I had a conversation with a friend recently that left me scratching my head. He told me that all he ever uses on his firearms is synthetic motor oil, for lube and for cleaning. He never uses brushes, either nylon, stainless, or brass; just motor oil and patch after patch after patch. I would find a method like this much easier to dismiss if it had come from some old pine-hacker hillbilly, but this is a guy that really knows his stuff (I won't go into this many credentials, just trust me on this).

Anyway, it got me to thinking about gun cleaning and I thought I'd post this up and see what other methods people use. Thinking primarily of the barrel, since that's where accuracy is mostly effected, I do a pretty standard job - mainly use Hoppes #9 and lots of patches, then a coat of rem oil if I'm going to place the rifle on a rack for the next few months. I scrub my rifles out w/ a nylon brush about once a year and use metal brushes very sparingly.