"You never clean a .22 rifle"

lysanderxiii said:

"Research Test of the Effect on Accuracy of Cleaning the Bore of the Caliber .22 Rimfire Rifle," L. Moore, Infantry and Aircraft Weapons Division, Aberdeen Proving Grounds, February 1964.

ABSTRACT
The bore of a small-bore training or match rifle may be worn or damaged because of excessive or improper cleaning. This test was conducted to investigate the effect on accuracy of cleaning the bore of the caliber .22 rimfire rifle. A total of 3800 rounds was fired in four match rifles at a range of 100 yards on an indoor range using a machine rest. Conditions were kept as nearly constant as possible, except for barrel temperature and bore surface condition. It was found that the first shot fired from a rifle which was not fired for some time, and infrequently the second shot, was out of the normal group, and that, excluding the first group, the difference in group size before and after cleaning was not significant. It is concluded that cleaning the bore of the caliber .22 rimfire rifle does not improve its accuracy under normal conditions. It is recommended that unless the caliber .22 rimfire rifle has been exposed to adverse weather conditions, the bore be cleaned infrequently, and that the cause of the first shot impacting out of the normal group be investigated further. (my emphasis)

That said, a clean weapon is always more reliable than a dirty weapon, so I would not recommend never cleaning them.

EDIT: I should note that after cleaning the first group, and first group only, where not significantly larger than subsequent groups, but did average larger. This indicates fouling has some impact on accuracy.

Click to expand...

In my experience that first shot or two out of a cold bore is the difference. In a match where the first three shots from a cold bore are the shots that count I can't afford a dirty bore. This is caused by carbon rings or something that seem to only affect a cold bore. If you are allowed sighters then it probably doesn't matter. Unless you are using a quality rifle with match ammo it also won't matter in my opinion.

Walkalong said:

Ditto on all that, what solvent?

Click to expand...

There is no magic solvent. Most shooters are using Hoppe's or some variation found on the shelf. Centerfire rifle is different. You have read the article on Ed's Red, for a 22lr all you really need is something that dissolves the powder and the wax. You know, liquid wrench will dissolve wax and gunpowder. I had a can which lost its pressure, poured out the remainder into a bottle and used that. Liquid wrench worked well.

I always cleaned my guns after using them but now I sometimes don't if I intend to shoot them again a week or two later. However before I store them I always make sure they are cleaned and oiled. My 22 rifle is my first firearm purchased when I was a teenager in the late 60's and I was meticulous about cleaning it every time I shot it. This rifle was built in the late 40's and I bought it in the late 60's so including my cleanings the barrel must have been cleaned a thousand times but it is still very accurate to this day.

I've been told that back when my dad was showing me the way to clean his old Springfield rifle, it's a single shot and still shooting accurate. It originally was my Great Grandpas and is passed down in the family. According to dad and Grandpa back in the day they used to light kitchen matches standing up on a fence post with it.

As far as .22 barrels, to each their own. I don't really clean any of mine except for my 22/45.

However, soap on cast iron is blasphemy!

I was taught to clean my rifle, .22 and Centerfire, after every shooting session.It is a habit that I continue to this day. With my Wife earning her Master’s degree and doing her coursework on weekends that I get to shoot on both Saturdays and Sundays. I do wait until Sunday night or Monday evening to clean my rifle.
I have a question, has anyone ever get their .22 rifle really clean? No matter how many patches or strokes with the bore brush do I ever get a completely clean patch.

Charlie Martinez said:

I always cleaned my guns after using them but now I sometimes don't if I intend to shoot them again a week or two later.

Click to expand...

What's the difference between shooting 500 rounds in one day compared to:

• Shooting 100 rounds a day for 5 range days over 2 weeks?
• Shooting 50 rounds a day for 10 range days over 2 weeks?

I think not much to the barrel or the bullet.

One thing Ive never understood are the comments "I just wait until there's a problem" to clean. That's OK with a gun you really arent worried about or counting on working "every time", I guess, but that makes no sense to me for those guns you do want to count on. Personally, I expect them to all work and perform, at any given moment, but thats me.

And how do you keep track? Do you keep a record of every gun and when it was last maintained? I have a bunch of guns, and they all pretty much get shot on a fairly regular basis across the year. I cant imagine trying to keep track of things if I dont clean them every outing, and know when I might want to do so, since its been a while since I did. Its just a lot easier to clean them and I know Im good to go no matter which one I grab when I decide its time to shoot it.

A perfect example of not cleaning being an issue, were the Beretta M21A's I had back in the 90's. Both worked great, when "clean", but get about a box into them in practice, and reliability went south pretty quick. If you were carrying one and counting on it for something serious, you had better be cleaning it after every time you fired it.

And then theres the maintenance issues. Part of cleaning is general "inspection" of everything, and dealing with worn, or broken parts, and heading off possible problems.

