I see folks using these, but my intuition says there's no way they can do a proper job. Maybe OK for a quickie. I'll just bet that there are a few opinions out there. HeHe.

I'm sure they're handy for something, I just haven't found out what yet.

They're great for a quick field cleaning, but after that, they get run thru the laundry for the next trip.

Wrongtarget, I've been thinking, but it hasn't done much good.
Why would one want to clean in the field?
Camping out I think a little kit like the Otis might be more useful.

Or any of the old cord pull-throughs.
Or for snow, mud, earth, hornet's nests, etc. a take down rod would be handy.

Sure they advertise how many patches they replace in one swipe, but I feel I'd loose the ability of using a choice of solvent or rust preventive, with soak time etc.

Still, I may buy one one day. I just got a vibrater case cleaner which I needed like a hole in the head.

I use em to wipe out the bore on my firearms at the end of the day if there's been no shooting when hunting in dusty conditions or wet weather. WD40 on the fat end for wet weather and Eezox any other time.

They are great for shotguns. After practice they take out the majority of the crud and leave a coating of (your choice, I like Clenzoil)oil/cleaner/solvent to work on the bore until you can clean it properly.

I'll agree that they are great for shotguns. Take out all the wad fouling and powder with a couple passes. Have never used one on a rifle, and probably never will.

All I use is bore snake on my rifles. Very rarely do I use a solvent and the wire brush and patches. The Bore Snake works very well for me.

I saecond dogcat -WD40 and a bore snake work well together.

Bore snakes may well get out the powder residue and fouling, but there is no way it is going to remove a copper or lead build up.

They are great for pulling through after you stick your barrel in the mud or snow while hunting.... JMO, Dutch.

i take one along on every trip in my pack. handy for getting crap or rain out of the barrel in the field and there is practaly no weight.

I pack a caliber-appropriate bore snake while I am hunting to remove moisture or mud. For cleaning, I use after wipe out to remove remaining crud and then to apply oil. For those purposes they have worked great for me. Lou

quote:

Still, I may buy one one day. I just got a vibrater case cleaner which I needed like a hole in the head.

Yeah, great for those vibrating cases.

I do a little competive shooting. I run a bore snake through dry to get most of the crust out, the use a spray or foam cleaner. I spray heavy and let soak till I see blue draining. Run the snake through spray again. repeat till the blue is gone. I ran test with Barnes and another strong cleaner soak a wet patch no sign of copper no mater how long I let the barnes soak,

JD

JD, I'm still trying to get my head around these bore snake things.
With patches for example my first couple are really filthy. So you continue to run this muck through your "competive" barrel, with the one bore snake?

quote:

Originally posted by 45/70 Govt.:

Yeah, great for those vibrating cases.

Well I must admit, I haven't looked in this thing while running. Does the media vibrate and the cases stay still?

quote:

Originally posted by Brice:
I see folks using these, but my intuition says there's no way they can do a proper job. Maybe OK for a quickie. I'll just bet that there are a few opinions out there. HeHe.

Your intuition is right. The bore snakes are nothing but powder fouler cleaners if that. No way do they give the bore a proper cleaning of lead and copper fouling. I see guys use them all the time at the range and it's easy to see that their shooting doesn't improve. I'm one of the few at the range that uses a Dewey one-piece with Butch's and Sweets.

I use them on guns that are hard to tear down, such as my father's Win 1892. Using WipeOut and a bore snake I removed a century's worth of poor maintenance; I was actually able to see rifling again where I thought that the barrel had been shot out. Of course, this took several days and I'm sure there's more that could be done with a proper stripping, but this worked appreciably well.

They are very useful on high volume shoots at say a praire dog town or culling roos here in Aussie.

They remove powder pouling in a flash and then finish up with a bristle brush in Sweets. Then patch out the sweets, run a patch through the barrel saturated in good gun oil and leave. The oil after Sweets is very necesssary, as the Sweets dries out the bore's steel, leading to pressure spikes. Dry the bore with patches and you are ready to go.

We take them along with us on a high volume roo cull, they very useful, getting the carbon fouling out in the field is most of the battle.

I used to think bore snakes were the greatest thing ever. Until i cleaned a rifle with one then put foaming bore cleaner in the barrel, waited then ran a patch through. The patch looked tie-dyed blue and black.

I take one with me when hunting incase of sand or other obstructions get in the barrel and to wipe out the bore in the morning but for actual cleaning I went back to a rod.

BORESNAKE AND WD40---

boresnake will only take out top laden dust.

wd 40 will do nothing but totally GUM UP your prised possession and then you will really have a cleaning job on your hands.

any one who believes the above two items are good for your guns, i have a bridge i will sell you cheap.

