Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Too Clean Or Not To clean?

I just receive the latest BC Outdoors magazine. Very interesting article on page 25 about a test a guy made, outcome is to be noted. Its about whether cleaning a rifle barrel makes a difference in grouping shots.
Recently all I've been doing is pass a few saturated patches then a few dry patches through my guns. Now I might just clean the chamber area. This will be my test.

That's a tough one two call.

Dead horse, again.

You would think. But that horse will come back to life forever, and usually go 50 pages or more.

Just trying to start a conversation which at times might be about a dead horse.

I'm not a 'gun writer' but..

Define 'dirty' first............

If one decided to clean his barrels (doing so will most likely result in irreparably damaging them - much easier just to replace them, after all, they are making new ones every day), it can only be done utilizing a home-made recipe. This recipe can use a commercial product as a base, but they all need tweaking. Whatever the recipe, it MUST contain Kroil.

Well which one? Dirty SOB or dirty dog?
I was always learn to believe I needed to super clean after shooting though some guns, mainly .22 cal I never ever hardly clean in the past.
Regarding the article I mention above, nice that is has pictures. Some Things I never had back in the 80's was internet and the amount of info one can find on the internet like it is now, all I had were articles in gun magazines when I could find them.

Many years ago I started keeping a log-book on all my rifles, recording every group. When groups started opening up I cleaned the barrels. As long as groups didn't open up, I didn't clean them.

During all this time I ended up with two factory rifles where groups never opened up--and in fact when I cleaned them groups opened up for 10-15 rounds. So I quit cleaning them. One is a heavy-barreled Remington 700 .223 that's one of my primary prairie dog rifles. It hasn't been cleaned since 2006, and keeps shooting 5-shot groups in about half an inch.

Anybody use a bore scope ?

I have for years told my customers to clean when accuracy falls off. That made me 50 rounds or 600 rounds, depends on the caliber, bullets, and powder.
Charlie

Sure.

It's pretty well settled that nobody wins a rifle shooting competition that waits until fouling brings adverse accuracy and increases in pressure.

Hornady just did a podcast on cleaning and every single pressure barrel used on each shift is cleaned before the shift ends.

It sort of depends on the application and if the rifle is not used for anything serious then just wait until it goes to shit and then clean. The cleaning will be much more difficult.

I replace my truck tires before traction is lost and flats are common.

I clean before pressures rise and accuracy is in the shitter.

I just experienced the same thing. I had a few rifles that haven't had the barrels cleaned in a while. I cleaned them with bore cleaner, Bore Tech copper remover, then ran a wet patch with Kroil and dry patched them out. I took them to the range and the groups opened up. after shooting a dozen rounds or so they started to settle back in again. I don't think I'm gonna clean them again until they show signs of opening up again.

Seems that this subject comes up quite often. I don’t clean as often as I once did, mainly do to what Mr Sisk and Mr Mule Deer have written, which seems like they have done many times over.

I read an article where the author claimed that barrels last longer when cleaned often. I didn’t take it too seriously, but I wonder if it’s truth or fiction.

I am not concerned about this much, but I’m wondering how that author came up with that “finding”.

Meanwhile, I’ll not clean nearly as often as I once did.

Rifles need to be precise and accurate.

Precision means consistency. When it comes to the bore, I cannot precisely control how fouled it is. I can control how clean it is.

When guns have pressure spikes and start throwing rounds, it is not a known number of rounds fired. Therefore, I clean before that is likely on both hunting rifles and competition rifles. Depending on the cartridge, I've found somewhere between 50 and 120 rounds if I want to maintain accuracy.

I think some people may have misunderstood my post. I establish how many rounds a particular barrel goes before accuracy starts to fall off--and then clean it when the round-count since the last cleaning starts approaching that point.

Another subjective topic.

Not all barrels are created equal.

Fact.

It has more than nine lives.

I just clean after every time I shoot them. Just like my granddad taught me. It's worked great for all these years, why stop now??? And no, it's not going to hurt the barrel. That's a fu cking myth. Those guys that deal with hellacious carbon rings and copper fouled barrels wonder why their barrels are so hard to clean and their rifles shoot like schidt. To each their own though..

Spot on Lawrence, longer you wait harder it is to clean. I clean after every range session and only takes few minutes, few patches, and shot of One Shot down bore and am done. Have gone days before cleaning my 22LR only because it takes few shots to season the barrel and my center shots shoot best on a clean barrel. Just bought bottles of Shooters Choice and Wipe Out. Been using Shooters Choice and it does a great job. BSA has commented on here showing some patches after cleaning with Shooters Choice/Wipe Out and you can take that to the bank. There are other products that work but I stick with what works for me.