Over cleaning a barrel?

sagebrushstalker

sagebrushstalker

New member
Is there such a thing? One of my buddies told me not to get all of the copper out of a bore. I've been cleaning powder fowling with hoppes #9, then with a dry bore, using sweets until no more blue on patches.
Until recently I thought he was absolutely wrong, then at a recent range session, after cleaning both my .300mag and my .204, neither gun grouped worth a [beeep]. My 300 was shooting my 180gr loads in the .7s before, now it would't keep 3 shots in an inch and a half. My .204 was in the .3s and wouldn't shoot the same load in thee quarters of an inch until I put 30 rounds through it. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smiliesmack.gif
I'M LOST /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif

Any input would be appreciated
 
It kind of depends on which direction you approach the question from.

It's quite common for a barrel to need some fouling to shoot right, and not uncommon for it to take even a couple of dozen shots for that to happen, especially with a barrel that has some wear on it.

So yes, depending on how you look at it you "over-cleaned" your barrel.

On the other hand at some point your accuracy will fall off dramatically from too much fouling. At that point what rational choice do you have but to clean the barrel completely? It would be pretty difficult to clean it only to the point where it would be after shooting foulers.

I generally don't clean the bore until accuracy starts to fall off. Then I clean it completely, planning to shoot a few foulers before doing serious work with it.
 
Its a topic sorta' like politics. Everyone has a different opinion. You can search it for days... maybe weeks.

My belief is it depends on the rifle like everything else. I'm all about the clean only when the accuracy starts to fall off. 1 rifle it may be 20 rounds, the other 50 rounds. I am a believer of the "its possible to over clean" but I know its possible to underclean. So I clean as sparingly as possible and follow known safe procedures( bore guide, 1 peice rod of proper flex, pointed jags, etc.) to clean as little as possible. As far as how often I clean, I let the rifle tell me that.
 
The thing is tho, unless you are just shooting paper how would you know? I hunt and shoot in the field 90%. I clean my rifle to protect it and get all the misc. crud from dragging the gun around, laying it on the ground and shooting.
"over clean" I am not sure, but if your gun shoots better with fouling, you answered your question "for that rifle" mabbe not for the next one.
I have one Tikka 22-250 that shoots well clean, maybe one fouler shot, another one does not shoot well until about 4-8 shots through it.??? go figger?
Carl
 
There are some varied opinions on cleaning a rifle. I usually lean towards the don't clean it until accuracy drops off side of the debate. My 223AI that I have been shooting all winter has a custom tube and I don't clean it very much at all. At the moment it has 1k rounds through it and the last time it was cleaned was at about 600. On the other hand I have a savage 308 that is just a copper fouling fool. It usually holds it accuracy for about 60-70 rounds and then needs to be cleaned. Once clean it takes about 10 rounds or so to settle down. I have about 500 through that barrel and it has been the same since day one.
 
Depends on what kind of barrel you have on your guns too. If you have a custom hand lapped barrel on your gun you can "clean them more" and get a way with it because the rifling is so smooth. You'll read were bench rest shooters clean after every shot in some cases. They want the same barrel conditions every time. Basically what I do is clean the rifle with your #9 (I use Shooter's Choice). I run a couple of patches of that through the barrel and then I brush the barrel with a brass brush with Shooter's Choice. Then I run dry patches through the barrel till they come out clean. I do this about every 25 shots give or take. The only time I use Sweets is when my groups really get bad. Sweets will take all the copper out of your barrels and it's like starting with a brand new barrel and having to break it in again. Don't get me wrong when I do a basic clean you'll still have to shot a couple of fouling shots afterward, but it will only be one to three. Now a couple of more things I do when I just clean the barrel. If I'm not shooting Moly coated bullets I will run a few patches of oil through the barrel and then dry patches after (I like Amsoil MP). Also, and I think this is very important; I use cleaning rods that will not scratch the barrel or mess up the crown or the throat. I think you can find more info on either the Shilen or the Lilja web pages about clean barrels.
 
I have seen a few barrels on hunting rifles over the years that would fall off significantly in accuracy by cleaning down to the metal. Generally, they were rough internally because of corrosion. They were military rifles, since sporterized, which retained their original barrels.

I think the fouling helps fill in the pits in some of these guns, which smooths things out a bit in the bore.
 
I am with the majority of you fellas, if accuracy is falling off then I clean. The Stevens in .223 shoots far better a little dirty. To clean it I usually put one solvented patch down it, a soaked brush down it 10-15 times, one solvented patch down it. And finish off with dry patches until all the solvent is removed. If I clean the barell extra clean it takes 15+ shots to get going again. But cleaning it in this manner only takes one or two fouling shots and she is ready to go for another 200-300 rounds.
 
