To clean your gun or not to clean your gun-thats my question

Roughwater said:

When younger I was always told one should clean their rifle. When I was in the Marines there was no question about it what-so-ever. Not so long ago I read an article by a prominent rifle shooting competitor that explained why it's important to keep one's rifle barrel cleaned on a reguler basis. But most recently I'm hearing just the opposite. Some serious shooters say they don't clean their barrel for 600 rounds or more unless of course they get water or dirt ect in the barrel. How often do you clean your barrels? Thanks in advance.

Click to expand...

You have not specified rifle or handgun, but let's guess that this is a rifle site.

HANDGUNS: I used to shoot with a bunch of old 'bullseye shooters' who used Hercules Bullseye propellant for their 45 ACP loads. That is about a dirty a propellant one can find. They told me they only cleaned the 45 auto when it stopped working, usually around 500 rounds. Again, Bullseye is terrible dirty stuff.

RIFLE: Depends. I've a Marlin 60SS with a ~thousand rounds thru it; the barrel, "micro grove" has never been cleaned. It shoots like a house afire.

What caliber? What propellant?

BULLETS: Moly or not? Some other proprietary coating? Bare gilding metal?

How hot is your load?

The only answer to your question is that you clean it when accuracy begins to fall off.

My Sako 6PPC, hammer forged, CRES barrel? It never seemed to need cleaning (based upon the accuracy criteria, which I will not repeat.) Never. Ever hundert or so rounds I cleaned it, but I don't know why, and always cleaned it after a session.

My R700 PSS 308 WIN, with the factory barrel seemed to need cleaning about ever 10 to 15 rounds. Replaced the tube with a quality 1.25" diameter straight aftermarket tube and it was about the same. Rifle now sports a Krieger 5R 10" twist which I have yet to fire. Since I shoot only moly bullets, I expect it will hunderts of rounds w/o cleaning, but I will always clean it when I get home.

My factory R700 Varminter in 22-250? Want to talk about a piece of s**t? When I took the trigger guard off it went SPRONG! I kid you not, I took 1/2 cubic inch of wood out the stock to make it fit right. What a piece of s**t. Swore off Remingtons after that. I mean, seriously? The person screwing it all down could not feel it was wrong (I could tell just unscrewing*?) And the fool sent it out into the world regardless? A serious quality problem there, it seems. Around year 2000.

That rifle, 22-250? ONE ROUND, take ONE FREAKING HOUR to get the copper out. Fire lapping din't help. I put it in the back of the safe with a big serving of disgust.

It now sports a Krieger in 22-250 AI with a Grunning blueprinted action, and again, I have not yet fired it. I will likely only clean it when I get it home after each range session after itbe broken in.

