normal cleaning

[rjackh]

in AGI's series on long range shooting, the guy went over proper cleaning in the field. this is what he did:

wet patch
copper bronze brush with barnes C10, add solvent every 7 strokes
wipe down rod and swipe barrel with clean patch
use witches brew on brush, reapply to brush every 3 strokes
wipe down rod and swipe barrel with clean brush
remove bore guide and use lug raceway mop to clean action area of bristles and solvent
few drops of barrel lube on clean patch, run through barrel twice
not how that first bullet acts after cleaning

any opinions on this, do yall do the same thing or different? im guessing this is for like trips to the range, not after a hunt where you fire just a shot. what about cleaning after a hunt where you took one shot? or do you not bother? thanks

 

[MontanaRifleman]

After a good cleaning, I will always foul and sight my rifle in before hunting. I dont fire my rifle after a hunt. Not saying it's wrong, I just dont do it. and there usually is not an opportunity to do so because it's usually dark after a day of hunting which means no firing in the field unless you want to chat with a fish and game warden, and where I live it's not a good idea to fire the rifle "out bacK". The sherrif will likely come visit. If I could I would fire it between hunts to see how the zero is holding but the rifle range is a 40 min drive and no where local to shoot this time of year. I also get concerned about condensation in the bore when it goes through warm/cold cycles. I dont have a bore snake but am planning on getting one to run it through now and then to keep the bore dry and clean. Hunting season has ended here and I have cleaned my rifle and applied some Gun Juice to it to protect the bore while it's not being used.

Mark

 

[rjackh]

the guy from best of the west on OLN did a 3 dvd series on long range hunting. in the section on cleaning, he lets his bores soak in sweets instead of trying to scrub the copper fouling out. he uses a little pistol rod with a few patches on a to plug up the bore from the receiver, then he adds like 10 drops of sweets into the bore from the muzzle. sets the gun in the corner, muzzle up, to let soak for half an hour. the pistol rod is supposed to keep the sweets out of the receiver and bedding.

sounds like a better way to get the copper out rather than scrubbing, but im kinda scared to trust the pistol rod and patches to catch all the sweets. i think ill try it pouring the sweets in from the other end, put an empty plastic bottle over the muzzle to catch drips and let it sit that way. save money by not buying a pistol rod and jag and should work just as well right?

 

[Chas1]

I don't nor would I reccomend using a copper bronze brush.

 

[rjackh]

whys that

 

[Michael Eichele]

Sweets in a barrel for 1/2 hour is rarely a good thing.

 

[rjackh]

15 min instead?

 

[yobuck]

there was a very good and legnthly article in precision shooting magazine in jan.2006 regarding bore cleaning.
theres no doubt barrels can be ruined with solvents.
there is also no doubt bad barrels may only be fouled barrels. i know that from personal experience.
the article was a 2 year study, mainly because of never ending new products.
ALL of the bore cleaners were practicaly useless for copper fouling according to the author
except 1. that 1 is bore tech eliminator. that said it does not do well with carbon. again only 1 product was found to deal with that effecivly.
that product was intended for cleaning fuel systems.
even the heavy smelling stuff like sweets was considered useless.
bore tech has a complete line of cleaning products. eliminator was the only one reccomended, and that for copper fouling only.
the other product is called slip2000 and was reccomended for carbon.
that company apparently seized upon the oppurtunity and is now also offering a full line of cleaning products also. www.slip2000.com www.boretech.com i recently received a copy of this from a shooter friend. i have yet to try the products but i certainly intend to.

 

[Michael Eichele]

15 is what sweets recomends. Some top barrel manufacturers dont recomend it at all. Some recomend 3-5 min. Sweets and CR10 can be very hard on high quality barrels.

I prefer JB paste. It is more cumbersome to apply and clean up after, but it doesnt eat or dry out the steel in my barrels.

 

[Freebore]

3 patches of Butches' Bore Shine just to get powder residue loosened
1 dry patch
Bronse brush with Butches' 10 total stokes
1-2 dry patches
2 patches w/ CR-10 wait 3-5 mins MAX
2 dry, if patches are heavy coppered back in w/a Nylon brush and CR-10 10 stokes
2 dry patch
1 wet patch to verify no copper, wait 3-5 mins.
2 dry patches
2 patches of Hoppes #9 wait 5-10 mins just to overcome the CR-10 residue
2 dry patches
1 patch - Finish bore with Tetra gun lubricant pushed thru 3x

This is on my factory barrels. My customs clean in half the time and patches but use same procedure

I use JB after every 100 rounds to de-carbon the throat, alot sooner on the end of life big Magnums.

 

[rjackh]

well **** i bought a new bottle of sweets last time, should i return it for CR10? or should i just keep the sweets and use it for short amounts of time instead of soaking or letting it sit a long time?

 

[mudbug]

I use sweet's in my Savage 243. Use the method John Burns used in his How to Shoot Beyond Belief dvd set, only exception is I use a possum hollow chamber plug to stop the sweet's from getting into the action. Seems to work fine and my rifle still shoot's 3/4" group at 200 yards

 

[rjackh]

my gun is brand new and this is what i just did. took like 5 min:

hoppes elite bore gel on brush, 3 strokes, reapply to brush, another 3 storkes. patch through with elite gun cleaner till patches come out white.

the gun was surprisingly dirty for being NIB. how do i clean the receiver area? i stuck my finger in and it came out pretty black. i have a little bore mop

 

[Freebore]

I use to use Sweet's too, just like using Butches' then finishing with CR-10. Go ahead and use it. DO NOT let it sit in the barrel though for any lenght of time that being beyond 10 min. It will strip the metal of all lubricants. That is why I use the old Hoppe's #9 a few patches, then dry then finish with a quality oil in the barrel. You should not fire on dry a barrel. I know some guys like to use Lock-Eze on a patch to finish with, I got away from it and just use my Tetra.

Another thing I use is Gunslick foam cleaner. Spray in the bore come back later and the copper is just melted out the bore. I have a trash can under the barrel. I still go thru my routine but in less time and material. Pretty neat stuff and from what I can gather it is pretty harmless to metal but I'm not sure how much to believe of that the way copper just melts out the bore.