Bother!!

Seems like I spend more time cleaning my rifles than shooting them. like a helicopter with an hour of maintenance for every hour of air time.

with bore snaking, then hoppes #9, then maybe some JB bore paste and then Hoppes again. then wipeout and final boresnake and oil, we are talking an hour.

Is this excessive for medium bore hunting rifle?

What time do you spend after 20-30 shots in the field?

A very few minutes after 20 shots. One pull of the bore snake and some CLP oil on the metal. If I had a lot of fouling, one pull of the snake in the field, then overnight with the Wipe Out foam, and then some oil.

There's no hard and fast rule as it depends on the barrel... if accuracy drops off after 20 shots then I'd clean it. Some barrels will hold great accuracy well beyond 20 shots, some less... every one is a "law unto itself" and requires experimentation and observation.

BA

Here's my routine, try it, you'll save alot of time.

- Swab chamber with solvent patch.
- 2 patches Butch's Bore Shine or Hoppes #9
- Saturate brush with solvent. Make one stroke per shot fired. If you did a high volume session, break this up, I scrub about 20 strokes then patch the barrel out and start over.
- Clean, dry patches until they come out looking like they did going in. Do the same for the chamber.

Now here's where I differ from most people, I hold to the old military dictum "If I shot my rifle today, I should clean it for the next three days." This really works, the surface of the steel gives up fouling over time and subsequent cleanings remove it. Since my cleaning routine takes very little time, four cleanings aren't a big deal. This procedure works great for normal shooting, if heavy fouling is present, I use Sweets after the first cleaning. Follow the instructions on the bottle, Sweet's is strong stuff.

Moly changes things quite a bit. I use a Hoppes#9 to remove the carbon with patches only. Scrubbing with a bronze brush and ammonia based copper solvent will strip the moly out of your barrel. After the carbon is gone, I coat the bore with oil usually FP10(never Kroil). Eventually you will have to clean everyhting out and start over again, I follow the heavy fouling procedure above.

I only use JB bore paste if the barrel really gets bad. Otherwise a quick cleaning is plenty for only 20 rounds. Of course this depends on the barrel and cartridge, some foul more than others. May also depend on what accuracy you're looking for. Try letting the cleaner soak in the barrel for a while. Go for a walk, watch some football on TV, load some ammo, do something for 10 - 30 minutes and let the solvent work, then come back and get the gunk out. Note - you might not want to do this with real aggressive cleaners...

Butch's Bore Shine and Shooters Choice have both worked well for me.

FWIW I've found that smooth lapped custom barrels foul less and require less effort to clean than most factory barrels. Guy

When I clean the barrels of my rifles and pistols after a day at the range I use Sweets. It is the best. I've tried Butch's, Hoppe's, and Forrest's Foam, Sweets beat them all.

I have better things to do than wait for my bore cleaner to work!

Just follow the directions on the bottle and your bore will be copper fouling free! Sweets is gooy, messy, and it works, period! I know that Ray Atkinson and others have had good results with a new foam style cleaner, however I have not tried it yet.

Rusty
We band of brothers!

Hey Jameister, Seems like everyone has a favorite way of Bore Cleaning. The good news is darn near ALL of them work.

The bad news is the "Boresnake" you are using isn't really cleaning your barrel. You always need to use a Bore Brush, a good rod, proper chemical(s) and good old elbow grease.

Keep an eye on the size of your groups "IF" you choose to continue using the Boresnake. At some point you will notice the groups opening and then you can spend a week or so wearing out a few Bore Brushes cleaning the Bore.

One other problem. Since the Boresnake really doesn't clean the Bore, you are creating the proper Bore environment to result in "pitting".

Wipeout! Try it you'll like it. - Dan

About 30 to 40 minutes.

1. Set up rifle and cleaning gear on cradle. Install bore guide.

2. Pass two patches soaked in Shooters Choice to remove most of the powder fouling.

3. One stroke on the brass bore brush for every shot fired. I agree with breaking it up in blocks of ten or twenty strokes for a lot of shooting.