So, reiterating, "The only answer to your question is that you clean it when accuracy begins to fall off."

~~~~~
*Have you ever unscrewed?

Roughwater said:

When younger I was always told one should clean their rifle. When I was in the Marines there was no question about it what-so-ever. Not so long ago I read an article by a prominent rifle shooting competitor that explained why it's important to keep one's rifle barrel cleaned on a reguler basis. But most recently I'm hearing just the opposite. Some serious shooters say they don't clean their barrel for 600 rounds or more unless of course they get water or dirt ect in the barrel. How often do you clean your barrels? Thanks in advance.

Click to expand...

Both opinions are correct. When a barrel is fresh from the manufacturing process, the microscopic texture of the bore tends to promote tearing, as the projectile passes these imperfections the fouling is heavy and actually makes the bore smaller with the first shot. This is where a good cleaning after every shot is important. With every shot you will notice that the cleaning process removes fewer contaminates and the patches will slide the bore more easily with ever shot and subsequent cleaning. I do this for the first box of Ammo. when you clean the bore after 20 shots the cleaning process feels unwarranted and at that point it is. this is the time where you begin shooting your chosen Ammo, and try to refrain from evaluating the accuracy even at this point. shoot each shot and allow barrel to cool for the next box. Now shoot for group. By this time you will have a slick bore of a diameter that still is as close to the original bore as manufacturing process will allow. the bore is now slick enough that you will not need to clean the rifle unless chamber deposits become an issue. It's at this point that the rifle will let you evaluate its potential. Not all rifles are created equal but if you follow this technique you have the best chance for a life long rifle! This was proven to me by a Navy Sniper that backed up his talk with a bore scope and bore gauge that proved he knew what he was talking about

Every time you go to clean your barrel put a $10 bill in a jar instead. Now you have money for a new barrel. Go shoot and spend less time with your rod in your hand.

As has been said many times already, every barrel is unique. I learn what my barrels need and clean accordingly. If a barrel looses accuracy around 50 rounds, I will clean at about 40 - 45 rounds. If you wait until you actually notice accuracy dropping off, that is wasted powder, bullets, brass, barrel life and time down the tube, so to speak. If you are cleaning every 10-20 rounds when your barrel only needs to be cleaned every 40-50 rounds or more, you are also wasting powder, bullets, brass and barrel life be almost every barrel needs fouling shots to return it to consistent accuracy.

I try to do all my cleaning at the range. If my next outing with a rifle is a hunt and it is coming up for a needed cleaning, I do it at the range after sighting-in, checking drops, etc. After cleaning, I shoot the required number shots to foul, then it gets left alone until after hunting season. If the next outing is to the range, I also clean and foul at the range when needed. Then my next time range I have the perfect chance to check the most important shot there is for a hunting rifle, the cold bore shot.

I clean my action, trigger and bolt after every bore cleaning and as necessary beyond that. I don't oil jack anything. Oil attracts dirt and dirt is bad juju and attracts moisture which is double bad juju. I saturate the trigger and bolt/firing pin assembly with powder solvent, let soak, then flush with brake cleaner.

If you are using a bronze or brass brush to clean your rifle and you detect no copper fouling, you need a different bore solvent. A good copper solvent will eat your bronze/brass brush and leave heavy blue color on your patches when there is no copper in your bore. Been there, done that. I stroke a nylon brush a few times for the first pass to work the solvent in, not to do any mechanical cleaning. The solvent does all the cleaning. Wet and dry patches after that until clean.

i clean when rifle starts not to shoot.when i put up in safe cause of humidity.

Here is an earlier post that explains my process and position on cleaning the bore.

This has come up many times and after being called a politician (Just kidding DMP) I thought I would give my thoughts on the subject one more time.

https://www.longrangehunting.com/threads/cleaning-frequency.183659/page-2#post-1290120

There are many reasons i do things the way I do, and none are from hearing something on the internet. I do try some of the things I hear about to see if they have a point and evaluate them by testing. and come to my own conclusion.

All things that can improve barrel life, accuracy, consistency and even piece of mind are considered and if I see a marked improvement in any one of these things, then it becomes the routine until something else comes along that improves something even more.

Besides all of the things that have proven there value in all things that interest me, pride is a side effect and not doing a cleaning when necessary for the service/use of the weapon is just not in my makeup. Sometimes I don't feel like cleaning but feel like I am just being lazy and give in, and treat the weapon like it should be treated if I want the best it has.

As stated earlier, I have repaired and re barreled many weapons that would have otherwise been Ok if the owner would have done some maintenance and some cleaning.

So take it for what its worth and clean like you want, but live with the consequences of your decision.

J E CUSTOM

dragonfly said:

I WOULD LIKE TO LOOK DOWN SOME OF YOUR BORES WITH A GOOD BORE SCOPE. I'LL BET YOU WOULD BE SURPRISED. I CAN'T BELIEVE SOME OF THESE STATEMENTS OF ADVISE. 500 TO 600 ROUNDS WITHOUT CLEANING. MAYBE JUST LAZY. THE BENCH SHOOTERS THAT I KNOW CLEAN AFTER EVERY RELAY. SOME WEAR OUT A BORE BRUSH IN A TOURNAMENT. DO WHAT YOU, BUT I CLEAN AFTER 10.

Click to expand...

I don't have 600 rounds on any of my hunting rifles. Even the old ones. My competition rifles on the other hand get new barrels every two years, and I clean those after every club match, or after 60-80 rounds, whichever comes first.

Hey Roughwater,
There is a couple really good threads here that you will find in the search option. I could get into it here, but I feel it's highjacking the thread, and I couldn't do as good as job of explaining as those couple threads. I'll try to post a link soon.

anyone do anything different with monolithic bullets.....clean less or more?

Roughwater,
https://www.longrangehunting.com/threads/hexagonal-boron-nitride.151457/

Roughwater said:

When younger I was always told one should clean their rifle. When I was in the Marines there was no question about it what-so-ever. Not so long ago I read an article by a prominent rifle shooting competitor that explained why it's important to keep one's rifle barrel cleaned on a reguler basis. But most recently I'm hearing just the opposite. Some serious shooters say they don't clean their barrel for 600 rounds or more unless of course they get water or dirt ect in the barrel. How often do you clean your barrels? Thanks in advance.

Click to expand...

I watched a long range shooting video about a class the instructor stated that you should remove powder fouling but leave the copper . Because it fills any imperfections in the steel. And tightens up the bore . And to only clean the copper out when your accuracy starts to suffer. Than after cleaning you must shoot 10 to 20 rounds to reset copper fouling.

I have a savage 110 chambered in 30-06 that i haven't cleaned in years, aside from oiling the bolt every now and then. lost track of how many rounds i've put through it, got to be a few hundred. It still drops whitetail whenever i decide to pull it out of the closet. It's my bad weather beater gun, it's been out in -20 degrees to heavy rain. I guess I'd take better care of it if it was my only rifle but i have better ones and they get all the love. On a side note a have a 870 Remington that hasnt seen a cleaning rod in at least 15yrs, still throws a beautiful pattern.

Roughwater said:

When younger I was always told one should clean their rifle. When I was in the Marines there was no question about it what-so-ever. Not so long ago I read an article by a prominent rifle shooting competitor that explained why it's important to keep one's rifle barrel cleaned on a reguler basis. But most recently I'm hearing just the opposite. Some serious shooters say they don't clean their barrel for 600 rounds or more unless of course they get water or dirt ect in the barrel. How often do you clean your barrels? Thanks in advance.

Click to expand...

Back in the 70's-80's, I shot weekly. I always cleaned my guns as soon as I got home. One day, an emergency arose, and it was 3 days before I was able to clean my guns. All showed early signs of barrel pitting. I took them to a friend who was an FFL licensed gunsmith, and he said the pitting wasn't bad enough to damage the barrels, but "in a month or so," they'd be "negativelY affected."

gohring3006 said:

Roughwater,
https://www.longrangehunting.com/threads/hexagonal-boron-nitride.151457/

Click to expand...

Thanks much!