Being a cynic by experence I have big troubles with the um, "legend", phrase, whatever, More barrels are ruined by cleaning than shooting.
I think I was admonished just recently about it, and I just finished reading Ray Atkinson in the thread Tricks of the Trade.

For starters, it seems to me to suggest to the inexperenced, to not clean their barrels.
Or, it could suggest to some that a heck of a lot of people have some rough ways of cleaning their barrels.
May I say here that with my simple home made bore guides I don't think my rods rub the throat area. I seldom use any scrubbing method.
Mostly use Hoppies No 9 with constant soaking to do the work.
May I now selectively quote from the Otis cleaning Kit booklet.

"The most important rust problem is near the muzzle. . . Many rifles have rust deep in the corners of the rifling. Most people do not clean (any) moisture out of the bore. In a matter of hours the raw fired barrel will start to rust."

Anyway, back to throats. I had thought that bore experts had decided that the hot gases of fireing "melt" the throat area, causing the most wear. Not at all scientific, but I would rather subject my finger to a moving rod, than to the temp. and cutting effect of fired gasses.

Plus, the number of ruined firearms I've seen, on the outside in particular, from matched engraved french shotguns to the humble .22RF, well, it beggers belief.
So, is there any real evidence about the horrors of attending to our guns?
Can it be all that difficult?

John L.

I have read about the possibility of ruining a barrel by scrubbing it with hard metal brushes, etc. But I can't see how using nylon brushes or even plain cotten patches can damage anything. I started using a foam cleaner I bought at walmarts and man it works real good. Just spray it in the barrel , let it set for about 30 minutes and all the powder, copper and whatever else comes out with a few cotten patches. Then run a patch with a bit of oil on it and you are through. I know of people who never clean thier rifle and haven't for years and they still get their deer every year. But I can't see letting one just rust up. I don't think a soft nylon rod would ever damage the throat area.

Ruining a throat by improper cleaning methods is a real fact. Contact one of the premier becnhrest gunsmiths that have bore scopes that are hooked up to video, and they can send you proof.

A PROPER bore guide is paramount, but only one piece of the system. A GOOD cleaning rod is also a must. One piece, either stainless or coated. No stainless brushes should ever be used. Bronze brushed with bronze cores will not harm a barrel used properly.

Technique is very important. While you have a bore guide and good rod, if not used properly, you will still cause damage. Keep the rod straight, in line with the bore while cleaning. When the rod exits the barrel, STOP. Don't just keep pushing the rod out, that is dragging on the barrel interior.

You can harm a barrel by not cleaning properly, but those that believe you don't need to clean a barrel often is causing harm too. AS with anything, there is a right way and a wrong way.

The statement that "more barrels are ruined with a cleaning rod than any other way", originated, I believe, with Harry Pope, unless he was quoting someone even earlier than himself. But I believe Harry had enough experience and knowledge to know whereof he spoke. I do recall that at one time, Army Marksmanship Unit personnel never cleaned their M1's, because to do so you have to field-strip them, and this procedure loosens the precise steel bedding that the National Match M1's had.

Obviously, it is MISUSE of cleaning equipment that causes the damage, as mentioned above.

I use to clean barrels, spending hours making sure I cleaned the properly, correct brushes, solvents, etc. Then I discovered Outers and Gunslick's foaming bore cleaner. Talk about clean, Wow! Squirt the bore full of the foam, leave it about an hour, and all the copper, powder residue, and carbon is out! I shine a flashlight down the muzzle end of the barrel to see if there is any copper and with this it's clean. No scrubbing, just patch it out. What use to take the better part of a day, soaking, scrubbing is gone. Give it a try.

I was always taught that Preventive Maint. will sustain the life of your firearm, which includes cleaning and lube of ones firearms. As such I have been even called anal about keeping my firearms spic & span but I can tell you they have never failed me. I believe like anything you need the proper tools to complete the jobs so a bore guide, 1 piece coated rod and good quality products are a requirement IMHO. As stated the proper techinques for using these tools to produce the desired results is just as essential. Keeping this in mind I have personally not found any ill effect to cleaning my firearms and will continue with my regiment of PMing my firearms.

I have seen far more damage or problems arise as a result of lack of pming and/or improper tools/technique.

I think there is a difference between hunters and gun hobiests. The hunter hunts. The firearm is part of the tools needed to enjoy hunting. The hobiest enjoys shooting and guns, sometimes he hunts. The hobiest will take pleasure in the details of the equipment and it's maintaince.

