My little cleaning story

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LkWinnipesaukee

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I was cleaning the 10/22 today. I went through probably 20 patches trying to get the powder and copper out of the barrel. The cleaning session ended with me spilling the bottle of Hoppes all over the table, gun, and carpet. So I break out the Woolite, open the windows and let the place air out, hoping my dad wouldnt notice before he got home. No such luck. So now I sit here in a stinky room with a stained carpet, slick socks, an angry father and brother, and a soaked, half cleaned gun.:banghead:

My questions:

-I was using jacketed ammo in the Ruger. I can't for the life of me get the powder and copper out of the barrel/chamber. I tried wet patches, dry patches, copper brushes, letting it sit with Hoppes in it, and all I get is even MORE gunk coming out. How long/howmany patches should it take to get ohh, 200 rounds worth of copper and powder residue out?

-How do you guys clean your guns? Any special methods that don't take an hour? I know it shouldn't take this long to clean.

-How do I get this stuff out of carpet?
 
Get some Hoppe's copper solvent. Hoppe's #9 is a powder solvent. also, get some stainless steel brushes. If you use bronze brushes with copper solvent the solvent will eat away the bronze and leave deposits in the barrel.

When I clean my 10/22, I run a patch wet with Hoppes thru, let it sit for 5 min, run a few dry patches, then a wet brush then a few dry patches, then a wet patch then a few dry ones.... etc til the dry ones come out clean. Probably 20 or so patches.

I don't use copper solvent with every cleaning.

As for carpet, You might have to rent a steam cleaner if you don't ahve one of those little home sized ones. One of those with hot water and the cleaning solution gets most things out.
 
Second the nylon brushes if you're using copper solvent and worried about not being able to tell if the copper is coming from the barrel or brush (though they're sometimes brass-cored). Even with just the Hoppe's, I wouldn't expect it to take that long to get most of the cleaning done. Not sure why it's not seeming to come clean.

If it's regular .22LR, it should just be a copper-wash coating, not jacketed. The .22WMR have some jacketed rounds.

Good luck on getting everything straightened out.
 
Thanks guys, Ill try your suggestions. I think its copper from the barrel because it comes out green. But its weird; sometimes a black patchwill comeout,and sometimes only a green one comes out.

I got most of the smell and stain out, and get to go to a gun show tomorrow, so life isnt all that bad:D
 
I don't know how it'd work on carpet, but once I dumped a whole JAR of Birchwood Casey's Bore Scrubber (remember when it came in glass jars?) all over the linoleum floor in my kitchen! Only thing I could think to do was spray a bunch of Gun Scrubber on it and in about two minutes, that solvent was completely gone. No smell, no anything. That was my annual moment of clarity for the year 1998.:D
 
Ooops

I have had real good luck with FOLEX carpet spot remover.

On only one occasion have I had to use solvent A to remove solvent B prior to useing Folex.

If the Folex fails, I'm pretty much paying somebody to come do it.
 
you may also wanna try a foaming cleaner, that you leave in for 15 or so minutes, scrub out, patch out, and repeat. Gets my stuff squeaky clean.
 
Take a piece of 2x4 about 7" long. Drill 2 holes -2 1/2 and 2 1/2 in it. Nail a piece of 1/2' plywood on one side. Set your solvent bottles in the large holes and no more knock overs. Saves a lot of $ with Shooters Choice at $7 or more.
 
Thanks guys, Ill try your suggestions. I think its copper from the barrel because it comes out green. But its weird; sometimes a black patchwill comeout,and sometimes only a green one comes out.
Click to expand...

Fouling is put down in layers. Try Slip 2000's brand "Carbon Killer" for carbon and powder fouling and Bore-Tech's "Eliminator" for copper fouling.

http://www.slip2000.com/Merchant2/m...re_Code=S&Product_Code=60108&Category_Code=CK

http://www.boretech.com/introducing.htm

My advise is don't use stainless brushes and NEVER reverse a brush in your bore. I don't like the plastic ones so I use bronze brushes and don't worry about getting less life from them due to the effect from strong copper solvents. Rinse the brushes off every time with brake cleaner, or Slip 2000's gun cleaner, or M-Pro 7 gun cleaner. :)
 
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First of all, are you using any brass, bronze or other copper alloy jags, brushes or rods in the process? You also list that 10/22 as belonging to your brother, which makes me wonder how well he might have maintained it over the years. Unless there's some other factor, like an unusually rough or damaged bore, going on here it'd take a bunch more than 200 rds. to deposit enough copper or any other fouling in it to cause this kind of problem.

Several of my own .22 RF rifles, including my 10/22s, have gone through more than 600 rds. in an afternoon on many occasions without running into near this much trouble getting the bore back to spotless. Hoppe's #9 is all that's been necessary to do it.

It's not unusual to get green on your patches when you're using bronze or brass cleaning accessories, even though the bore itself might well be copper-free. They are both copper alloys, and most bore cleaners will attack them to some degree. Lead and powder fouling shows up as dark grey or black. A clean, dry bore should show neither on a patch, provided that the jag is also clean and solvent-free.

