Two kinds of rifle owners ...

[big5ifty]

.. those who have cleaned their rifle barrel, and those that still have to.

What a story. Cleaning is not just going through the motions with brush and solvent.

Firstly, nylon brushes are not for cleaning. They are for spreading copper solvent in the barrel. If you think you are cleaning with a nylon brush, you are in the category of "still have to".

Secondly, I think you should identify what the problem is. What needs to be cleaned is a function of what bullet material and what powder you use.

Are you cleaning lead deposits, moly, plastic, copper or carbon ?

Each one needs a different approach, and different solvents. There are some solvents that work better on one or the other, but none will be efficient for all.

And the bronze brush. The longer you hesitate to use it, the longer it takes to get the barrel clean.

You cannot wear steel with bronze. Yes, diamonds are cut with bronze blades. That argument is as logical as saying I've seen high speed water jets used to profile cut steel, so I should avoid getting the barrel wet.

You will not clean the barrel with a nylon brush. I got a reply to one of my posts on another forum from someone who claimed nylon brushes do clean because nylon wears steel. He once saw a boat propeller with a groove worn into it from nylon fishing line. I replied with my water cutting steel analogy.

Then there's the "my barrel shoots better dirty" school of thought. No, it doesn't shoot better dirty, all you've done is found the optimum seating depth for minimising barrel harmonics with that amount of fouling. When it fouls more, or when cleaned, the harmonics change, and accuracy is gone again. Basing accuracy on a particular degree of fouling - I think this is when people say "it took x number of shots for my barrel to stabilise after cleaning".  Yes, it clearly did, because you optimised the harmonics for a particular degree of fouling. It's as easy to optimise barrel accuracy for no fouling - keep it clean - then your baseline for accuracy is  always achievable without guessing, or wasting bullets.

I get the impression that people consider their barrels to be made of candy floss, and treat them accordingly. They fall into the "still have to" category.

And then the people who say they don't like to clean to factory new bare metal, so they leave it dirty. Here's a newsflash : once you start putting rounds down the tube, the molecular composition of the rifling in contact with the powder and the bullet is forever changed. You can never revert it back to "factory new", because "factory new" no longer exists, but you can clean it.

Here is some interesting reading to go with your barrel cleaning sessions :

Old school rifle cleaning.

[Ds J]

How does one know when a barrel is clean?

I usually clean with some solvent until a white cloth doesn't show any marks.

[big5ifty]

There are no many variables, and each situation can be unique. It is possible that your brush and patches are cleaning the barrel, but unless you verify with a borescope, you won't know, for example, if all you're doing is removing copper and carbon excess and polishing the rest of the carbon into the rifling.

The borescope tools to look inside a barrel are cheap now, they cost as much as a box or two of bullets. Amazon delivers in two weeks.

[oafpatroll]

I clean until a wet (ed's red) patch comes out unmarked. I moved over to a polymer jag as I drank nearly two bottles of wine one day while scrubbing and then passing patches through on a brass jag which was leaving marks. Almost did my head in. Leaving the solvents to work for a while seems to ease the pain especially with my shotguns, I get the barrels, and the gas system of the semi, nice and wet and then leave them for half an hour or so to really loosen up

[Treeman]

Come home from hunt, brush barrel out FIRST and drag dry cloth through, put solvent in barrel then unpack and pack away.Do a clean out and wash barrel with acetone or benzine, even Windolene when finished with packing away. Put fresh solvent in, bath- eat whatever and then clean out second batch of solvent.

If I have shot less than 3 shots for hunt, its good till next clean 

[janfred]

Whether I've shot 3 shots or 200, I pretty much do it the same way.

1 2 Ballistol lappies straight through.
2 Then brush with a bronze brush wetted with ballistol, one stroke per 2 shots to a maximum of 20.
3 Patch out with 2 or 3 dry lappies.
4 Then patch out with a ballistol lappie.
5 Then two to three dry lappies again. If the lappies come out discoloured, repeat from step 2.
6 Clean chamber and bolt.
7 Damp ballistol lappie through the barrel for storage.
8 Clean the brush in turps or paraffin. Discard the brush when it no longer fits tightly in the bore. Always use a proper bore guide.

Takes me 5 to 10 minutes per rifle.

[Treeman]

Whether I've shot 3 shots or 200, I pretty much do it the same way.

*****************************
but why? - why scrub - clean a thing that's likely just about at its shooting best

[janfred]

Whether I've shot 3 shots or 200, I pretty much do it the same way.

*****************************
but why? - why scrub - clean a thing that's likely just about at its shooting best

When does it stop shooting at it's best? At what point in the competition is the rifle going to disappoint me?

I like to start from a repeatable baseline. And I don't store a dirty rifle.

[Ds J]

https://flic.kr/ps/3Zpy2u

This is the result of a second cleaning of my 1917 SMLE 303.

First cleaning was with a bronze brush and lappies, I cannot remember which chemical I used.

After reading this thread I put some nitro solvent on a bronze brush and worked it through, let it stand a little while and continued with the bronze brush. The results were spectacular - I never knew a barrel could contain that much dirt. The cleaning rod was covered in an oily layer, and the patches were soaked on the first run.

I cleaned until the patches came out clean, and then sprayed the barrel with Q10 penetrating oil. Earlier this evening I put the brush to her, and the whole process of yucky oily dirt was repeated. 

[big5ifty]

I'm doing penetrating oil and a bronze brush as a first pass after shooting now.

Then if it needs something for copper, else Ed's Red and a bronze brush till the patches are clean.

I need to do one more target rifle like that, and then the big bores. I have a .375H&H that never patches clean after a brush, but I only ever used a nylon brush on it.

[Treeman]

dsj by David Frank Allen, on Flickr
DSJ from here on forum asked me to post this - he has not yet figured out the photo thing 

[janfred]

May seem superfluous, but when you run out of cleaning fluid, get some Ballistol Universal Oil. Quite a bit cheaper than the more popular cleaning chemicals. Actually works quite well for cleaning and lubrication. Even works better than Ed's Red