I think lots of the stories about never cleaning guns come from hunters. My father is one of them. When he was young his allowance was a brick of 22s a week. He became a fantastic shot. He has killed over 500??? head of big game and thousands of birds. He normally shots factory ammo. He checks his rifle's zero the weekend before deer season. He normally shots less than ten cartridges per year. He used up one 257 Bob barrel and is still working on his 6mm. He won't live to use up the 6mm. As far as I know he never ran so much as a swab down the 6mm. Still at over 70 years of age, if you run a big enough buck by him he shoots it in the neck. He is an amazing game shot. He is all about hunting. Hand wringing about what bore paste to use and such is obviously not necessary to an effecient hunting rifle.

I am the firearms hobiest. I shoot custom barrels. I load my own ammo. I use bore guides. I make stocks and rebarrel rifles. I shoot high power competition. Basically I enjoy the firearms hobby. Still my dad is a better game killer than I will ever be.

Nobody can convince me that a soft plastic line and a soft cotton patch will damage a SS barrel. And like the Scoto 4570 said I know a feller who shot at least 10 deer a year for many a year with an old Remington 742 .308 and even today the old rifle will easly fill a tuna fish can full of 150 grain Remington Bronze points at 300 yards. The only cleaning it got was a bit of vineger down the barrel over night. I have a 30/30 that my dad bought in 1952 and how many hunderd deer did he kill with it, what about a few elk and mountain lions and white tails down here. The old rifle is retired and still has one of the best barrels inside. Was cleaned once after hunting season and with out any bore guides, foam etc.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by El Deguello:
The statement that "more barrels are ruined with a cleaning rod than any other way", originated, I believe, with Harry Pope, /QUOTE]

Well if Harry Pope said it, I'll put up with reading it.
John L.

Didn't all Harry Pope shoot was lead bullets?

quote:

Originally posted by rws:
Didn't all Harry Pope shoot was lead bullets?

Pope was primarily a barrel maker, but he also built Schuetzen rifles for offhand 200-yard competitive shooting. Most of his barrels were for black powder, lead bullet shooting in calibers like .32/40, .33/40 (Harry's own cartridge), .38/55, etc.. Many of these were of the "breech-muzzleloader" type in which a charged cartridge was loaded into the breech, then the bullet was loaded at the muzzle and pushed down through the bore to rest on the cork or other type of wad that was in the mouch of the charged case. These rifles used false muzzles to start the bullet.

I do not know if Harry ever made barrels for use on .30 caliber (.30/40 or .30/'06) long-range match rifles or not, but since he lived well into the 1900's, it would not surprise me if he did.

I personally think that some of the chemicals used by shooters today can be just as detrimental to a steel bore as poor cleaning habits.

Everyone seems so enamored with ease of cleaning that no one wants to disguss the negative effects of ammonia based solvents on a bore.

I made another post about a new product called Montana Xtreme 50 BMG hoping someone here has tried it, its supposed to be a real good copper fouling remover, but unlike the ammonia bases products it is oil based.

For anyone interested it is made by Western powders. The makers of Ramshot.

I don't doubt it a bit if some of the barrels made in the 1800s were damaged by a wet noodle! Just know that a many a good 1960s hunting rifle still has an excellent throat and great riflings after years of shooting and then cleaning with the old aluminum cleaning rod from Wards or Sears and patches made from old shirts. Didn't know what a bore guide was back then and cleaned once after hunting season. Today there are alot of junk barrels being turned out (Ruger) and compemsation for that junk with all kinds of gadgets is a must. It is one thing to quote some famous barrel maker and quite another to pull and old 1964 .270 out of the cabinet and still bust ballons at 450 yards. And if all the notches were put on the stock of kills made with it you would have a tooth pick stock. No this for a fact, and clean as you will and say what you want, it won't change the old .270 at all.

bore guides will save many a barrel throat. The old guns that were cleaned once after hunting season for 40yrs, have only been cleaned 40 times. Mine get cleaned 40times a year!!! That means I HAVE TO align my DEWEY rods inside my SINCLAIR BORE GUIDES to assure I maintain a sharp throat/leade rifling edge. Will it affect a rifle as far as not being able to bust a baloon if improperly cleaned,..NO. BUT, will it take away the "gilt edge" accuracy of a match barrel,..yes.

The jamming of a rod into the throat with no bore guide will take the rifling and round it and "ding" it, causing the bullet to enter in a less than stable manner. That will show up on paper, but the use of a snug fitting bore guide can make that a non-issue. The sinclair bore guides are caliber/case specific with o-rings and provide a nice true alignment.

Like I have said before clean like you want, use any device you want to, spend as much money as you want to, bitch about all the rest of us not doing so, use whatever you want to clean with, just do what ever you like to do! Just don't tell me I HAVE TO SOMETHING when I know damned well I don't and still shoot better than most. Hey rave on, don't effect the old rifle a bit!

