I have a cleaning question. When I clean my rifles I usually run a couple of patches soaked with Shooters Choice through and then a brush or a half dozen pulls with a Bore Snake. I then run some dry patches through. My question is: When I am running the last dry patch through, should it be competely clean or is a trace of rifling on the patch OK? Thanks.

Kind of depends on how anal you are about cleaning. However, if you want the bore really clean, the last patch should BE clean. Try some WipeOut (do a search on this site). Works great. - Dan

Basicall I am seeing just a hint of the rifling present on the patch, I mean it is not as snowy white as when I started but it also isn't grey or green.

Duckster,

Unless you will be using it for surgery, or are still pulling green from the bore, or, there are chunks of visible metal clinging to your lands, you can probably put the cleaning rod down.

Malm

Thanks for the help guys, I just wanted to know how clean was "clean enough". You read some of the horror stories posted by the guys who do some gunsmithing about customers rifles that are terribly fouled and wonder if you are doing things well enough yourself.

duckster---

After 35 years of following the popular notions of barrel cleaning.........and ruining my share of them, I've used nothing but two or three pulls of a Bore Snake every 50 rounds or so with half a dozen drops of Shooters Choice on the loop.

I shoot nothing but custom barrels and moly-coated bullets and that *might* have a lot to do with my success.

I wrap the Snakes around the dish washer rack to clean them.

I am on way to the range here in a minute to test the impact of a "copper free" bore after using Wipe Out to clean the barrels until "blue patches" went away.
Looking at the bore pre and post cleaning with Wipe Out makes me think the guns will shoot differently.

I actually thought they were clean before the use of that product. I hope the thorough cleaning will bring accuracy back to two of them and one of my Contender barrels.

LouisB

Outa here for the range!

I prefer brass jags and cotton patches. I am not sure what the lady will do to me, if I wrap the bore snake in the dishwasher ...

Stuff me in the dishwasher? Or have to clean the dishes by hand from now on? Oh nooooo

Hermann