I have heard of rifles that shoot better dirty, I mean REALLY dirty, but I don't know that I have ever seen one. Maybe I have one, and just haven't had the guts to let it get dirty enough to see.

For those of you who have one of these rifles, what is it like? Is it literally "I take a quick swipe at it every few hundred rounds" or doest it just need a certain amount of fouling. Do they have rough bores, and you are just letting the fouling build up to a point it kind of fills the valleys, or what? How do you keep rust from setting in and damaging the barrel?

I have heard this topic touched on briefly in passing here and there, but never discussed in depth. I have a little mauser in .308 with a rough bore, and it shoots ok, but it is a real bear to clean down to bare metal. I am beginning to wonder if it may be one of "them", and I just need to let it get dirty and stay that way. I just haven't had the guts to try it because if it doesn't work it may be next year before I can get it totally cleaned back out again.

Every rifle I own will miss POA with a clean cold barrel. Some will come in after one fouling shot, most require two, one requires three or more. I don't clean hunting rifles until the season is over unless I encounter some seriously bad weather. My prairie dog/varmint rifles are cleaned after every trip
because of the potential for copper build-up.
Fouled is good; Dirty,not so much!
GOOD LUCK and GOOD SHOOTING!!

Partly,I think it may depend on what "kind" of shooting you do.

I have a whole lot of rifles, so what I am about to say doesn't really apply sometimes...and it may apply other times, but I don't remember whether it does for even half of my rifles.

Anyway, I have quite a number of hunting rifles which are pretty much right on the money for the first shot...which, in their application, is the shot which counts the most. So, I like those rifles for that use.

On the other hand, my very best cast bullet match rifle won't shoot worth sour owl poop until it has been fouled with 7 or 8 shots at the start of the day, then warmed up with two or three shots just before each target...and that doesn't mean just for the day, but every time I go to shoot a five or ten shot target which will count in a day's tournament. (That assumes a stop between targets while the target crew goes down range to change the targets, during which the rifle will "cool" a bit).

As an example, that particular rifle won a national championship for me because I undserstood it's requirements and didn't clean it during either day of the championship tournament that year.

I cleaned it at the end of the first day, because each day started with a "warm-up" match which didn't count in the overall result. So, the second day, after the warm up match it was okay...two or three shots on the sighter bull before each "record" target and then it would put them right in there on the "for record" bull(s).

The next year, however, I made a really bad mental mistake at the nationals. After firing the four matches in the 100-yard score shooting , I had dropped one point. I didn't expect to drop any points, so unfortunately I panicked. I cleaned the rifle before the four 100-yard 5-shot group matches began about 15 minutes later. As we were already into the day's shooting, the "warm-up match" was long past. It was held before the score matches had begun.

So, even after a couple or three sighters, my very first group at 100 yards was OVER an inch!!! That was it for my hopes that year. I might have well have stayed home as far as another national championship was concerned. My second group was down to about 3/4", but still would have cost me a chance at a win, even had the first group been below half an inch. The third group was right around half an inch, and the fourth group was right at the norm for that rifle...in the 0.4"s (we are talking cast bullets here, not jacketed ones where even .4" would have been a complete disaster).

Now, I didn't make that horrible mistake of cleaning the rifle again on the second day, which was the 200 yard matches...same events, but at 200 yards instead of 100. So, I still won the 100/200 aggregate for the "Heavy Class" score matches, but was already out of the money for the 100/200 5-shot group agregate because of the lousy work at 100 the first day. The 10-shot group matches at 200 were rained out and not shot at all that year.

That gun simply HAD to be both dirty, and warmed up for each target, to really shoot well. Always had to be, throughout its life. Will still shoot at the winning level with cast bullets, but only if you have faith in it and DON'T clean it during a day of match shooting.

I'm not sure if that helps you with anything, but if you wanted an example of a a rifle that needs to be shot dirty, that's the one I can offer.

Don't know what makes it that way. It does not lead with the load and bullet it likes...bore appears perfectly smooth....no heat cracking yet....doesn't look to need setting back and re-throating even after over 10,000 rounds...in other words, still LOOKs perfect. But you dang well better have it fouled and warm if you want to win with it! And it was that way when brand new.