All good points have been made but reading the original post/question, the rifle was fired after cleaning with a "Dry Bore". About a year ago I started using a NAPA product called "Lock Ease" after cleaning & drying my bore. I just wet a patch with it and short stroke the bore once. I noticed an immediate difference in my CBS after cleaning in that there were no foulers and shot #1 was in the group with #5. Lock Ease is just a Graphite product suspended in a liquid carrier. The carrier evaporates leaving the Graphite in the bore. A clean, dry bore will foul very easy, fouling more and more as you shoot it. I've used Sweets and Barnes CR-10 to remove copper in Factory & Custom Rifles. Both work very well but, if I don’t use the Lock Ease after cleaning, my barrels will foul and require multiple shots to stabilize. With my Factory Rifles and a Large Custom I clean every 20 shots, with my 6mmBR I clean every 40-60 rounds. No moly in any of them. Good luck.

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I started using Lock Ease too about the same time wnroscoe started using it and found the same results, we must have read the same post on Benchrest Central.com. I purchased some Tungsten Disulphide and mix it with lighter fluid to make an even better product with better results. It works.
I bought it here. www.lowerfriction.com
 
Thanks for all the feedback guys!
A lot of what I am hearing is making sense, as I tend to clean my guns down to the bare metal after only 30-50 rounds (I guess I have no life). My savage 300mag I bought used and have no idea how many rounds have gone through it, or the condition of its barrel. I've shot close to 300rounds in it and have only cleaned twice. If I remember right it did'nt group very good after the first time I cleaned it either.

My .204 is only a few months old and I've put 500rounds through it's bore. The longest I went without cleaning it was at a recent ground squirrel outing when I shot 90 rounds. Maybe I ought to leave well enough alone!!
 
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Here is very good one at a low price. A lot for the money.
www.opticsplanet.net/celestron-ultima-80-spotting-scope.html



/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

And that has exactly WHAT to do with cleaning a barrel?

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

Don't worry.......I've posted in the wrong place before too.......but you gotta laugh when you get the chance. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused1.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
Welcome to the board OK.

I clean mine when accuracy starts to fall off par. On P-Dog rifles they get about 400-450 rds. If I have copper it gets cleaned out soon as possible.
 
Well , it just dawned on me my .204 AR likes it dirty. Things were going through my head this morning and I realised my best groups were at the end of shooting 25-60 rnds . I worked up a load and watched the groups tighten til I got to 26.1 shooting five rounds of each loading and this was the 7th set of loads . I shot at a 1/2 inch dot and touched the rim on the left side , two shots of three overlapping , the other out a quarter of an inch when to dot flew off the backer. I shot two more at another dot and put them in the same hole ,touching the exact same place on this dot , this at 100 yrds. Then I loaded up a bunch of this loading and went to the range with Grousesetter and started shooting and was only getting 1 inch to 1 inch plus from them. Towards the end of shooting , I thought I had found a better hold on my rifle as it was shooting much better. I cleaned and shot at home again and got bigger groups til I shot 25+ rnds and I was still thinking it was me doing my part more. But now I am going to let the cleaning go and see what this load shoots with more down the barrel and not cleaned.......I will post the results.........SM
 
To me, a clean barrel just eliminates one more variable when developing a load. I've often wondered how many good loads are passed up by guys when the are developing loads with a barrel that is gradually getting fouled and heating up.

I have been doing this for a long time and have discovered that a great load, developed with a clean, cool barrel will always be a great load. Sometimes they get better after a few foulers but they won't get worse until a good cleaning is needed. If the barrel is in good shape, that could be any number of rounds. Of course if you are only shooting factory ammo and your barrel was not great to begin with, your results will vary.

For hunting rifles, once I dial in a load and fire a few sighters at the start of the hunt, I won't scrub the barrel until I'm through for the season. Bench guns get cleaned after every trip to the range.
 
I'm glad to see more folks mentioning Lock-Ease for barrels.

It's the one thing that I have found in the past 40 years that does more for keeping a barrel shooting than any one other thing I have used. Most times when I mention it in a thread about barrel cleaning, no one even asks about it as though they think it might be a bit of "voodoo" for barrels.

Lock-Ease is just one form of colloidal graphite (graphite suspended in an evapoprative solution) - its cheap. You can buy it in very refined forms that cost more and maybe work a little better due to the smaller graphite particle size, but plain old L-E has been in my gun cleaning regime for years.

A soaked patch or two goes into a clean barrel. I leave the barrel sitting muzzle down for 15 minutes or so and then run a dry patch through it to remove any excess graphite and put the gun away or start shooting again. Not only does it help a barrel shoot better, it also is corrosion resistant, and I've never seen any corrosion in clean chrome moly barrels that sit unused for long periods of time between shooting sessions.

It's good stuff.....

JMO - BCB
 
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I'm glad to see more folks mentioning Lock-Ease for barrels.


I'd never heard of it before, but thanks for the tip. I'm going to give it a try. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grinning-smiley-003.gif
 
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