4. More patches soaked in Shooters Choice until I get no more dark fouling.

5. Let Shooter's Choice soak on copper fouling. 10 to 15 min tops.

6. Run two or three more SC wet patches. If they come clean of copper, proceed to step 7. If not, proceed to step 8.

7. Run dry patches until bore is completely dry of Shooter's Choice

8. Use Sweet's per instructions until copper is gone.

9. Wet one patch with CLP and run through bore.

10. Run enough dry patches until no more CLP residue shows up.

Thanks to all.

helpful hints and I guess a few extra minutes is worth the efforts.

this shooting could become addictive...

jameister

Sounds like you got a rough barrel. I used to think when shooting rounds >3000fps, that range cleaning after 10 rounds was just the way it was with guns. I then had one of my guns rebarreled with a krieger barrel and hand lapped the throat. Now I know better. These barrels these days seem like trash. After looking thru them with a borescope, I am shocked at how rough they are. So I started thinking, why didn't my older rifles have such a tough time cleaning. So I took a 1980 M700 down to my smith and looked thru it. Much better quality barrel. Looked thru my newer 308. Total difference.

I clean my rifles after every 6 rounds. I alway's clean them at the range before leaving this just seems to take allot of the work out of it when I get home. I'm allot like some of you it seems that I spend more time cleaning than shooting but I'm real picky about cleaning my rifles I guess I owe this to my Dad teaching me to take good care of my firearms and they will take good care of you.

If you have wipeout you're all set.

Insert boreguide.

Run 2 patches of whatever to get out powder fouling.

Apply wipeout--let sit for 6-12 hours.

Plunge out wipeout.

Follow up with 2-3 patches favorite solvent or oil.

Lightly oil or use preservative in barrel for storage. Put gun away.

Your total time at the bench shouldn't be more than 5 minutes.

PS--I do look down the barrel from the muzzle end with a flashlight for any copper streaking after cleaning--wipeout seems to work fine under these conditions!!

I think Handloader hit on one of the things that can make it easier to get a barrel clean. If you can clean the barrel when it is still warm from firing it does go easier.

Also, I don't think you need to use the J. B. Every time. And the Bore Snake is a field expedient, you can skip when you are doing your thorough cleaning.

I also must admit that I get real lazy sometimes. I knwo which guns I can let go after a range session and which ones need immediate attention, but for the most part I am real lucky, all of my guns seem to keep their accuracy for longer than I will let them go without a cleaning. Sean

I use some combo of all the above and have recently had good luck with that Wipe-Out foam product. The slickest thing though is a method a friend showed me a few weeks ago. If he is cleaning a 308 cal. rifle for instance he takes a worn 308 brush, pours a little Butch's Bore Shine on a patch, wraps the patch around the brush from left to right rather than over the end, and makes one pass through the bore removing the patch at the muzzle end. We shot several rifles one day and mine had 19 rounds threw it before we started. All rifles were magnums and all came completely clean in 10-15 strokes using this method. I'm sure that good barrels and cleaning while the barrels were warm helped but this is the least hassle cleaning method I have seen and no waiting for a product to work.

I've got to wonder if your accuracy is falling off that soon, that you need to clean? I shoot cast bullets in all my rifles, and these barrels don't see a cleaning for hundreds of rounds, with no falling off of accuracy. The one of these rifles that see any condum bullet use, will go over a hundred rounds before the copper fouling makes any affect on the group size.

I'd be concerned of damaging the barrel with that much cleaning. More rifles have been ruined by overcleaning than under cleaning.

Wipe out 5 min

Martin

My A-bolt needs to be cleaned after about 15 shots or they open up.
BLR 20
My Ruger stainless shoots great past 30 but I clean her after 20 any how. Shots look best after 6 rounds to 30. Does stainless hold up better to fouling?

Yeah, BoreSnake violates the basic rule of barrel cleaning: Don't run dirty patches through the bore.

Also, a trick with Hoppe's or any other solvent. It needs to sit in the bore for five minutes so it can disolve leading / coppering.

I use the boresnake once with the cheap stuff to get the powder fouling, and then wipeout for 20 minutes.
I ruined a barrel by cleaning it too much. I try to keep things as simple as possible since then. I prefer the boresnake because the only metal to metal contact is with the brushes. Two pulls with the boresnake and the barrel is clean.