Gun Cleaning

[tim629]

So I know this is a loaded question but what are your cleaning rituals?

In the past I shot factory loads, shoot a few groundhogs in the summer for practice, targets with the .22, few targets with the big-game rifles then went hunting. Cleaned after hunting season and called it good till the end of next hunting season

now that i'm starting handloading and have 2 custom rifles on the way it's time to change my ways


how many rounds between cleanings? with hand loads do you find that after XX rounds your groups start to open up?

 

[gerry]

It depends on the gun, some barrels can go a very long time before they need to be cleaned especially smooth custom barrels. My 35 Whelen (Benchmark barrel), 375 Ruger (with a factory barrel) and 264 WM ( Pac Nor barrel) don't need to be cleaned too often and when I do there is next to no copper fouling. I generally just clean them after the season and in the winter/spring when the bulk of my load development happens. Don't know the new Savage 260 Rem very well yet to know how long it can go before accuracy goes south.

Forgot to mention I use a foaming bore cleaner like Wipe Out, let everthing drip out of the muzzle and then push though some patches till it is clean will only repeat if the patches show copper fouling.

 

[Guest]

I generally clean mine at least once a year, or after 40-50rds, whichever comes first. I don't worry as much about copper fouling buildup as I do carbon in the throat, but that's primarily because several of my rifles are high-intensity rounds and the added carbon will accelerate the breakdown of the steel in the throat. Cleaning every 40-50 seems to keep carbon well controlled without too much effort.

I don't worry much about copper buildup, as I said, because I finally found the solvent that gets it out, leaving me a clean bore. A clean bore continues to season over time, getting smmother and less foulable as it goes. The solvent? BoreTech Eliminator. Search on this forum and you'll see my regimen along with the comments of others about BTE. Go ahead and order a bottle of it and some copper-free jags. Trust me.

 

[Guy Miner]

One of the things you're paying for with a high quality custom barrel is a lessened need to clean after only a few rounds.

For example, let me cite the NRA High Power competitors. Those guys virtually all run high quality custom barrels, and shoot not dozens, or hundreds of rounds a year, but thousands. A serious competitor will shoot a match almost every weekend throughout the season, maybe 20 or 30 matches a year. Each match might be 60 - 100 rounds, depending.

There's no time to clean during the match.

The last stage of a high power match is the 600 yard prone stage. Twenty rounds, prone, slow fire, at 600 yards. The most demanding accuracy stage of the match - and it's done when the barrel is as fouled as it's going to get, right when the shooter needs the most from the rifle.

They shoot wonderfully during that stage! On a two day match, many competitors, including myself, don't clean the rifle all weekend. I'd rather have it build up a little fouling gradually throughout the two days and up to 200 rounds, instead of suddenly changing the interior of the barrel by scrubbing it out half-way through the weekend.

If I'm up to speed, the last twenty rounds are as accurate or more so than the first twenty rounds of the weekend.

Long way of saying, don't sweat the cleaning, and in fact you should need to do less of it with the very smooth, hand-lapped custom barrels than with typical production barrels. There should be less jacket fouling, and perhaps less powder fouling.

I'm with Gerry on this, and have settled on Wipe Out as my preferred bore cleaner. It's easy, and does a good job. I don't bother with any metal brushes anymore, just nylon brushes and good patches.

Regards, Guy