How often do you clean your precision rifle?

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SilentStalker

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I am in somewhat of a pickle on cleaning my rifles. Before I always cleaned after every range session. Now I am being told by my precision shooting friends not to touch it until I have shot about 600 rounds through it. What is your game on this? I mean what they are saying kind if makes sense I guess because they say too much cleaning can open the barrel up but at the same time for me it's hard to let it sit knowing there is crud in there. Again, thoughts on this?
 
The least abrasive, least intrusive method of cleaning is the preferred method, and the least frequent is less likely to cause damage to your rifle.

I've been reading all I can on the subject, and find that brass jags and nylon brushes with a good bore solvent are less intrusive than other methods. I clean after every range trip, I don't like to put a dirty rifle in the safe.

I'm sure I clean too often according to some, but it is my choice I guess. After all, like bullets, barrels are consumables.
 
See this is kind of how I feel about it. I don't like putting one away dirty either but I am being told that cleaning after every session is not good. I mean I guess it will be alright as I will probably go shooting again next weekend but its the whole principle of putting it away dirty I guess that bothers me. I guess my question is what is he worst that can happen if I put it away this way?
 
Mine have never had a brass brush run down them. A cloth on a jag with Montana Extreme .50 BMG to remove any copper is all I do after every shooting session. The one exception is my FN SPR which has a chrome-lined bore and hasn't been cleaned in about 5 years.

Don
 
mine have never seen a brush either. only jags and patches. after the initial break-in most won't need a good cleaning until you see accuracy degrade.
 
I have the understanding from past posts here that cleaning only ruins a rifle. I pull a couple of patches with Hoppes through the breech and barrel after I shoot mine, but they are not "precision" nor am I an expert!
 
The one exception is my FN SPR which has a chrome-lined bore and hasn't been cleaned in about 5 years.
Click to expand...
I cleaned mine when I bought it used, but haven't cleaned it again yet. When I do I will push a couple of patches through it, then a couple of passes with a phosphor bronze brush and then patches, using a one piece rod and a proper bore guide, spraying and wiping the rod after each pass.

For my Benchrest gun I gave it a light cleaning after every group, just like 99% of the competitors.
 
my 6mm creedmoor through a bartlein barrel has never seen a cleaning rod since it was chambered to make sure all the shavings and cutting oil is out, it has over 2000rds through it now. Its still shooting .25moa.
 
How does a material softer than the barrel cause it to wear out? is there a concern for the land edges and wouldn't simple friction from the bullet cause more harm than a bore brush.?
 
I'm interested to follow this. I've been sticking to a pass or two with the bore snake after each range trip and plan for a 'deeper' cleaning at 500rds or when accuracy degrades.
 
Only takes a minute to run a lubed patch down the barrel.

Is Remington 40X precision?? Wet the barrel with Hoppe's #9 after the days shooting. Let it soak till you go shooting again or put away. Then run a wet patch, clean patch till its clean. I have to brush my high milage barrel some. One piece coated cleaning rod. Be extra careful of the muzzle. A rifle was put in the closet and forgotten, after a shooting session. When the owner wanted to sell it to me, i looked down the barrel and could not see day light. Barrel full of rust. After i cleaned it, pitting was the worst i have ever seen. Barrel was scrap. Things happen and you dont always get to go shooting as planned.
 
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Well what freaks me out is that it makes some kind if weird whistling noise when I run a patch and jag through. I suppose this could just be the rifling and its hard to push through like it will push through a bit and then catch and then I push a little harder and it will go again and stop skip and then poof out the barrel. When editing the barrel so swift is what scares me the most because its damn near impossible not to ride the edge of the crown a but on exit even with a Lucas bore guide! Maybe I am being too anal because in a way I have yet to figure out how softer metal could cause harm as well. I didn't clean it this time. I just sprayed the outside real well gave it a good run down and oil/wax treated cloth rub on the outside and then grease the bolt and mag and put her up. Hopefully I am good to go.
 
My 22lr never. Clean it it does not shoot as good. My 17 HMR, every 25 or so rounds. My 22-250 every time I put it up. My .223 is not target so every 500 or so. The .17 falls off quick when dirty. Wipe all of them down reg. First time I cleaned the 22 I thought I messed it up. Took forever to dirty it up again.
 
my 300 WM has seen the rod and brush only during the break in. Even then I cleaned it only slightly. Since then I have used the cable and slightly oiled patches or boresnake. Couple of pull-throughs have been sufficient so far.

If I am shooting (for a couple of days, as the typical routine goes), then if the round count is not too high I might do the cleaning within a week. If the weather is moist or I am shooting more than, say, 40-50 rounds a day I might do the light cleaning the same day (evening for example) - pull the bolt, wipe it and run couple of patches through the bore (I do dry the bore, as I am trying to never shoot an oiled barrel, only dry one). If the bore looks shining and no powder is visible, then I am happy.

