My opinion on boresnakes is to only use them for a "quick clean" in a prairie dog town........maybe. Or as previously stated, in an emergency situation where we've got something in the barrel and we don't have a rod with us.
There's really no way IMO to get a snake completly clean and free of fowling/abrasives once it's used, short of alot of soaking and/or washing. I certainly don't want to be dragging a dirty snake through the bore in the hopes it will pull out some fowling........it's probably leaving just as much old crap as it's removing.
As long as we don't use a cleaning rod like we're sawing wood in a lumberjack contest, and so long as we use a bore guide and excercise care near the crown; I firmly believe that brushing with solvent and nylon brush, and swabbing chamber to muzzle with clean patches, gets our barrels the cleanest with the least abount of damage.
Just my .02 cents.
OHH, PS:
I've got one of the ASI barrels on my AR-15. I did not follow the recommended procedure of "snake it clean", and it never shot to my expectations with any brand of factory ammo tried, but In preliminary load testing it showed some extreme potential at 200 yds with Varget and Sierra HP's.