Many folks seem to subscribe to the myth that the bore on a modern .22 RF, when used with good quality ammo, doesn't require regular cleaning. They'll stick something into the breech to reflect a little light, look down the barrel and see only a few powder flakes in a shiney-looking tube and let it go with only a dry or lightly-oiled patch run through it. The hard waxes used to lubricate almost all modern .22 RF fodder, plated or not, do a good job of keeping metal fouling to a bare minimum, but they do leave their own coating in the bore. And that coating makes the bore look deceptively clean and shiney.

Let it go at that a few times, and when you finally do decide to give it more than a 'lick and a promise' it can turn into a real chore getting all the layers off. I suspect that something along this line is the likely culprit here. If that is the case, you may have some more scrubbing to do as the wax will resist a relatively mild solvent like Hoppe's and you'll essentially be 'peeling the onion' until you get through all of them.

IIWY, I'd get a good hard nylon or SS bore brush for the scrubbing part. Contrary to popular myth, the stainless used for these is not significantly 'harder' than modern carbon barrel steels and will not scratch your bore when used judiciously. Clean either after use to prevent redepositing crud or weakening the solvent's action the next time it's used. I'd also stick to a jag made of nylon or other non-reactive material, and clean it well between patches.

This should eliminate the chance that any copper or other traces on a dry patch come from anywhere but bore fouling.

Keep at it, and your efforts will eventually give you those clean patches.
 
bore snakes make cleaning faster,

if only by being in essence one long darn, fairly tight patch.

I would wet patch with hoppe's (or other powder solvent), let it sit the recomended time, snake it, dry patch to see if it comes out nasty etc, repeat precess with a copper solvent. untill i was satisfied.

now having said that i will also say that i, (and a great many others out there, including some serious rimfire shooter types) don't even bother to clean a .22, except maybe to run a dry Boresnake through it to clear loose chunks, until accuracy or function begin to degrade. many rimfires actually wind up shooting better when fairly filthy.
 
Steal a bottle of your dad's ATF. Run a patch wet with it a few times through the bore. DO NOT LOOK AT THE PATCH. Use the same stuff for lube. It doesn't stink up the house. Your gun is clean enough, worry about sight alignment.
Spill something else on the carpet, something more homelike, coffee or paint,
 
I have a single shot .22 rifle, given to me by my father, back in 1975, that has NEVER seen a patch down the barrel... I shot competition with this thing for 14 or 15 years, to the tune of close to 25,000 rounds a year...

then, since then, I shoot it 4 or 4 thousand rounds a year...

this gun has NEVER been cleaned... and it shoots dime sized groups at 50 yards ALL DAY LONG...

clean a .22? not me... I will wipe the outside down with oil, mop out the action with a Q-tip... but NEVER do I swab the barrel... NEVER
 
Theres a gun show coming up in a couple weeks. I'll pick a bunch of different cleaning supplies and see what works best.


How can you get away with never cleaning a 22? Would never cleaning work with a semi auto action?

How often do you lube it?
 
want to know the BEST advice i ever got, in regards to my rather extensive collection of Remington Nylon 66's?

NEVER CLEAN THEM!!! - first, they are a PAIN to dissasemble and re-assemble correctly... second, they NEVER need it! (I took one apart, ONCE... whatta pain it was... good thing I had a dozen others to look at to figure out how it went back together...)

on most of my .22's, (I have 40 or so) I swab out the action, and oil as necessary... this includes Remington's, Ruger's, Winchester's, Springfield's, Savage's, Hi-Standard's, NAA's, Henry's, and other addballs...)

I have yet in all my 36 years to EVER run a patch down the barrel of ANY of my .22's...

they are all reliable as the day is long...
 
How can you get away with never cleaning a 22? Would never cleaning work with a semi auto action?

How often do you lube it?
Click to expand...

Note: portions of my first reply to this topic were meant for the use of those who can't bring themselves not the clean each time they shoot

now as to your questions

As i understand it, (read as: "how it's been explained to me on a few occassions") .22LR occupies a weird and somewhat nice little niche. Wherein, once any irregularities in the bore have been filled in, the minimal fouling produced by each shot is effectively scubbed/blown out by the following shot.

the copper wash on many .22s is in truth too thin to truly "copper foul" it serves more as a form of lube than anything else and the traces it leaves behind are just enough to react to the likes of Hoppe's, and pose no meaningful detriment to the function, accuracy, etc of the gun. Also with the advent of smokeless powder and non-corrisive primers, we no longer need to worry about powder or primer residue pitting the bore.

all that said, on a semi-auto .22 such as the 10/22, to maintain full reliability you SHOULD occasionally clean and lube the action. by this i mean keep the breechface clean and the bolt and other major parts moving freely.

since i no longer shoot my current 10/22 as much as i used to it hasn't been relubed in 3 years now, but that's less than 1K rounds so it's not due yet unless the grease dries out. in fact that last time it got cleaned, as opposed to simply having the breechface wiped clean, was 5 years ago when i took the barrel off to more easily get at the extractor groove and breechface to scub them. i was getting a failure to extract or a stovepipe about 4-6 times out of every 10, and while i had it out of teh action i decided to clean it like i do my centerfires and see just how much crap HAD accumulated since my father had last done a "all out" cleaning of the gun in 1976. but that'as a tale for another place/time.
 
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