What do you use? I see bore snakes, solid rods, sectioned rods, rod guides... But what works well, and for what?

And what solvents & lubes do you prefer?

I see Hoppes #9 has both a copper solvent and a lead solvent, yet both claim to remove both, Cu & Pb.

More questions, seeking the advice of those who have gone before. When I was shooting previously, all I or my dad ever used was a cheap cleaning kit from Wal-Mart, and whatever happened to come in it.

TIA!
F6

Ok, great.

#1: ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS USE A GOOD BORE GUIDE. I like the 2 piece system from Mike Lucas. To me, no other bore guide compares. PERIOD.

#2: I prefer one piece coated rods. There are those that would argue that the coating isn't necessary but I prefer BoreTech's Boresticks and all of their cleaning jags/brushes.

#3: I use Butches Bore Shine as my first choice. Second choice is a Shooters Choice/Kroil mix, 2/1 ratio.

After the barrels are broken in properly and a standard cleaning is done, I use Rem Oil or any other good standard lube to coat the bore til I shoot again.

Never use those 3 piece crap rods from Wal Mart.

I use Boretech and Dewey coated rods, Stoneypoint bore guides. Hoppes,Kroil,sweets,JBpaste. Some day ill try some of the other products maybe.

Some of my barrels clean very easy with few patches , other barrels take more work to clean.
I have a pre 64 m70 I recently got that wasnt takin care of and had some light bore rust . I had to scrub the hell out of ot to get it clean . It shoots tight groups with my reloads however, but I wont waste alot of time scubbing it again becuase the rough bore(rust) will just hold black residue and never clean easy.

Well, I have some older guns that probably don't matter what I do to them, but I have two new ones, and hopefully 2 more after the first of the year, and want to do it right. Will most likely use Tubbs Final Finish on my 7mm-08 when I finally get it, and might even do it on my Walther P99 .40 S&W when I buy it.

So to answer you, I plan on taking real good care of the new stuff, and will probably do the same for the old, even though it won't make much difference.

And as it stands right now, I plan on shooting Moly out of the 7mm-08 when the time comes. Too many positive reasons not to thus far.

F6

How much do you like your firearms? I'd want to know the answer to that before I make recommendations. And no, I'm not being a smart alek. I have a very methodical way but before I go into it, I would like to know how good of care you plan on doing with your own guns.