Mine are benchrest rifles and have a different purpose. If I have a hunting bore, I am less than anal about it,..but a $700 barrel by the time labor and parts are figured in,..is worth protecting. Not to mention, mine are judged by .001" at 600-1000yds,..so every measure is taken to ensure their integrity. A hunting rifle is just a hunting rifle, and losing 1/2" of accuracy at 300yds won't make a tinkers damn on a deer,..but in a match,..that can be going from 1st to 5th in short order. Mine are treated with kid gloves and have their entire life recorded on paper. Winning mathces and filling freezers are different games,...I do both, and treat each respective bore with the care it needs to do it's job.

There is no need to be overly cautious with a bore that you will likely never shoot out on a hunting rig,..but a BR or varmint rig can be burned in only a few seasons, and every step to extend that life is money in the bank.

Different purposes= different proceedures.

I will say this,..if anyone here has yet to try the "wipe-out" bore foam,..they have missed a great opportunity to cut their cleaning time to almost nothing.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Wstrnhuntr:

Everyone seems so enamored with ease of cleaning that no one wants to disguss the negative effects of ammonia based solvents on a bore.

QUOTE]

I'll disguss it, except I know nothing except
the widely used Sweets 762 states on the label
"Will not harm barrel steel".
In these days of litagation, are they sticking their necks out.
Only recently have they put on "do not leave in for more than 15 minutes".

I wondered about the apparent contradiction, and then an AR poster said that the ammonia will evaporate within 10 minutes. I tried the sniff test and he was right.
John L.

quote:

Originally posted by JustC:

Different purposes= different proceedures.
.

Sure, but what I'm wondering about that "all knowing" oft quoted phrase is, if one uses a bore guide, and anywhere near normal cleaning proceedures, what harm are we doing that will exceed the wear of shooting modern high velosity loads, and, a bigie, isn't not cleaning usually worse, in that I've seen a bore rusted up within a few weeks?
John L.

quote:

Originally posted by JAL:
...isn't not cleaning usually worse, in that I've seen a bore rusted up within a few weeks? ...

Hey John, I agree with you.

It is always amazing to me to see how some otherwise rational folks go out of their way to create excuses for not properly caring for their firearms. And a lot of them seem to prefer Blue Steel to Stainless, and then still say there is no need to clean them.

I'm guessing that a good many of them wouldn't know a "pit" in the bore if it was shown to them under magnification. Therefore, they really just don't know the Bores are being damaged.

For some reason, the smell of Birchwood-Casey "Sheath" being pushed around the house by the air conditioning is quite soothing.

quote:

Originally posted by Hot Core:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by JAL:It is always amazing to me to see how some otherwise rational folks go out of their way to create excuses for not properly caring for their firearms. And a lot of them seem to prefer Blue Steel to Stainless, and then still say there is no need to clean them.

I'm guessing that a good many of them wouldn't know a "pit" in the bore if it was shown to them under magnification. Therefore, they really just don't know the Bores are being damaged.

For some reason, the smell of Birchwood-Casey "Sheath" being pushed around the house by the air conditioning is quite soothing.

Hot Core, All shits and giggles aside,I put a lot of creedance into what you are saying. It also occured to me that we are relating protective coating with cleaning. After hunting many I know in the past just sent an oily rag down the bore sometimes followed with a dry patch.

If someone really cleans his rifle after a days shoot and than lubes it does the oil over the bare clean metal protect it better than the oil over the fouled bore? I don't know if rust prevention is better with one than the other.

I can see for those living in high humidity areas (Carolina) that regard for sheathing is of greater importance than if one lived in the mountains of Colorado or Southern California as I have and do. The electrolosis that might occurr is probably many times more dramatic on the East Coast than it is in Death Valley CA,Blanding Utah,or Monterose CO.and would get more recognition back East.

Since Wed. I've been cleaning 2 hunting rifles I took to the range.From what I believeI don't understand why I go thru this degree of Cleaning espesially since neither is a real tac driver. I guess someone said it was the thing to do and since I am retired I have the time. Cleaned as they will be by Monday or just fouled and lubed I think either would perform about the same now and ten years from now-God willing.Than again maybe not.I've asked others this before; Have you ever heard the expression" Moros con machetes" roger

I can now undestand where cleaning and "sheathing" are symbiotic but thought of as one. They are not the same.

The main reason I clean after every range session is that after a while, the cleaning process is lot less, especially with the bore foams. When I first started using them I had to foam all my guns at least 3 times and some of them 5 or 6 times. Now after 20 to 30 shots at the range, most of them take 1 or 2 foams and the blue on the patch is not there anymore. Before I used mostly Barnes CR10 and light oil. Now I just foam em and forget em.

