kansaswiderack

I have been using Bore Scrubber for sometime now and it seems to work fine. My only issue is how many patches it takes to get them to come out clean. I generally clean after about 20 rounds when I am target shooting and more often when hunting. What experience are you guys having with other products?

Wingbone

I used to clean my bores more often, ie: after every shooting session. Now I clean my regular shooting rifles at the end of the year. I figured that I'd have to shoot a couple of rounds after cleaning anyway to prevent clean bore flyers, so I just skip the cleaning. I will take a dry brush or patch to clean out loose debris occasionally. When I do the complete cleaning, I use Butch's Bore Shine to remove copper and Hoppe's to remove powder fouling. A patch or two of Butch's usually takes care of my copper buildup. For long term storage, I'll coat the bore with RIG.

Sheridan

Every "cleaning" product will recommend to continue until you get a clean patch at the muzzle.



May I ask;

Do you let your "cleaning products" soak before you run your patches ?

Do you have your barrels "lapped" ?


No & No, could be the reason you need to run "more" patches.

kansaswiderack

I do soak the barrel per the manufactures instructions. I am not familar with the term lapped.

bpd1982

Lapped = polished

It is done to smooth the barrel so copper doesn't stick to it and to make it clean up easier.

I now only clean when accuracy declines to an unacceptable level.

When I do clean I like the foaming bore cleaners.

Nomercy448

My cleaning looks like this:

1) Solvent sprayed/dipped/soaked nylon brush for 2 or 3 passes to push out loose carbon.

2) Copper Solvent soaked patch, let sit for 20min or more (usually cleaning action parts during this time).

3) Dry patch until it comes out dry or clean.

4) Hornady One Shot patch down the barrel

5) Dry patches until clean

6) Repeat 2-5 or 4-5 as needed.

It's amazing how quickly hand lapped custom barrels come out clean.

I'll also say, when I cleaned my first barrel with Hornady - after using almost everything else under the sun and rarely seeing any significant difference between leading products - I wasn't paying attention to how long it took, but it came clean so quickly, it caught my attention. A barrel has to be VERY nasty for me to need more than 10 passes with a rod and the above process.

super_hunt54

A while back I did a test with a couple of my muzzleloaders. Something I have long known with my rifles. Cold clean grouping. To give a bit of history, I am the type that if my rifle, handgun, muzzleloader, or even my BOW left my house, it gets a thorough cleaning when it comes back IN my house! I don't care if the hammer never dropped or the string was never drawn. Now, the test I ran many years ago on my rifles and the test I ran with my Muzzleloaders was one in the same. Shoot, clean, let cool to ambient temp, fire again for group, repeat up to 10 times. Most all of my rifles will group well during this. Only a couple require some fouling to "tighten up" to their utmost accuracy. And those are old shot out barrels pretty much. When I ran the test on my muzzleloaders, the TC PH barrel did best with a couple of primers popped after the cleanout. The TC Hawken with a Green Mountain barrel did just dandy with a spotless bore. You guys not cleaning your rifles aren't taking something VERY important into account. That is moisture. That crap left in your barrels attracts moisture and absolutely can and WILL change your POI over time. At the start of season, you may have been spot on but towards the end of season, especially if you hunted in poor weather or even foggy just wet air weather, your POI could possibly change with as much as 3 to 5 inches at 100! That's high, or low! ANY ash, no matter if it's from smokeless or BP attracts moisture. Clean your rifles folks! You are doing a disservice to them as well as possibly yourself if you get on an animal of a lifetime and you miss because you gave your rifle shoddy treatment. Sight your rifles in on cold clean barrels. Yes it's time consuming but it is absolutely worth it.

Sheridan

Once zeroed - I am from the school of +/- 3 shots after cleaning before going hunting.


If traveling where your scope might of got bumped or apprecible evevation change than 3 more shots to conferm your zero - call it "ole' school".