(It is a Harris, BTW, But I have a Lilja and a Shilen which are the same way, and a couple more Harrises and a couple of Shilens which are NOT that way. None of my Hart barrels do that, but I suspect that is just good luck so far.) I also have several which won't shoot worth a darn once they get very dirty, so go fish....

Thanks AC, very interesting. I always enjoy reading your posts. That kind of shooting though, is light years beyond what I am talking about here. The rifle of mine I am wondering about is a short barreled .308 Mauser I use for cloase range/fast work. I really don't even know why I am concerned about it, as it has plenty of accuracy to do that job. I suppose it is more of a curiosity thing than anything else. As long as you put the crosshairs where they are supposed to be it will kill any appropriate game out to 150 yards, and the woods where I use it 75 yards is a long ways. I have other rifles for longe range open country shooting.

I have a 10/22 that has been reworked extensively, and will shoot like crazy. But, like the rifle you mentioned, it better be warm and dirty. I think lead bullet rifles may be more prone to this because of the lube and all.

Really though I was thinking of jacketed bullet rifles when I posted this thread. I was refering more to the stories you hear of some hunting rifles that don't get cleaned on purpose. Not the ones that need a few fouling shots, but the ones that are really and truley shot dirty. I have never seen one, but I have never tested one that way either. Heresy, I know, but yet I wonder if there might be something to it, upon occasion. Just curious.

Most rifles should shoot just fine if dirty. Some will shoot fine if fouled and some few less will still shoot fine if the barrel is hot.

Here at home I use mostly a remington BDL in 3006. Honestly I think that I never cleaned it...at least I am sure that at least since a couple of years ago....

Is that very bad ?? it shoots straight and kill everything when I aim correctly. I don't look inside tha barrel very often but i think that if you shoot it at least once a month you will not have any dirt or rust inside...

L

My varment rifles get cleaned more than the ones i use for deer hunting.They are lucky if they get cleaned every 2 or 3 years or if they fall off on target.Good Luck

I have a stainless Ruger 7 Mag that will not group consistently until it gets some fouling shots through it.

It will shoot 2-3 inch groups at 100 yards until I get 12-15 rounds through it and then it will start shooting sub MOA. Once I get about 20 rounds through it, it settles out at 3/4".

I have just under 300 rounds through it since it was last cleaned and it's still holding 3/4" groups.

A friend of mine has a Blaser K95 cal. 7x65r since 4 years; he almost never clean the bore, except, may be, a couple of times each year, VERY swiftly and perfunctorily: nonetheless, the rifle is incredibly accurate

Fjold- Do you put anything down the bore at all? Any rust preventative or anything? Just a patch or two of something, every now and then?

wildboar- See, that is what I have been wondering about. That scenario would make more sense to me. Let the imperfections in the barrel fill up with fouling, and just kind of clean enough to "knock the tops off" to smooth things out and keep it from rusting. I don't know, lots of variables.

It is these kind of stories that intrige me. For every story like that, there is also the story of the gun that had never been cleaned, wouldn't shoot, someone picked it up for a song, cleaned it, and it became a tack driver. So it seems to work both ways. Just goes to show every rifle is a law unto itself.

I am not in any way denying the existance of the gun that shoots better dirty. I do believe it happens, even though it is counter-intuitive to me. I would like to understand it better.

I have a 20 year old SKS that has about five thousand rounds through it. I wipe the action but never cleaned the bore, ever.

It shoots the same 8 MOA as the day it was new!

quote:

Originally posted by tiggertate:
I have a 20 year old SKS that has about five thousand rounds through it. I wipe the action but never cleaned the bore, ever.

It shoots the same 8 MOA as the day it was new!

If that is not a typo, it is hillarious.

If instead it was meant to read 0.8 MOA, it is pretty amazing.


