First and foremost, anything worth doing, is worth doing right. This process is time consuming. The rifle barrel is, the best it will ever be, the day you get it. How well it shoots and how long its useful life will be is direct related to how you treat it. A lot of damage to the bore is done using an ill fitting cleaning rod with an ill fitting jag. Make certain the brush you install on the rod is straight, this can easily be checked by turning the rod while watching the brush.
Do not shoot the rifle before doing this part of the barrel prep.
Before you start working on your new rifled barrel you will need to round up the correct supplies.
I like Dewey coated cleaning rods with a well fitting bore guide. Butches Bore Shine and Shooters Choice solvent, however any good solvent will suffice. Never stick anything in the muzzle end of the barrel and be very careful when bringing the brush or the jag back into the barrel from the muzzle, do it very slowly. All rifles are test fired by the factory, including mine. They probably were not cleaned and were fired with who knows what in the barrel, metal chips, oil, etc. When they fire them the contaminates are then imbedded in the barrel surface.
I use a Dewey rod and a Dewey jag wrapped with a 2" wide by 3" (223 barrel) long strip of paper towel to put the compound on, it makes a longer surface for the compound. Mark the rod or use a rod stop so that the patch only comes out of the muzzle half of its length before pulling it back.
The barrel must be clean before you start a breakin regiment. Start by running a patch dampened with Butches bore shine or shooters choice. Run the wet patch's thru bore until one comes thru clean. Then run a wet bronze brush of the appropriate size thru the barrel 5 strokes. Then, 1 patch wet with alcohol followed by 3 dry patches, the 2-3rd should come out clean, If not the barrel is not clean. Repeat with the brush treatment and try again. Clean barrel with alcohol or disc brake cleaner after cleaning the barrel and before starting a breakin regiment
Use Rem Clean or JB bore cleaner and then JB Bore polish, for the final polish. Push a wet patch thru the barrel to remove all the left over compound before using new compound.
Solvents are being reinvented everyday, so at present this is what I use. Butches Bore Shine, Shooters Choice mixed with 20% kroll oil to remove carbon, for copper fouling I like Sweets. There are a lot of other products in the market place that I’m sure will work as well.
I use the patches with JB cleaner compound for about 50 to 75 strokes changing patches after 5 strokes, that's about 10-15 new patches with compound.
Shooting in the barrel. Never shoot the barrel dry during this process. Run a wet patch with solvent thru the barrel and 1 dry patch thru the barrel, that will leave a very small amount of solvent in the barrel so the jacket material and carbon from the powder has less chance to adhere to the barrel for the first few shots. Shoot 1 shot and clean for 5 shots then 3 shots and clean for the next 20 or so rounds you fire thru the rifle. At 20 rounds you can start cleaning after 5 shots until you have reached 100 rounds.
Once the process is complete you will need to completely strip the rifle and clean and oil the moving parts.
