Is a bore snake good enough?

[Troutslayer]

A bore snake is all I have used for years. I've used it with Gun Scrubber, and Rem-oil after. Now that I'm becomming interested in longer ranges, I'm wondering if I need a more advanced cleaning system.

 

[gonehuntingagain]

It is great to quickly get the unburnt powder and loose stuff out of the gun while at the range, but I don't believe that it will get the copper fouling out or even tough carbon fouling, which will build up and kill your accuracy. How fast it builds up depends on the gun and barrel. Gun Scrubber will not remove copper either.

 

[sniper2]

JDewey makes good products for cleaning and Butch's bore shine,Barnes.

 

[Dave King]

A bore snake is a good item for a hunt or tactical (military) "get the mud/muck/sand out" of the barrel item. It's a lot handier to carry along than a 48" metal rod and a bag of solvent bottles. I generally carry an Otis type cleaning kit on hunts. Small like a BoreSnake but also tough enough to push through a bore to clear muck and mud, has a little bottle of "magic" stuff for "wet" cleaning. You can also use the jag to clean sort of like a conventional cleaning rod.

Using a boresnake on a barrel is a bit like sweeping a linoleum floor, you can get the big stuff.

Using a good one-piece cleaning rod, chamber guide, solvent, bronze brush (lots of strokes), copper remover/solvent and such is more akin to doing a good soap and water mop-up of that linoleum every now and again. It'll make things a lot happier on the inside of the barrel (or house) and you'll feel better too /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif.



P. S. Keep the boresnake, put it in a ziplok bag and bring it along on hunts.

 

[Brown Dog]

Well.....I've come to think it depends on the quality of the barrel and the intensity of the round; my 308 (Border barrel) only gets 2 pull throughs with a bore snake when I get it out of the safe, and 2 when i put it back in. Nothing else.

A few months ago, out of curiosity based on the raised eyebrows this 'cleaning regimen' (if you could call it that!) always causes I did a rigorous nitro solvent followed by Forrest copper solvent clean. Virtually nothing came out; 1 black patch then clean, then only the mildest hint of blue on the first copper solvent patch.

The rifle has remained -pre solvent clean and post solvent clean sub-0.25MOA

Does the same apply to my 300win? ....NO!

I reckon that a low intensity round in a superb barrel lets you get away with boresnake only....or maybe I've just been lucky?

PS. I'm always very careful to ensure that the pull-through 550-type cord does not touch the crown at all. The military used to suffer with 'cord-worn' barrels and I'm wary of that [cord-worn, for anyone not familiar, is when day in, day out an individual pulls the rifle through allowing the cord to exit the barrel at an angle. Overtime, if this is done in exactly the same way each time, a cord groove will be abraded in the crown]

 

[auton]

The new Foaming Bore Cleaner + the bore snake is what I use with a good oil afterwards to cote the bore.