I do have jacketed bullet rifles which seem to shoot better as the day goes on, but I don't any longer put that down to their getting warmer or dirtier. A very famous national shooting team coach in England used to caution shooters that once they found a gun which performed well for them, to NEVER EVEN HANDLE ANOTHER ONE, let alone fire another. And that included guns which were the same model, same supposed dimensions, recoil, etc.

He contended that muscle memory is such an important part of the well functioning shooting "system", that ANYTHING which might confuse or divert the mind's subconscious cues and memories any at all was detrimental to shooting performance.

It is that, which I suspect makes me often shoot better toward the end of a day than at the start, not the cleanliness of the gun.

I have so many rifles these days, I seldom if ever shoot the same one twice in even 6 months of weekly shooting. I think it takes me at least half a dozen targets (42 shots) for my mind to dredge up the right "set" of muscle memories for a particular rifle. Until the correct memory set has been re-activated, I probably can't do justice to the rifle's capabilities.

Of course, it most likely is often a combo of more than one thing which affects the rifle's accuracy....maybe bore condition, muscle memory, and possibly even such things as atmospheric conditions. Isolating which does what to which rifle is the hard part.

My BRNO ZG47 30-06 has a hideous barrel. I take an oily patch to it and occasionaly a brush but leave the copper in there. It just shot an inch edge to edge with 3 150gr partitions and has done better with ballistic tips.

I cleaned it thoroughly after my first range session and ruined it for 40 rounds.

quote:

Originally posted by Alberta Canuck:

quote:

Originally posted by tiggertate:
I have a 20 year old SKS that has about five thousand rounds through it. I wipe the action but never cleaned the bore, ever.

It shoots the same 8 MOA as the day it was new!

If that is not a typo, it is hillarious.

If instead it was meant to read 0.8 MOA, it is pretty amazing.

After having shot several SKSs I tend to believe he meant 8MOA.

AD

quote:

The rifle of mine I am wondering about is a short barreled .308 Mauser I use for cloase range/fast work.

I have one such - an iron sighted Model 7 in .308. I recently cleaned it..I mean really cleaned it, until there was no trace of anything, and every Remington Ripple and factory installed divot was clearly visible in the bore...and the next day the first round went about 18" high and left. The second round was about 12" out; the third about 8" out, and so on until it started shooting half decent again.

To hell with it - other than swabbing the dead spiders and dirt lumps out of the bore, I'm not cleaning it anymore. A rubdown of Johnsons Paste Wax to keep the rust off and a squirt of CLP in the action, and I'll shoot it until it hollers 'uncle'.

quote:

Originally posted by Allan DeGroot:

quote:

Originally posted by Alberta Canuck:

quote:

Originally posted by tiggertate:
I have a 20 year old SKS that has about five thousand rounds through it. I wipe the action but never cleaned the bore, ever.

It shoots the same 8 MOA as the day it was new!

If that is not a typo, it is hillarious.

If instead it was meant to read 0.8 MOA, it is pretty amazing.

After having shot several SKSs I tend to believe he meant 8MOA.

AD

Yes, that was a backhanded compliment to the consistency (or lack thereof) of the mighty SKS.

quote:

Originally posted by JTPinTX:
Fjold- Do you put anything down the bore at all? Any rust preventative or anything? Just a patch or two of something, every now and then?

Nope, I look at it to make sure it's not growing anything funky but it's stainless so I'm not as worried about it as I would be with a carbon steel barrel.

quote:

Originally posted by JTPinTX:
I have heard of rifles that shoot better dirty, I mean REALLY dirty, but I don't know that I have ever seen one. Maybe I have one, and just haven't had the guts to let it get dirty enough to see.

I try not to take a clean bore into the field, it's not going to shoot right the first few rounds.

Lorenzo, I have to laugh. You must get it naturally. We always said South American military surplus mausers were shot little and cleaned even less!! I would hate to look at the metal hidden by the stock in that BDL! Yes you really do need to clean the guns occassionally and especially in a humid environment.

quote:

Originally posted by Lorenzo:
Here at home I use mostly a remington BDL in 3006. Honestly I think that I never cleaned it...at least I am sure that at least since a couple of years ago....

