Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Cleaning From The Muzzle

(First post, y�all.)

I think we all agree that cleaning a rifle from the muzzle end is a bad thing and best avoided. We all know the accepted reasons. I accept them myself.

However, it�s bothered me for some time that (apparently) nobody has ever actually quantified, by testing, the amount of damage that can be done. I even wrote to a respected gun magazine once, known to some of the gun writers hanging about this forum, and the crux of my letter, if not the text, was addressed by the editors in a later issue. Their take on it was that most everyone has seen an old Winchester ruined by cleaning from the muzzle. The implication being that this was Grandpa�s old rifle and nobody had ever actually watched him clean it after shooting who knows how many rounds of corrosive ammo. The editors just assumed, like everybody else, I guess, that the damage was caused by ratty old wooden cleaning rods. And it was left at that.

If any of the gun writers here would like to help me out, I wonder if they might talk to some of the better-known gun and barrel makers and see if they would be interested in an experiment like this:

Ask them to put a half-dozen barrels to one side. Rejects, but with good crowns and good rifling at the muzzle end. Get somebody�s 16-year-old kid who�s doing nothing much else with his time this summer and have him run different types of rods down the bores from the muzzle end, a certain number of strokes. Stainless, aluminum, coated, what-have-you. Enough strokes to duplicate, say, 50, 100 and 150 typical cleanings. And with a bore scope (which I don�t have and which I am unlikely to have anytime in the near future), measure the amount of damage at each stage.

I�m suggesting the writers do the asking, because I don�t think the manufacturers are going to pay much attention to me. I just want to know for sure. I think it would make for an interesting magazine article and I�ve never heard anybody make a reference to such testing in the past. Anybody else think this is worth doing?

Well, I for one would be interested. For all I know, it might turn out to be our Conventional Wisdom was wrong for all these years. Lord knows how many things I thought I knew until Mule Deer wrote an article whereby he successfully refuted it after doing some research. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I'm curious too! I've heard and read different opinions on the subject. People whom I know personally and respect disagree as do some of the writers that I like. One 80+ years old friend, who is a handloader and rifle looney has a well deserved reputation as a crack shot and accuracy freak. This individual actually cleans his rifles from the muzzle and mostly shoots bolt-actions. He is not afraid of damaging his rifles, because he states that the aluminum rods he uses are softer than the barrel steel. I've read and heard the reasons for this logic being flawed, but he just thinks that people who worry about these issues are wasting their time. Mule Deer is probably the only writer willing to conduct a decent experiment along the above stated guidelines. He's got an expensive bore scope. Mule Deer, got any interest? Need me to send you some aluminum cleaning rods??? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
[bleep]

I've wondered about the same thing many times. Wouldn't the same damage be done to the chamber also! I couldn't imagine the leads getting worn away being very good for the accuracy either. At least it's very easy to recrown a barrel.

a bore guide will cover the chamber end but i wonder if you made up some bushings for a muzzle guide? maybe 1/4 long to set in the muzzle...hmmmmmmmm

woofer

I clean my Remington model 760 pump with a one piece stainless rod and bore guide. The bore guide is brass and fits over the muzzle to protect it's crown. I've shot/cleaned it quite a bit and never noticed any damage or decrease in accuracy. I'm not saying that I'm right, it's just what I do and what works for me.

It is good idea to use a steel rod or a coated rod with a tapered plastic guide which will center up in the muzzle.

Steel rods are hard enough that microscopic abrasives like silicon dust will not embed themselves into the surface, as they will with aluminum rods.

A solid, single piece, polished stainless steel rod seems to work best according to me and all the people that I know. And of course, use of a bore guide (whether from the breech or the muzzle) is highly recommended. I'm quite sure that there are no inherently bad effects of cleaning from the muzzle, as long as the crown is protected and the chamber/action are cleaned thoroughly to prevent any solvent residue from hanging out in there...

Lee24, you remind me of one of the things we�ve been talking about for years regarding aluminum rods. Accepted wisdom is that particles and grit become embedded in the soft metal and then work like a file on the interior of the bore.

This would be, of course, the same particles and the same grit that becomes imbedded in the soft jacket of the very next 150-grain bullet we send screaming down the barrel at close to 3,000 fps.

However, in a spirit of fun, let me speculate that particles and grit embedded in a bullet jacket are evenly distributed around the circumference and so, when the particles are scraping and scratching and etching into the steel at high speed, they are doing so evenly and thus not affecting accuracy from shot to shot.

But of course, I don�t know this for a fact. And I do use a little plastic rod guide that fits the muzzle of my Winchester �94, because even though I doubt, and even though I question, I�m too cheap to take a chance on one of my own rifles.

Another question! How do you use those "funnel" shaped bore guides? Do you pull them off the barrel during each rod stroke so that you can clean the muzzle end of the barrel? I generally just carefully slide the cleaning rod between my thumb and index finger for rifles which must be cleaned from the muzzle end.

I use a pull-through HK G3 chain, which has the hardened steel links padded with soft lead. The entire cleaning kit fits in my pocket.