Just wish I had a good way of remembering which ones I've cleaned and which ones I haven't. Sometimes I don't have time to clean a guns after a range session for 3 to 4 days and with so many guns I get confused. Like right now I think the're all clean but don't know if I'd bet money on it.


A government big enough to give you everything you want is strong enough to take everything you have

Woods, the next time you foam a bore, after about half the time you leave it in, invert the rifle so the scope in down, leave it that way for the remainder of the soak time. You'll find that it will clean it well with one foaming. I think the foam pools in the bottom of the bore after a while and has less effect on the fouling in top half of the bore.

Tim

quote:

Originally posted by bartsche:
... After hunting many I know in the past just sent an oily rag down the bore sometimes followed with a dry patch.

Hey Roger, That sure brought back a memory from my youth. A fellow who had been Rabbit hunting with a 16 gauge stopped by my Grandfather's to tell us about the hunt. During the story telling he "unwound" what appeared to have been a wire coat hanger with apiece of rag locked into the end where he had folded the wire over on the rag. Then walked to his old (make that really old) car and used the Dip Stick to get some "oil" for the rag. He then proceeded to "clean" the shotgun by making a few passes through it.

At first glance, the outside of the old gun appeared to have been "Browned" like some of the original Muzzle Loaders, but it was just that all the Blueing was gone from years of use without proper cleaning.

The Beagles smelled like they had rolled in week old road kill, but he did have a whole bunch of Rabbits.

Obviously something worked for him, but it wasn't due to "cleaning"(guns or Beagles).

quote:

If someone really cleans his rifle after a days shoot and then lubes it does the oil over the bare clean metal protect it better than the oil over the fouled bore? I don't know if rust prevention is better with one than the other.

Interesting thought. Beats me.

On rifles I don't shoot Moly Coated Bullets in, after cleaning, I use either a Synthetic Grease or RIG to Lube the Bore.

But, most of my rifles use Moly Coated Bullets and I take a lot of time to get a good coating of Moly properly "burnished" into the barrels. When I clean them, I try not to remove all the Moly. And as a final step, I Lube the Bores with a Moly Grease and run a few dry patches through them to remove any excess. So that Lubing is done over the Moly.

I believe, that would be somewhat similar to your thought about "Lubing over the fouled bore". I do know the Lube keeps the moisture from reaching the steel(Blue or Stainless) in my firearms and I would guess it would do the same in the Fouled Bore, but I've no experience there - pure speculation.

quote:

I can see for those living in high humidity areas (Carolina) that regard for sheathing is of greater importance than if one lived in the mountains of Colorado or Southern California as I have and do. The electrolosis that might occurr is probably many times more dramatic on the East Coast than it is in Death Valley CA,Blanding Utah,or Monterose CO.and would get more recognition back East.

Completely agree.

quote:

Have you ever heard the expression" Moros con machetes" roger

No, I don't believe I have. I recognize "machete" as a large bladed knife, but I don't know what the rest means. Perhaps you can translate it for me.

quote:

I can now undestand where cleaning and "sheathing" are symbiotic but thought of as one. They are not the same.

I agree in your context they are not the same at all.

However, the "Sheath" I was talking about is an actual Birchwood-Casey lubricant product. I do try to "sheath"(your meaning) the outside of my firearms with "Sheath"(by Birchwood-Casey). It is quite a fine product and manages to work itself between moisture(sweaty finger prints) and steel.
---

Today would have been an interesting Test Condition for Blue Steel. 93deg but low Humidity of about 35%. Only the dripping sweat would have been an issue. As the week progresses, they are predicting similar temperatures but moving the Humidity way up, which would then be an internal barrel concern.
---

Even tried good old Car Wax on my old Blue firearms. Lots of folks in the old Gun Rags recommended it highly. Seemed like it did a pretty good job of protecting the Blue - until - DEET came along. DEET cuts through Car Wax as if it was not there. But, if a person was using a Blue firearm in an area where they don't need DEET, the Car Wax does a fine job of "sheathing"(your definition) the steel from normal moisture and sweat.

as long as you don't jamm and jerk the rod in and out of the throat, and don't use a patch that is too tight (an oft made mistake) then you will not be harming the throat assuming the use of a bore guide and a coated rod. Just allow the jag to center itself in the throat before applying a lot of pressure.

Wipe-out kicks azz,...best thing I have ever used.24hrs, then dry patch, and then a few days soaking in Kroil with a refreshing patch or two per day,..and that is one happy barrel.

quote:

Originally posted by woods:


Just wish I had a good way of remembering which ones I've cleaned and which ones I haven't.

]

Well, I'm past it, as Karl as observed, and as we here have to lock up our rifles in safes, if mine are uncleaned, or cleaned and still soaking in say No.9, they are muzzle down and if dried out ready to shoot they go in right way up.
John