I can sorta see maybe not scrubbing a high-end 22 target rifles barrel "every" time, but I dont see not cleaning the gun. I shot a good bit of competitive .22 back in jr and high school, and .30 caliber competitive shooting through the 80's and 90's, with both issue and match type rifles, and I cleaned and maintained all of them after every outing. I really cant remember ever seeing accuracy degrading because I did this, but I wasnt shooting guns that were a bench rest type gun looking for that type of bughole accuracy either. Still, the rifles were accurate and likely more so than most shooting them.

I shot expert with all of them enough though, to believe I must have been doing something right, or at least, nothing "wrong" in cleaning them.

One other thing to consider is selling/trading the guns and what not cleaning them does to the value, be that real or just the impression of laziness and not taking care of things. It really amazes me at how many people will bring a gun in to sell or trade, and are too lazy to bother to clean it. Youd think they'd want to clean it up and maybe get a bit more out of it.

Ive been burnt a couple of times (and wont be again if I can help it) with pretty expensive rifles that had been shot with corrosive ammo, and not properly cleaned, and while the gun looked great on the outside, and I thought, OK, it just needs cleaned, came to find out, no..... the barrel is trashed and it needs a new one. If the gun, and especially the bore looks "really" dirty, Im not offering a cent until I see it after its been patched. And right off, good or bad, just because it looked like that in the first place, the offer went down a lot anyway.

I clean my weapons after shooting.
This thread has surprised me. I actually felt myself getting worked up reading some the seldom clean comments. I wanted to lob a terse post at them. However, I noted the seldom cleaner posts contained mostly correct spelling and a good to excellent grasp of sentence structure. I think the majority of ya’ll walk upright even.
Some the reasoning for seldom cleaning 22’s does ring true. I’m trying to keep an open mind as I’m cleaning my rifle.

I’m going to lean into this thing a bit. I have a lovely Mossberg 44 US clean and pristine. I shoot aspirin at 25 yards for fun. I hit them most of the time too. I will not clean it other than exterior wipe down. I’ll try to report back sometime 2022.

lysanderxiii said:

EDIT: I should note that after cleaning the first group, and first group only, where not significantly larger than subsequent groups, but did average larger. This indicates fouling has some impact on accuracy.

Click to expand...

That is only your conclusion, one I cannot contradict with evidence but consider the bore condition (dry vs. wax coated) as another potential factor. That wax, as every .22lr bullet is waxed, could very well affect velocity until the entirety of the bore is coated.

R.W.Dale said:

IMO you’ll have to start with some pretty accurate rifles and some pretty good ammunition to see the phenomenon this thread is based on.

Click to expand...

I don’t know that I’d agree. I will say that a hand-lapped target barrel won’t foul in the same manner an OEM barrel will, but I own a number of what I consider accurate rifles even while shooting inexpensive ammo.

As for leading and each consecutive bullet sweeping away the previous lead/fouling/copper...hogwash. This 10/22 belonging to my step-daughter was cleaned by me after an unknown number of rounds since last cleaning. I pushed out full curls using my standard BoreShine on a patch with pierce jag.










I want to scream when I hear that phrase about “Improper cleaning has ruined more barrels...” Well yeah, key word being improper. Waxing a car that’s dirty will ruin the paint. Cooking a turkey at 600 degrees in the oven will ruin your dinner. Pushing out fouling and the like with proper tools is NOT the equivalent. And who leaves Sweets in the barrel for 4 days?!? That’s intentional harm.

Cleaning my Marlin 22Mag saved it from being given away.
I had tried what you call a gentle cleaning & changed scopes and ammo, it used to be my fox killer until
about 5 years ago it was terrible with all the effort I put in it.
I let it sit until I got on here about 2 years ago & I believe it was slamfire that told me to try the J-B
compound with a good effort & it worked. The 22 Mag is back to perfect. I could give you the date
per records but it has never failed since then.
As I was told during that thread, you cant wear a 22 caliber barrel out, it just builds up lead
and such.
The 22 caliber Marlin Long Rifle gets one cleaning a year and takes about 5 shots to get back on target
even if it was ok before.

Clesn your 22 guns guys, dirty guns are just a excuse for bad shots...

While I don't clean the barrel after every range trip, I try to do it at least every 2 or 3 times. The rest gets a cleaning after each trip, though.

Wow this is an old argument isn't it. My dads pump action .22 sat in the corner of the barn all through my childhood. I was never cleaned at all. Probably not the way to treat a firearm, but to dad it was a tool. Hid tools were in the barn. He once sad you never need to clean a .22 they just keep working. His shotgun and deer rifles were at least in the house

I bought my first .22 about 40 years ago (yikes...). Assuming it was clean when I bought it used (it probably was not) I used it lots for 30 years before I ever cleaned it. I shot thousands of rounds through that rifle with barely anything other than a little lube in the action. I never knew any better and it always worked.
When I disassembled it 5 or 6 years ago I was ashamed at how dirty my childhood joy was. When I finished cleaning it I felt better but it operated the same.