Is that very bad ?? it shoots straight and kill everything when I aim correctly. I don't look inside tha barrel very often but i think that if you shoot it at least once a month you will not have any dirt or rust inside...

L

a barrel like that, according to an old friend Dan Lilja, likely had some rough spots somewhere that a layer of copper and powder residue might fill in. Like a pothole.

Rich

quote:

Originally posted by JTPinTX:
How do you keep rust from setting in and damaging the barrel? ...

Those that do not clean the Bores are simply "hoping" the Bores are not pitted by moisture in the air. Or are living in a blissful state of ignorance.

Once you begin shooting, a "Layering Effect" begins inside the Bore. Then this Layering has the potential to create a small battery with the addition of moisture. This creates a transfer of the Barrel Steel and thus causes Pits.

The Barrel Steel acts as one Battery Terminal, the Powder residue acts as a Dielectric, and the Copper acts as the other Battery Terminal.

I'd suggest it happens to a lot of folks who never realize it is happening due to their lack of a proper maintenance routine.
-----

I'd also suggest a Bore that shoots better "dirty", is ready for replacement.

Good Hunting and "clean" 1-shot Kills.

Dupe

quote:

Originally posted by Hot Core:

I'd also suggest a Bore that shoots better "dirty", is ready for replacement.

Good Hunting and "clean" 1-shot Kills.

I agree that a barrel that requires it to be fouled a lot has something wrong with it, whether it's extremely rough or very uneven in dimensions, something has to be wrong with it.

My stainless Ruger 7 Mag barrel though cleans out very easily, a soak in Foul-Out and a few clean patches and it's mirror bright. This barrel has approximately 700 rounds through it and has had the issue of not shooting well when it's clean since it was brand new.

It baffles me.

I believe that a fouling shot is not required when shooting moly coated bullets.If one or more shots are required before a POI settles or good groups begin to occur,it usually is the result of other issues.It can happen when you suddenly change bullets or bullet grain and switch back to your original,mix once fired cases with those with many firings or those shot from different chambers,switching powders or just right after retightening action,stock or sight screws.To further expalin,if a groove is established in the bore,nothing should change to disrupt it.If you do temporarily disrupt this groove by changing something and it takes a shot or two or three to settle things,don't blame moly just because you happened to be shooting moly coated bullets.As for velocity,I have not noticed that I needed to add extra powder to get the same velocities as I get with uncoated bullets.I have shot a combination of coated and uncoated bullets in the same group many times.

quote:

Originally posted by shootaway:
I believe that a fouling shot is not required when shooting moly coated mullets.

shooting mullets this morning, flinchy?

quote:

Originally posted by shootaway:
If one or more shots are required before a POI settles or good groups begin to occur,it usually is the result of other issues.

unless, of course, we are talking about INDENTICAL loads, that after cleaning the barrel, require a couple shots to be back on groove. MILLIONS of shooter see this, shoo, and thanks for sharing your experience.

quote:

Originally posted by shootaway:
It can happen when you suddenly change bullets ...{a ton of bs not related to the post, but read how he can interchange bullets to the same poi}

not the question, flinchie

quote:

Originally posted by shootaway:
To further expalin,if a groove is established in the bore,nothing should change to disrupt it.

LIKE CLEANING IT???

quote:

Originally posted by shootaway:
If you do temporarily disrupt this groove by changing something and it takes a shot or two or three to settle things,

liek EVERY other poster say, but you told him he was changing stuff, and cleaning wouldn't do it?

quote:

Originally posted by shootaway:
don't blame moly just because you happened to be shooting moly coated bullets.

O M G -- HUH? ,, NO ONE BUT YOU IS TALKING MOLY HERE. You cab as arrived

quote:

Originally posted by shootaway:
As for velocity,I have not noticed that I needed to add extra powder to get the same velocities as I get with uncoated bullets.

yet EVERYONE else that has ever used moy bullets sees a decrease in vel at the same loads.. HUH? wow shoo, in YOUR experience, you are soo cool online

quote:

Originally posted by shootaway:
I have shot a combination of coated and uncoated bullets in the same group many times.

and that didn't "change the groove" ,,, but you said if you suddenly change the bullet, then it wil change the groups .. and its pretty much impossible to do a more radical bullet change than from one shot to the next use a moly and a regular.