I use a bore snake when i am in a multiday hunting/shooting trip.

If I have fired one shot or several, I will pass the bore snake through the bbl a couple of times to remove the powder residue.

That way there are no "lumps" in the bbl to attract moisture.

I figured this topic would have legs when I posted it Nov. 6. Lots of useful and repsonsive posts. Now, what about the occasional article about a rifle that's been shot 500, 1000, 2000 etc. rounds with no cleaning and no great reduction in accuracy? One of the competition shooters in my club tells me he cleans his valuable 308 free rifle about every 800 rounds.

I usually clean every 20-40, depending on caliber, length of storage, and a lot of other factors. Maybe I'm wasting my time and wearing out my rifles. Incidentally, there was an exchange (plethora) of letters in Precision Shooting a few years ago regarding cleaning. Fortunately no one was injured, as the feelings were running pretty high.

I have a Marlin in 17HMR. The manual states that under normal circumstances the bore of the gun does not need cleaning. (period) I'd suspect that there is a period of time when the rifle is truly broken in that the bore is polished enough to not need cleaning. I have not experienced this yet (but I'm waiting...)

quote:

Originally posted by Brice:
One of the competition shooters in my club tells me he cleans his valuable 308 free rifle about every 800 rounds.

Could you ask him for me why he thought it needed cleaning?

Brice
I used to shoot in Palma Matches with some guys on the official US team.
One fella told me he cleans his rifle about every 400 to 500 rounds, weather it needs it or not.

He was not kidding.

I used to be into the "serious" gun cleaning bit but after a gunsmith asked me why i needed to get out copper fouling (and I couldn´t come up with an answer) I switched to bore snakes and cleaning foam. Precision has not been affected at all and the bores are quite clean. You need to wash the snake every now and then and they weren´t made to last forever so they need to be replaced every now and then.

bore snakes are great little things that are good for in-the-field cleaning and minor cleaning (like when you put less than five rounds through the gun) but for major cleaning (like twenty or thirty rounds through the gun) i still use a cleaning rod and patches but i still think they are worth the money

Bore snake will work in the field for damp or dusty conditions but you have to do a real cleaning when you get home. Just my opinion.

quote:

Originally posted by drunkintoaster:
bore snakes are great little things that are good for in-the-field cleaning and minor cleaning (like when you put less than five rounds through the gun) but for major cleaning (like twenty or thirty rounds through the gun) i still use a cleaning rod and patches but i still think they are worth the money

Ditto. Pre-season "sight-in" consisting of 5-10 shots (barrel seasoning ?), run a boresnake with a little FP10 lube on it a couple of times and call it good until the last shot of deer season. Boresnakes are good for "field" cleanings...rods, jags, and brushes are for "real" cleaning.

You can push a patch through a .17 or a .22 with heavy (.130)weed trimmer line. If the bore is large enough to get a double piece of small weed trimmer line(.065)through you can put a patch in the loop and drag it through. Small piece of weed trimmer line will fit right in your pocket. You get a fresh patch this way--not using same over and over.

Before I knew anything about proper gun care, I only ever cleaned a Wby Mk V (7mm Wby Mag) with a bore snake. The damn thing shot just great up to the day I sold it. I wouldn't recommend it as a cleaning method now that I know better, but I just though I'd share the experience.

I thought bore snakes were great, and only used them with Hoppe's #9 for several years on my Browning .300 Mag. The rifle was a 1" gun. Then all of a sudden it turned into a 4" gun. My gunsmith told me it had the worst copper fouling problem he had ever seen. Two weeks of cleaning several hours every day and the barrel is finally clean. There is no substitue for rods, jags, patches and copper solvents.
The rifle shot great until the metal fouling built up enough to affect accuracy.

I don't use a bore snake because I don't like the idea of forcing a crud-laden snake through it over and over again. I certainly don't use the same patch over and over.

I carry this in the field. It's pretty small and light. Very sturdy.

http://www.atsko.com/rapidrod.html

I have a snake and like it. I use it between "recipes" at the range. I agree that they only get the powder and loose fouling out.
It does keep the accuracy from falling off.
I find that with occasional use the bore snake has never become "crud laden".
I spray a little ballistol on the snake before the brushes for a bit of lube and feel it helps clean a bit better. I wonder with a barrel that has 15-20 rounds though it if the brushes even get through the fouling all the way to the steel. Even if they did I have total confidence my barrel is harder than the brushes.
I usually do 2 passes at the end of the day while the barrel is still warm before going home. It seems to make cleaning go much faster when I hit it with the cleaners at home.
When used within their design....for the intent....they do just fine.