I'm convinced the "clean to bare metal" crowd is a little OCD and over rated. Is cleaning necessary ? Yes. Is leading a bad thing ? Absolutely Do you need to scrub it to bare metal after 100 rounds at the range ? Probably not.

I bought a borescope a year or so ago. I have bet a number of friends that their bore is not as clean as they really think anyhow. So far I am 100% accurate. What we think is "clean" is seldom as clean as what we think. You just can't see it without proper tools. If you think you need to clean ever use DO NOT buy a bore scope. You will drive yourself insane.

-Jeff

I've got a couple of .22's that don't get a regular cleaning. Wiped down and lubed regularly, but the only time they see a brush or bore snake is when groups start opening up.

The only .22 I own is a Marlin 60 and I've had it for probably 15 years.
I've sprayed the action out with Gun Scrubber and oiled it a few times.
I can count on one hand the number of times a cleaning rod has been ran down the barrel. Heck maybe only 2 or 3 times in 15 years.
Thing shoots lights out.

Jeff62 said:

I clean my weapons after shooting.
This thread has surprised me. I actually felt myself getting worked up reading some the seldom clean comments. I wanted to lob a terse post at them. However, I noted the seldom cleaner posts contained mostly correct spelling and a good to excellent grasp of sentence structure. I think the majority of ya’ll walk upright even.
Some the reasoning for seldom cleaning 22’s does ring true. I’m trying to keep an open mind as I’m cleaning my rifle.

Click to expand...

All you have to do is try it. That's a good point for the always-cleaners, how will you ever really know if you never try anything different? I'm sure that most of us who stopped cleaning after every range session did not start out that way. In fact, I learned to question the practice from folks who knew a hell of a lot more than I do, namely big name gunwriters and gunsmiths.

I'll ask this, as I never seem to get an answer on itfrom those who say they dont clean, if you dont clean and maintain them, how do you know when they will let you down, when you need them most? 100 rounds, 1000, 10000, what?

Not so much a big deal with a range gun thats just for plinking, but what about things you might count on, be it for game, score, defense, etc.

I have a Remington 552 that I bought new in the 70's, for 70 something dollars, It's out in my barn and has been for MANY years.

It's never been cleaned at all, in fact it's only been wiped off a few times, and it looks like a POS, but it's still 100% reliable, just like it has always been.

I would bet anyone I could go out there right now, and raddle off a full tube of 22's, and it would function 100% with good accuracy!

Even looking like a clapped out POS, I bet you I could easily sell it for more than 70 bucks. lol

DM

We have one those uncleaned barn guns, too. It's a Remington 550. My grandfather bought it new in the 50's. He never owned any cleaning supplies. He just squirted some kinda oil on it when it acted up. It's rusted, has a cracked stock, and has some paint splatters all over it. It still runs good and is groundhog accurate out to 50 yards or so.

trackskippy said:

I'll ask this, as I never seem to get an answer on itfrom those who say they dont clean, if you dont clean and maintain them, how do you know when they will let you down, when you need them most? 100 rounds, 1000, 10000, what?

Not so much a big deal with a range gun thats just for plinking, but what about things you might count on, be it for game, score, defense, etc.

Click to expand...

Firstly, I never said I "never" clean or maintain. It's a matter of maintenance intervals. I do not clean every time I shoot. I do not clean a bore unless it needs it and I do not clean as thoroughly as folks like yourself. Not because I'm lazy. Not because I don't care. Not because I don't take care of my stuff. Because it isn't necessary. Just as it isn't necessary to change my oil every time I drive to town and back. Nor every 3000miles. IMHO, what I do is akin to the 10,000mile, "when-my-vehicle-says-so" oil change.

I know when I'm finished shooting what it needs. This is foreign territory for you guys that clean all the time. I've been there and I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing if it did not work.

trackskippy said:

I'll ask this, as I never seem to get an answer on itfrom those who say they dont clean, if you dont clean and maintain them, how do you know when they will let you down, when you need them most? 100 rounds, 1000, 10000, what?

Not so much a big deal with a range gun thats just for plinking, but what about things you might count on, be it for game, score, defense, etc.

Click to expand...

Well, again, I don't think anyone is talking about never cleaning any part of a gun, and certainly no one is talking about never cleaning a gun which is carried for defense. The argument is that cleaning the bore of a .22 LR is not necessarily required for accurate, reliable shooting.

What could possibly go wrong with a freshly cleaned, properly lubricated .22 rimfire rifle?

I just use a little CLP on a cotton swab and a boresnake after shooting mine, couple passes with a toothbrush in the action and it's all good for me.