So, what little georgie is saying is, in his expereince, moly doesn't do ANYTHING...

it doens't foul the bore
it doesn't decrease pressure
it doesn't change POI

I think, george, you've been solid "marksalot" or "sharpie" brand moly ...

My point is that everything can change this groove EXCEPT moly and if your rifle is shooting differently fouled compared to when it's clean,you may still hit your bullseye or down your caribou,BUT there is something wrong with your rifle or you are just not useing a correct procedure.

Just for the record, I started out this thread saying the rifle in question did have a rough bore... I know it has other problems, but it is an FR-8 action and I don't think it is worth the hassle to try and fix it. I would rather put my money into something better.

I do appreciate all the input I have recieved though. I have kept following this thread and have learned some interesting things.

Hey JTP, Always nice to have some Trading Bait ready to go when you do see something you want to try.

You got something else tumbling around in your mind that you are absolutely, positively sure you need?

quote:

Originally posted by shootaway:
I believe that a fouling shot is not required when shooting moly coated bullets.If one or more shots are required before a POI settles or good groups begin to occur,it usually is the result of other issues.It can happen when you suddenly change bullets or bullet grain and switch back to your original,mix once fired cases with those with many firings or those shot from different chambers,switching powders or just right after retightening action,stock or sight screws.To further expalin,if a groove is established in the bore,nothing should change to disrupt it.If you do temporarily disrupt this groove by changing something and it takes a shot or two or three to settle things,don't blame moly just because you happened to be shooting moly coated bullets.As for velocity,I have not noticed that I needed to add extra powder to get the same velocities as I get with uncoated bullets.I have shot a combination of coated and uncoated bullets in the same group many times.

In the case of my rifle, it requires the 20 or so rounds to settle down with one load. I use the same bullet (140 grain TSX), the same powder (H4831SC), the same cases (Remington) and the same primers (Remington Magnums). It is the only load that I have used for the last 5 years in this rifle.

Nah HC, I think I have everything covered pretty good right now. I mean a fella could always use something, but I have plenty of shooting and load development to keep me busy for a couple of years yet on what I have.

I have a 7x57 SS takeoff barrel from a Mark X that I was going to put on that FR-8 action, but I can't get the old barrel off, so I guess it's a wash. Prolly if I had some better action wrenches I could get it off, but I don't, so....

That 7x57 is a fine old cartridge. I might be wrong, but I believe that is the cartridge Mrs. Eleanor O'Conner used to teach Jack "everything he knew".

I'm not familiar with an "FR-8". But, you might be able to get a local Gun Smith to take the old barrel off for you at little cost.

I was thinking just the other day that I need to get some kind of new rifle "desire" burning in myself. Not real sure at the moment what I want though.

Talked to a buddy today who inherited a 308Win M700 from his Father. He has had a $$$HIGH$$$ Browning Titanium Mountain Rifle for a couple of years now. He has always been a Browning man and I've not been able to change his mind. First thing he told me today was that he had shot the M700 and sure was amazed at the fine trigger on it and how well it shot. Well, no foolin'!!!

Best of luck with the rifle.

To illustrate my point,here is a target I shot today.I was sighting in my 308, with open sights, off the bench at 100yds, a couple of days ago.I was using nosler cases and settled on a POI very close to the bottom left orange square.The three shot group was in the same spot as the three shot group near the same orange square on this target.After cleaning my rifle and removing all the copper and molly,I went back to the range,except this time with the same rds and new Winchester cases.The first shot fired was a flyer(single hole,below).The next three rds grouped near the center,instead of near the bottom left orange square where they grouped the day before.I then adjusted my sights to the left and shot the three shot group near the orange square pictured here.It turned out that this POI was centered but about 4 inches to high for offhand shooting.[URL= ]308 sighting in[/URL]