17hmr cleaning method

Tac-O

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Joined
Apr 28, 2019
Messages
1,466
Location
Utah
Hi all,

I bought a cz 457 in 17hmr this year and I'm struggling to decide how best to clean it. The action is so small, it's hard to get a patch in there without getting cleaner all inside the action and if I try going in muzzle first, I just feel like I'm going to end up ruining because it's so hard to keep aligned with the bore.

I've had a 17 for a long long time, but until now it was an old savage that I cleaned once with hoppes in the 20 years I owned it. It still shot, somehow!


Do you guys use a special bore guide for these? Clean just as often as your other jacketed bullet rifles?
 
I've got the same rifle, MTR and I was just using a snake and just put the rifle vertical and no mess but I dropped it once. :( I couldn't find a bore guide so I made one.

I took a thin peice of PVC, semi rigid stuff for hydroponics. The stuff about twice as thick as a straw and just bigger than 17.

I put 2 cold sleeves (2 pieces of airline I got from a hose shop, free scrap) to about 0.5in from each other, heated with a heat gun and made a bulge.

Then I took a peice of heat shrink and used hot water to size it over a spent case and over the peice of PVC with a heat gun. The water kept it from rippling and sticking to the case.

I've got the bulge just a few mm from the heat shrink, helps to center end of the thing and stopped flex at the end, and I punched a wine corke and that holds where the bolt handle goes, the heat shrink step up acts as a plug and the jag fits, just, through the heat shrink, which goes into the bore by about 2cm. And I use a qtip to get the first 0.25in when using solvent

Looks like **** but works. I've used it 15 times, I had to redo the heat shrink once but I just jammed it in there like I didn't care. Oops.

I dry snake it every 50. Solvent on a snake every 100, and 10min solvent soak every 200 with a rod/loop jag. The MTR chamber is uber tight so I feel like a surgeon some times, I had to buff the solid jag down a half hair.

My friend heat shinked the PVC to a drilled spent case but the heat shrink didn't work the first time and it got stuck because he didn't downsize the jag enough.
 
I also have a CZ457, .17HMR.

I dip a nylon brush into liquified gun cleaning foam residue from clean up jobs done on other rifles. I place a plastic water bottle over muzzle end the other rifles to catch foam squirting out of muzzle and the foam liquefies. The foam residue is allowed to work for 30 min to overnight in the .17 HMR bore.

I let I use a .17-pointed jag & cut my patches to fit, like 3/16 wide, 1 1/4 long, cotton double nap, to push out the used-up foam that is now blue-black glop.

I then brush out the bore with a .17 nylon brush dipped in 5-30W synthetic motor oil. About 20 strokes.

I finish with about 5 patches.

Squirting foam into a .17 bore is not easy - it seems to go everywhere instead of inside bore. Jamming the end of the foam can tube against the .17 muzzle gets some foam into barrel.

Cleaning out the magazine well & inside receiver is last. I lube bolt with Hornady 1 shot.
 
I use this for all my rifles.
 

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I us a coated rod made for the .17. No bore guide, but I never clean from the muzzle and am careful to not let the jag bump the crown/muzzle opening. Push it through, unscrew it, pull back the rod without tip, reattach and repeat.
I don't clean the bore often, but wipe the outside of the rifles down after use... but I don't shoot hundreds of rounds at a time either.
Those bores are tiny, aren't they?!
One of my favorite rifles is my CZ 455 Full Stock.
 
I've got the same rifle, MTR and I was just using a snake and just put the rifle vertical and no mess but I dropped it once. :( I couldn't find a bore guide so I made one.

I took a thin peice of PVC, semi rigid stuff for hydroponics. The stuff about twice as thick as a straw and just bigger than 17.

I put 2 cold sleeves (2 pieces of airline I got from a hose shop, free scrap) to about 0.5in from each other, heated with a heat gun and made a bulge.

Then I took a peice of heat shrink and used hot water to size it over a spent case and over the peice of PVC with a heat gun. The water kept it from rippling and sticking to the case.

I've got the bulge just a few mm from the heat shrink, helps to center end of the thing and stopped flex at the end, and I punched a wine corke and that holds where the bolt handle goes, the heat shrink step up acts as a plug and the jag fits, just, through the heat shrink, which goes into the bore by about 2cm. And I use a qtip to get the first 0.25in when using solvent

Looks like **** but works. I've used it 15 times, I had to redo the heat shrink once but I just jammed it in there like I didn't care. Oops.

I dry snake it every 50. Solvent on a snake every 100, and 10min solvent soak every 200 with a rod/loop jag. The MTR chamber is uber tight so I feel like a surgeon some times, I had to buff the solid jag down a half hair.

My friend heat shinked the PVC to a drilled spent case but the heat shrink didn't work the first time and it got stuck because he didn't downsize the jag enough.

Can you share a picture of this contraption?
 
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