barrel cleaning question
- Thread starter timandkimandshea
- Start date
- Location
- Fleeing the Regime
I second the motion(s) here put forward for the fibreglass rods. I used the 3-piece aluminum rods when I first got into it, but now I own several Dewey fibreglass rods and would never go back. I own a few Bore Snakes as well and tend to use both. I'll usually run a couple dry patches through, just to get the worst of the "gunk", then follow with a few swipes of the Bore Snake. Then I get down to business using the alternating wet/dry patch method again with the rod.
I'm no expert, but this method has always worked well for me.
I'm no expert, but this method has always worked well for me.
- Location
- West Quebec
And should do you well
Perhaps a BoreSnake might be all that is required.
But why clean it???
An Anschutz rep told a friend to clean after 5000 rounds. Obvious for their bolt guns . . . nothing said about semi's.
My Ruger Mark II with a 10 inch bull barrel was cleaned three times in 9 years and only when it started to malfunction because it was so tight and hard to get apart.
But why clean it???
An Anschutz rep told a friend to clean after 5000 rounds. Obvious for their bolt guns . . . nothing said about semi's.
My Ruger Mark II with a 10 inch bull barrel was cleaned three times in 9 years and only when it started to malfunction because it was so tight and hard to get apart.
Dewey rods are coated steel ,plain stainless, or brass.Dewey doesn't sell fiberglass rods.
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- Location
- Niagara Region
Aluminium is much softer than the carbon steel your barrel is made of. If aluminium comes in contact with carbon steel and a galvanic cell is present, the aluminium becomes sacrificial and it begins to corrode instead of the carbon steel. That is the foundation for cathodic protection using anodes. No harm will come to the barrel but you should get a proper cleaning kit.
And, as you've no doubt surmised, you have done absolutely no harm whatsoever to your gun by using the aluminum wire. It is, however, possible to get a hunk of ductile aluminum wire jammed in the bore, and it's like trying to get hardened chewing gum off a sharp-tread boot sole with a broken stick.
You should familiarize yourself with several things associated with a lead waxed slug travveling down a bore that has hard residue like fine carbon and crushed glass. It basically mimics the same process as lapping. The residue is evenly applied around the bore from the firing process. Because the slug is perfectly conformed to the lands and grooves and always travelling in the same direction, it does wear the bore a little, but evenly and doesnt round off the sharp edges of the rifling. The layed down wax from the bullets also acts as a slight film barrier to further protect it.
Several fine rimfire target rifles come with instructions not to dry fire on spent hulls. This pops off and propels small bits of the primer residue up in front of the chamber and it settles and accumulates in the lower side of the bore. If you fire a bullet through this, the accumulation can be large enough to create a plough effect that does damage the rifling, rather than a lapping effect. Most guys I know who do a lot a dry firing on spent hulls will wad a bit of tissue paper in it to prevent that compound from coming out.
A bowed rod with this residue on it or the sharp connecting edge of a multi piece will only contact small spots and edges of the lands, this can result in deformities or rounding. It can also cause occlusions which don't run in the direction of bullet travel if your working the thing back and forth.
Again, the concept of softer cannot wear harder is fraught with error also. Diamonds are polished with soft cloth. Fabric manufacturing companies constantly replace steel inserts that wear from soft materials running through them. Use a $400 pair of fine hair cutting scissors on paper and see where that gets you with its owner. Water jets cutting through steel, hardened steel razor edges wearing from your beard etc....
Simple minded physics is often more fraught with error than wives tales. Every book on guns or serious shooter I know reccommends a bore guide for a cleaning rod, regardless of what its made from, they also advise against cleaning from the muzzle end for the same reason.
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Again, you are referring to fanciful scenarios far removed from using a clean aluminum rod to run a swab through a bore!!!!
This discussion was never about running millions of feet of fabric through steel guides or stropping steel with leather (usually imbedded with rouge). You have gone off on a wild tangent. Yes, your examples are correct, but irrelevant to the original subject. Except that diamonds are NOT polished with soft cloth. (and I am very familiar with polishing, lapping, and even micro electro polishing, and I have looked at the results of my own various polishing methods under a microscope).
A couple of the examples you give of wear/polishing of sharp edges (razors) wearing are not the result soft material wearing hard material, but of the physical breakdown of the sharp edges. Not the same thing.
As for paper dulling scissors? Most paper has clay in it. The smoother the finish, the more clay. Think that might have something to do with it?
Give me a single credible example of barrel wear from cleaning with a clean aluminum rod. It is NOT simple minded physics, but real science ( as in the explanation of your examples of sharp edges), with real world applications.
Clean aluminum rods damaging barrels are nothing more than wives tales and theoretical scenarios stretched to ludicrous extremes.
And we do have a couple of mid range (BSA International, Anschutz) and a high end (Walther) target rifle. So the questions of cleaning rod damage are relevant, but it's not something I've ever worried about because it just doesn't happen when very basic care is applied.
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Sandroad, I agree with you about an aluminum rod itself not damaging a bore, but the key is that it must be kept scupulously clean while using it, and I really don't think everyone can stick to that regamine. Krieger, Lildja and numerous other top barrel makers all advise against aluminum and sectional rods on their sites, and suggest coated, 1 pc steel rods used in conjuntion with quality bore guides. Steel because they resist buckling far better than aluminum or brass, and coated because they don't embed particles like aluminum does and if they do swipe the lands, the coating is more friction free. My personal view is that someone who buys a $12 sectional aluminum rod from crappy tire is not going to be careful in cleaning the rod on every swipe, and likely not ponying out twice that price for a bore guide. A pull through is an obvious safer, idiot proof choice for these people.
