The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

I’m anti bore snake as unless you wash them after every pull through you are just dragging rubbish back through the barrel. Clean patches every time for me.
Looks like we’ll be starting a .22 cleaning debate again but mine gets pulled through with a clean patch after every session then now and again I scrub it with a nylon brush and some fluid.
Pulling though after shooting is important as if you have a look down the barrel you’ll see no end of crud in there. Leave it a few days and it goes hard so the next time you shoot all that hard crud is scraped along the barrel by the bullet leading to erosion etc. Might take a long time but on a £5k rifle I’m not risking it!

I'm in the bronze brush camp then. Some of my fellow shooters use snakes & I have witnesses two people pulling each other in opposite directions when using a snake!
Thanks for everyone's input

Still don’t understand how a cotton string with a few bits of brass in it can wear a steel crown.

safetyfirst wrote:Still don’t understand how a cotton string with a few bits of brass in it can wear a steel crown.

Ever used a buffing wheel? Cotton wheel soon makes an impression on steel.

Any snug fitting item, whether it be a cotton patch shoved through on a rod, a fat bit of woven polyester incorporating a bronze brush pulled through on a string, or a lead-filled copper bottle moving at 850m/s will cause wear at the crown in time. Even less time if said items are not scrupulously clean. The good news is that re-crowning a barrel that's gone off song will often restore it, and not cost a kings ransom.
Do you wipe the cartridges to remove dust immediately before chambering them?
What about mopping the chamber and bore out with brake cleaner, and drying it before a shoot?
I fully understand anxieties about prolonging the life of a 500 quid barrel, but don't get too anal about it!! Barrels are consumables, after all.

Pete

I have never owned a rifle that cost me any more than £650 in all the years I have been shooting. I have never needed a rifle that cost £5000 pounds (quote:rockhopper) to shoot accurately at any of the distances I have ever shot at.

Getting back on topic many many years ago when I got into fullbore shooting there was a glut of cheap military caliber rifles on the market a No4 was £150 in pristine condition. Kar98s Mosins Swedish Mausers were in abundance. I bought them all. But what you didn't realize at the time was how badly some of them were looked after in there military use if you looked at the muzzle and it took me a while to cotton on they used pull throughs a length of stout string with a brass weight on the end dropped through the barrel with a piece of cleaning cloth stuck in a loop in the string.
They then dragged the whole thing through the barrel if you pulled it through up right fine but it took a bit of doing but if the string was not central and dragged over the side of the muzzle it made it easier to pull it through but ruined the crown. I bought and got rid of a few of them before I finally wised up. I use brass jags cleaning patches and brass brushes used correctly. I don't worry about cleaning any of my .22 rifles using lead bullets if I screw a barrel up its a £100 for a new one.
I might clean my .22 rifles and underlevers using lead bullets occasionally with edds red.
I dont oil barrels and after over 30 years of shooting them I see no reason to suddenly rush out and start buying bore snakes or spending £1000 of pounds on guns.

I suppose it depends if you are just plinking or if you are shooting for your county. I’m the latter.

Rockhopper wrote:I suppose it depends if you are just plinking or if you are shooting for your county. I’m the latter.

Possibly. I am definatelly a plinker I do it for the fun of it. I wish you good luck with your 2018 season may all your groups be tight ones.

A string of V's feels just as good to a plinker as it does to a competitor.....................or a lead-slinger
The main thing is to have fun doing it.

Pete

You're right - a plinker never has a bad day - whereas a comp. shooter can have a complete nightmare.