rarely) could reintroduce them to the bore on subsequent uses.

To what degree your glass hard particles exist and how abrasive the powder and carbon fouling itself may actually be I do not know. I confess I also don't know what the equivalent abrasive grit size of any miniscule hard particle left in the barrel could be. Just before I pull my cloth bore snake through I have pushed a lump of lead and/or copper through at 2900fps and that was a gas tight fit to the internal surfaces of the barrel, so any remaining particles are likely to be much smaller than the finest rouge powder and can only have a very mild polishing effect, if any, on the barrel when lifted and carried by the bore snake or cloth patch.

With my current knowledge and experience I can't see how boresnakes can be any worse than any other cleaning system.

I await with interest an explanation as to how and why they are so much more damaging than using cloth patches on a jag.


Alan

 

[JTO]

Perhaps the rifle owners had already wrecked the barrels trying to extract the BoreSnake before taking them to a gunsmith.

 

[Alantoo]

Perhaps the rifle owners had already wrecked the barrels trying to extract the BoreSnake before taking them to a gunsmith.

Well that would account for how they could know a boresnake (mis) use was directly responsible.

But if other gunsmiths have managed to remove them without damaging the barrel, maybe it was the extraction system attempted by the rifle owner that should be blamed for the damage and not the actual use of the boresnake per se.

I responded by mentioning my own experience because I felt slightly personally challenged by 308tikka. I suppose I should have just cited the decades of experience of other experts...i.e. the decades of knowledge and testing (alongside the threat of legal action for selling a damaging product) of the men at Hoppes "The gun care people".

Alan

 

[Jagare]

Below is a picture of my rifle with bore snake in the barrel. The Bore Snake is 70cm not including the cord and the barrel is 60cm. The Bore Snake is a Hoppes for 30 cal bore. As you can see when one end of the snake is out the barrel there is still a a fare bit hanging out the chamber. I pulled it out backwards when it was halve way up the barrel with no problem.
So if you use a genuine Bore Snake of the right calibre and correct length how do you get it stuck. I can only think people must by cheap chinky knock of Bore snakes fro flee bay or they are the wrong calibre or too short.

 

[CCB]

Below is a picture of my rifle with bore snake in the barrel. The Bore Snake is 70cm not including the cord and the barrel is 60cm. The Bore Snake is a Hoppes for 30 cal bore. As you can see when one end of the snake is out the barrel there is still a a fare bit hanging out the chamber. I pulled it out backwards when it was halve way up the barrel with no problem.
So if you use a genuine Bore Snake of the right calibre and correct length how do you get it stuck. I can only think people must by cheap chinky knock of Bore snakes fro flee bay or they are the wrong calibre or too short.

You are wrong, im neither stupid enough to buy cheap, or use the wrong calibre,if you read over what happened to me! lenght wasnt an issue, my bore snake pulled through the barrel as normal, only once the vast majority was through (tailend just inside the chamber) it went tight! i continued to pull from the muzzle but it didnt move from site within the chamber! by the time i had pulled a few inches it was crystal clear it had failed somewhere from the brush back and was starting to bunch up, it was stuck, and very tight. plenty oil and some effort were required to continually pull free. how it happened? no idea? i probably should have had a good look at it? maybe it was just worn out? who knows? but absolutely possible.

 

[25 Sharps]

Over the last 5 or 6 years a number of people on here have quoted that they were told by a rifle smith that he has made a fortune getting bore snakes out of barrels. I hadn't read that he reckons they ruin them as well.

The really strange thing is that everyone is always quoting the same rifle smith, one Callum Ferguson (spelling?) and that no other rifle smiths ever seem to chip in and say "same here". I really get the impression Mr. Ferguson has a slightly skewed view of bore snakes, and seems to be on a bit of a one-man crusade.

Alan

I've seen Dave of Valkary rifles (sp?) on UKV say the same

 

[Alantoo]

I've seen Dave of Valkary rifles (sp?) on UKV say the same

Well that's three then. Building a consensus.

Do you remember which of the two scenarios he spoke of...that bore snakes damaged the barrels or that he had made a fortune removing a lot of stuck bore snakes?

If its the former I hope one of them will explain the mechanism by which the barrel is ruined.

At the moment I can't get past the apparent anomaly that the bullets passing up the bore picking up any of 308tikka's abrasive material from the previous round and burnishing it against the barrel bore under huge amounts of pressure...enough to deform a metal bullet...do less damage than the humble bore snake, a bronze brush and a tube of fabric, under much less pressure as it loosens the powder fouling from the last shot and carries it away.

Doubly odd that the bore snake could be any worse at ruining the barrel than a rodded bronze bore brush and fabric patch on a jag. The pressure of the cotton patch against the barrel wall is greater than that of the boresnake. They are both removing the same amount of fouling...indeed less potentially abrasive material is removed by the boresnake if you accept 308tikka's premise that the boresnake does not clean properly.

Alan

 

[zambezi]

The only scenario in which I can comprehend a boresnake causing damage is misoperation. And a likely scenario would be: boresnake weight dropped through barrel, rifle transferred to horizontal position on workstation, user draws boresnake through barrel. In this sequence, as soon as bronze brush starts to engage bore, user needs to apply extra effort and bears down on cord to draw boresnake through. Now the cord is emerging from the bore at anything up to 30' to the centreline of the bore. Furthermore, all the force and abrasive material is being applied to a small arc of the crown. Most rifles are held in workstations with scopes uppermost. So downward pressure on the boresnake would mean the 6 o'clock position on the crown is the hinging point for the emerging boresnake.

Other than that [schoolboy error] type of misoperation, I hold with the wisdom that doubts a boresnake must always be detrimental to barrel life.

 

[njc110381]

I often use a bore snake to dry my barrel if I get in late. I keep a very close eye on them, only use Hoppes ones and replace them regularly. Quite scary to read that problems have been had with new ones as I'd always assumed they snap because they're used a bit too much before being binned!

 

[25 Sharps]

Well that's three then. Building a consensus.

Do you remember which of the two scenarios he spoke of...that bore snakes damaged the barrels or that he had made a fortune removing a lot of stuck bore snakes?

If its the former I hope one of them will explain the mechanism by which the barrel is ruined.

At the moment I can't get past the apparent anomaly that the bullets passing up the bore picking up any of 308tikka's abrasive material from the previous round and burnishing it against the barrel bore under huge amounts of pressure...enough to deform a metal bullet...do less damage than the humble bore snake, a bronze brush and a tube of fabric, under much less pressure as it loosens the powder fouling from the last shot and carries it away.

Doubly odd that the bore snake could be any worse at ruining the barrel than a rodded bronze bore brush and fabric patch on a jag. The pressure of the cotton patch against the barrel wall is greater than that of the boresnake. They are both removing the same amount of fouling...indeed less potentially abrasive material is removed by the boresnake if you accept 308tikka's premise that the boresnake does not clean properly.

Alan

From memory and without searching the thread he just said something along the lines of the only place a bore snake will snap is in the bore therefore don't put one in there in the first place.

 

[Alantoo]

From memory and without searching the thread he just said something along the lines of the only place a bore snake will snap is in the bore therefore don't put one in there in the first place.

That is perfectly logical! Although I think it a tad over pessimistic. Lots of things can fail, most mechanical devices will at some point in their life.

But I think as in so many things, it does come down to risk and hazard. There is obviously a hazard that a boresnake could snap, the risk of it happening let alone it being unremovable is low.

At least he did not say they ruined barrels.

Alan