Good enough to go sub-moa at 1000 meters when I am good enough (shooter is still the weakest link, as usual).
 
Ask your friends to explain to you how a bronze brush is worse on a barrel that 50,000+ lbs of pressure, temperature of 3000 deg F, bullet friction that in some calibers will heat check the top of the lands. I highly recommend reading:

http://www.shootersforum.com/gun-cleaning/63278-besides-politicians-our-worst-enemy.html


Medusa, are you shooting the 300 WM for groups or at steel plate? For kicks shoot a ten round group every 100 rounds and keep the targets and report back with group pics 500, 1000, 1500 rounds. That will be very interesting.
 
Hummer - my target is usually a human size figure, 50 cm wide and 150 cm tall. I usually go for hitting the target remotely where I would like to, because that is what I am training for, so I am shooting groups only from time to time. I rather go for certain scenarios - last time it was a 700ish meter target that I had to shoot to the head - one shot one hit. So it was 1 shot, to target and back on foot on a peat bog, and repeat about 10 times. So better not miss or the walk was in vain :)

The target picture, from Mfg. site

Mostly I keep it at 2 or 3 rounds per target. That 1000 meter shooting was 5 rounds (yeah, I know, it is a bit smallish side for accuracy test bench, but for me the MOA means I can put the impacts within a circle that big) and max distance between bullet holes was about 20 cm. I think I have a picture of a 903 meter target (5 shots though), with similar results.

As for the cleaning, I am running the 168 grain SMKs @920 m/s at the muzzle. Quite a light load for 300WM and it does not get the rifle dirty fast, or worn out. I am also shooting a few rounds within few minutes (well, depending on the purpose of shooting), usually mentioned 2 or 3, and then hauling it all the way to the target and back regardless of the terrain; if I am not lucky to have someone other saying it out - hit or not and where.. So the rifle does not get much heat usually. If I have to, I do make rapid fire, but I don't when I don't have to (I have another rifle for hosing any close targets :) ).

I have thought about the barrel life, or at least the useful life. I should do the group after every hundred or so, that is a good idea, true, to see any degradations in accuracy.
 
My only precision rifle sees nothing but lead. Since any leading leads to more leading - it gets cleaned throughout. If you put jacketed rounds through your barrel, thats another story. I believe there is a certain equilibrium of copper fouling that once removed, will result in diminishing returns. I used to run patch after patch until there was no green left but now I stop after about 3 passes and another pass with a bore snake.
 
As I don`t know your( P S) friends and not had the benefit of their knowledge, plus coming from another mind set, Mine are cleaned after every range session. Certainly after bad weather or other times they are used. Fired.
I look at it this way, If I`m satisfied, that`s all that counts.
 
I use outers foam. it dissolves the copper without brushing and just needs a few patches. cleaning has ruined more barrels then shooting has
 
Clean it when your accuracy starts to fall off. If you are a precision shooter you are taking precision notes and can tell when you need to clean. I have bought 40 year old guns that might not have ever been cleaned and after a careful proper cleaning the bore comes out looking like new, no ill effects to sit dirty with non corrosive ammo. I personally clean my guns with gunslick foaming bore cleaner to cut the copper fouling. I hose it out with brake cleaner after a couple of hours and run a bore snake with a little oil to approximate a fouled bore. No real need to run a rod but if I ever do it is a Dewey carbon fiber rod with a brass jag.
 
^^^ Well, I am a precision shooter but relatively new to it and since these rifles cost much more than say AR's I tend to take a lot more care in doing anything with them. Case in point, I don't do anything to my AR's other than drag a wet patch through with Hoppes, then run a boresnake or the otis flexible rod with another patch or two and call it a day.
 
^^ I inherited a Rem. 700 ADL '06 from my Pop, haven't a clue as to when he cleaned it last, I got it 6 years ago. I was dumbfounded as to the crap in that rifle bore! I first tried Hoppes' #9 and a bronze brush, many passes with both, still filthy. I ran a couple of patches with JB's bore cream, 20 to 25 times before giving it the Hoppe's treatment again, finally, the bore looked like it was clean. Now, one can shoot it until the cows come home, and never clean it between sessions, but after seeing this first-hand, mine get cleaned after "every session" ! A little cleaning never hurts them, unless you have boo coo bucks and it doesn't matter to you. A good smith I take mine to, told me about a product on Mid Way, "Witches Brew", now this stuff cleans out any and all copper fouling you might incur.
 
I was always under the impression that you should clean your rifle after each range session. Otherwise all the gunk inside would keep building up and could cause corrosion or failures.

I'm surprised to hear people that shoot AR rifles say that they rarely clean them. I always heard that those rifles like to be clean and oiled all the time.

Maybe I've been wrong all this time....
 
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