How thoroughly do you clean your auto's barrel?

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Prion

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I usually clean the bore after 500 rounds of fmj. I clean pretty darn thoroughly, takes awhile, and I hate it. :(

My question is exactly how long do you take cleaning your barrel, what is your process, and how do you determine it is clean enough?
 
I clean the barrel till it gleams.

I use mpro7 and it goes very quickly. If I want to really clean it I dump it in the ultrasonic and 15 minutes of mpro7. Brush a few times. 15 minutes of water displacing oil and back in the gun.

Takes about 30 minutes and maybe 20 passes of a brush and I am done.
 
I will shoot about 150 rounds of lead. Before going home I shoot a couple of magazines of FMJ to shoot the lead out.

When I get home, a couple of swipes with a brass brush and bore cleaner and I am done scrubbing. I push a patch, or a paper towel wrapped around an old 38 spl brush, to remove the bore cleaner with the dissolved powder particles.

I can see signs of copper in the grooves which does not hurt a thing as long as it is not lumpy.

In the main I want to remove lumps of lead as lead bullets smear even more when running into that stuff.

Handguns are spitting distance weapons, I spend more time cleaning my rifle barrels, but not much more time.

DSCN0747ColtCombatreduced.jpg
 
I usually just soak it with a patch of hoppes, let it sit 10-15 minutes. Then a couple or 3 swipes with a bronze brush, a few dry patches followed by a lightly oiled patch and call it done. Never spent any more time nor effort then that (I don't shoot much lead though, only occasionally in a couple of my revolvers).
 
I usually just soak it with a patch of hoppes, let it sit 10-15 minutes. Then a couple or 3 swipes with a bronze brush, a few dry patches followed by a lightly oiled patch and call it done. Never spent any more time nor effort then that (I don't shoot much lead though, only occasionally in a couple of my revolvers).
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I shoot no lead and my cleaning procedure is pretty much the same as gwnorth's. except I run a bore snake through once in awhile(every couple hundred rounds)
 
I run a patch or two down the barrel, then a bore snake.

The barrel usually looks nearly perfect after that. I am super picky when cleaning parts like slide rails and feed ramps, where imperfections can impact reliability. A very very slight copper residue inside the barrel will in no way compromise reliability of the gun, nor will it appreciably change the accuracy, velocity, increase pressure, etc...
If that were the case, you'd have to clean the barrel in between every shot that you take at the range.
 
Thoroughly and completely. I can't stand to see any residue in the bbl when I am done. You never know when you might next get to clean it out. I also keep my car serviced, and full of gas. :)
 
Sorry I just don't spend much time cleaning. Sometime I just bore snake it a few times and other times I run a patch of Hoppe's then use a motorized brush via cordless drill, then a patch of gun oil, followed by dry patch, done. LM
 
Clean enough to perform surgery in. No lead, no copper, no dirt. Every time it's brought home from the range.
 
Spray Powder Blast liberally down the barrel and run a Hoppes Boresnake through it a couple times. Running it once is enough to get it perfectly clean though.
 
I clean my guns after each session 95% of the time

The barrel is a part of the gun like every other piece...so it gets cleaned too. As mentioned, a few runs of the brush, a few patches, oil, call it good.
 
can't seem to find a nylon brush that cleans my .45 acp barrels thoroughly. if anyone knows of one, let me know. all the one's i've found are undersized to also fit .40cal bores. i don't use brass or steel.
 
I'm not obsessive about the barrel. A wet patch, hit it with a bursh to break up the crud, enough wet patches to get the visible gunk out, a dry patch to get the solvent out, then a LIGHTLY oiled patch to protect it from corrosion. That said, I don't shoot lead, I don't shoot corrosive ammo, and I do make sure the chamber is clean. If you shoot corrosive ammo, you need to clean the gun promptly and thoroughly.

Mike
 
What 19-3 Ben does. BBl clean but not necessarily spotless, all other moving parts, rails, etc gleam.
 
after each range trip i normally clean my guns, that includes the barrels too, depending on if i was shooting lead or not depends on how in depth and how much scrubbing i do.
 
My barrels and handguns all get a bath in diesel in a small plastic tub.
I run a saturated bronze brush down the barrel then wet patches saturated in diesel till they come out clean. Rinse in the diesel in the tub then blow off with an air hose then wipe dry. Pretty low tech, but it works great.
I shoot cast lead bullets exclusively. I haven't shot a jacketed bullet in a looong time.
 
Barrels just need some Powder Blast (Brake Cleaner) and a few runs with a Boresnake to get clean. As for the gun itself, I just blast the internals with Powder Blast, wipe a few areas with a non-lint cloth, blast again, and use a compressed air can, and then oil it up.

But really, you don't really need to clean the gun as if it was a FDA approved meat preprocessing plant. Tests have shown that most modern guns can go thousands of rounds without cleaning before the first failure to extract or something.
 
When I strip the gun, I put Ballistol in the barrel and let it soak while I clean the rest of the parts. Then I run a brass brush through a few times, then a wet patch, another wet patch, then a dry patch. Its enough to get the barrel to a mirror shine, even after 1000 rounds of lead.
 
It depends, if I'm shooting plated/jacketed rounds I'll go 5-6 matches (625-750 rounds or so). I take the grips off and put the gun in a bucket of hoppies to soak for a day or so. After the soak I take the slide, barrel, firing pin, extractor and mainspring housing apart then brake clean everything. Hoppies #9 on all the usuall parts and some slide glide on the rails and locking lugs. The barrel gets scrubbed with a stainless brush before and after the brake clean. If it looks good I'll run one oiled patch and one dry patch and call it good.

My match gun has a rough bore and starts to lead up around 70-80 rounds, accuracy starts getting lousy around 200-300 rounds. I take the barrel out and soak it in hoppies for a day. After the dunk I use a stainless brush and scrub my life away. Next I flush it out with brake clean and scrub some more. I'll scrub and brake clean several times till it's surgically clean, then one oil patch and one dry patch. I'll lube the slide and barrel then re-assemble. I only dunk the gun around the 1000 round mark when shooting lead. I've tried shooting jacketed after lead to see if it'll push out some of the lead. It does clean some lead out but not much (at least in my super).

I don't mind my match gun getting dirty. I just dunk it when i feel the action start to "slow down". When I do clean the match gun I spend most of my time with the barrel just trying to get the lead out.

My two carry revolvers and the HD revo are checked, if needed lightly oiled and wiped down every week. All my other guns are cleaned every time they are shot even if it's only one round.
 
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Glock: using plated bullets, clean it every 2000-3000 rounds, Hopes Elite, brass brush 3-4 strokes, spray with brake cleaner.

It’s clean enough to meet my needs, SSP competition in IDPA.

I figure as long as it functions 100% and the accuracy is good why bother prepping for surgery?

No value added for my time if it doesn’t improve function or accuracy. I got plenty of other things to do.

Of course it’s not a 1911 or AR.

Perfect is the enemy of the good enough.
 
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