A friend and I went into a lengthy debate about the theory that the barrels of .22 firearms should/should not be regularly cleaned. My view is that as with all firearms, they should be cleaned throughout after each daily session. Brett's opinion was that the mechanics should be cleaned as you would normally, but the barrel should be left alone because of a few reasons, (1) that the lubricating compound used on .22 ammunition keeps a film of it inside the barrel and in support of that (2) that once a firearm has been "shot in" with that particular brand - Lot Number, it should be left alone until such time that the Lot Number has been changed, and also that cleaning the barrel would interfere with its "zero".

Quite simply, I would be very interested to get the opinion from those much more experienced than I, and whether Brett is right. Either way, I expect that the friendship bond between us will not change, we have been through many and much more serious "debates"

whaaaaaat! never heard of it i clean after each use. the only time to leave dirty is if your gun shoots a flyer or off a little on the first shot i will shoot before i go hunting to make sure gun hits where its supposed to. hope it helps a bit will be interesting to hear other comments ??

If done properly, including the bore, IMHO your buddy is full of baloney and I've been shooting/hunting for 63 years. A lot of centerfire rifles will throw a flyer on the first shot with a clean barrel if a dry patch isn't run through first. The last time I go to the range and shoot any rifle that I'm taking hunting I don't clean the bore until the hunting is over and sometimes that's a couple months unless they get wet. I've never heard anyone even talk about a flyer when talking a 22LR.

it was a general term with a clean bore most guns shoot off on the first shot not specific to the .22 but i guess it could can't remember it's been so long shooting my .22 ?

Your buddy is off track.

1) The lube deal. Fouling is fouling - think about what is happening - the bullet runs through the bore, maybe it leaves a little lube behind, and the flash front and powder follows it, settling a happy bath of powder into the bore. The next shot lays lube on top, powder follows... Fouling is fouling.

Then think about your own experience - if the lube prevented any fouling of the bore, cleaning would go a lot faster with 22LR's than it does in real life. Lubed or not, you see powder residue and lead fouling EVERY TIME, and copper fouling if you use plated bullets. If the lube prevented fouling, that wouldn't happen - you'd push one solvent patch through the bore, push out the lube, and be done. That ain't how it's ever gone for me when I clean one, maybe other guys have different experiences.

2) Shooting the entire lot vs. Zero drift. There is some merit to this, but guys have misconstrued a little bit of science into a bad science wive's tale. There do tend to be variations in lot to lot, but in practice, it's hokum. To avoid inconsistency from one string to the next, match rimfire shooters buy huge lots of ammo, then sort them by headspace and/or weight, and yes, we do try to minimize adjustments within a given lot, but a guy has to clean his rifle if he expects to hit the X-ring. EVERY MATCH TYPE ALLOWS SIGHTERS!!! Most targets designed for smallbore matches even have sighting targets to allow the shooter to check sights even during the string or before the scored firing portion of the course of fire. (i.e. the A-17 has 11 targets, one for sighting, 10 for scoring, the A-32 has 12 targets, 2 for sighting, 10 for scoring). Hunters have the same luxury, whether they want to be lazy and not clean because they don't want to take a fouling shot or check the sights, or they just want to be lazy and not clean, that doesn't change the fact that the rifle will shoot better after being cleaned plus 1-10 fouling shots than it will after 490 fouling shots between cleanings...

Beyond that - the cold bore "flyer" is typically inconsequential in smallbore hunting application. A good rifle doesn't suddenly drift an inch at 25-50yrds just because the bore is clean. It might shoot a little high, or a little out, but a miss by a 1/4" still kills a bunny.

I may not clean my rifles after every outing, and I might have rifles go all season before cleaning, but I would absolutely NOT recommend that (do as I say, not as I do). There's nothing to be harmed by cleaning the rifle.

Now, on the other hand, a lot of dad's and grandpa's told their sons they don't have to clean their 22's because they're lazy and didn't want to, or because they think the kid will damage the bore more by excessive/repetitive cleaning with a brush than they would shooting it, OR because their dad or grandpa told them the same thing for either reason... Either way, the world used to be flat, but we know better these days.

There are 2 schools of thought on this. I personally go along with the cleaning after every use. But many years ago when I shot indoor smallbore there were shooters that shot every week sometimes several times a week and they never cleaned their bores! Now IMO that is a lot of fouling as we all used lead match grade ammo. But these old timers put the bullets into the X ring more often then not. Another shooter I shot alongside was a multi time national champion and he cleaned his rifle(s) after every shoot. So take it for what its worth.

Sounds like good shooters, shoot good _ right ??

I entered my post prior to reading a couple of the others so I decided I better put another one in here.
In regard to flyers with .22 LR ammo. Yes, you definately do get them. In my match shooting years most of us used nothing but Eley ammo - mostly what was called green label back then. But even with that ammo you would get a rare flyer.
Nothing would tick you off more than running a string of perfect 10X shots and getting a flyer that would go completely out of the 10 ring or worse!
And FYI my rifle was a match grade Winchester 52 with a 10X Unertel scope. Man that rifle could shoot. But I longed for an Anschutz but didn't have the $$.