As you can imagine, we have a lot of shooting done here in our range, especially 22 rim fire.

Today I thought I will clean one of our Walther KK200 match rifles.

I looked at the barrel with a bore scope, and was very surprised at how clean it looked.

Especially taking into consideration that it must have had tens of thousands of rounds through it. In fact, I have not cleaned this one since we got it brand new at all!

I went ahead and cleaned it anyway, using VFG swaps which certainly make cleaning easier than with patches, using Hoppe's #9, and I also gave it a few strokes of bronze brushes.

I looked at it with the bore scope again, and it was spotless!

This is in contrast to some other rifles which seem to foul so much.

In fact, the only dirt I could find was at the rear of the loading port, which was easily removed with a Q tip soaked in Hoppe's.

To me, the primary factor must be the final finish given to the bore when the rifle is manufactured.

If there were irregularities from the machining process, those irregularities would be the places that accumulated fouling. Most rifle barrels today are rifled by some form of impact or pressure system. The stresses accumulated in the steel during the manufacturing process are probably not uniform.

The specific metallurgy of the barrel must also be a factor. Not all barrel steels are equal in their ability to be given and to retain the final finish.

Third is probably the detailed design of the rifling and design of the chamber.

How did the cleaning effect the guns accuracy?

Among some BR shooter friends of mine always seems to be two schools of thought regarding cleaning the bore of the 22LR. Some claim that they rarely clean the bore and others do clean very thoroughly. Rifles vary from new shooters with common grade to those of the quality mentioned. Additionally much discussion about whether to use a brush or not, only solvent patch, then dry patch and finally light oil patch to protect bore. I shoot a very early Rem. 40X with original barrel that has been cut to 21.75" and it is not the heavy barrel but the lighter version. Former U.S. DOD rifle and have no idea as to how many rounds down the barrel. I do clean mine after shooting and do use brush/wet patch/light oil method and curious if there is a true right or wrong way to clean??

This is a pretty thorough article on the subject of rimfire cleaning: http://www.rrdvegas.com/rimfire-cleaning.html

Personally I think being able to view the bore through a borescope and compare before/after cleaning is very enlightening. Seems most of the best rimfire benchrest shooters I've seen in action are religious about their cleaning routines but I know of some rifles that perform shockingly well without as much maintenance as others.

quote:

Originally posted by Evan K.:
This is a pretty thorough article on the subject of rimfire cleaning: http://www.rrdvegas.com/rimfire-cleaning.html

Personally I think being able to view the bore through a borescope and compare before/after cleaning is very enlightening. Seems most of the best rimfire benchrest shooters I've seen in action are religious about their cleaning routines but I know of some rifles that perform shockingly well without as much maintenance as others.

Good article

Well I know more about cleaning a rimfire barrel than I will ever use.

Dave