Cleaning your 22

Rimfire's don't clean to often. I do give them a light coat of oil after everytime I handle them. After shooting I run a couple oil patchs through the barrel. I never ever oil a clip. Had to many goof up on me from oiling. Try to oil all my guns once a year if they don't come out of the cases.
 
I suppose I agree with you shorty, to each their own. And as for the guy who said you should clean your bores ale after each use, well I would imagine that is common sense, you wouldn't clean your barrel with used patches
 
Lead itself oxidizes, yes. That's why they make car battery terminal tools to brush/scrape off the oxidation to get a better connection.

I imagine you may actually be asking if lead being against the steel can cause the steel to rust. Well, it can't help, though I don't know if it will hurt in a meaningful amount of time. Any time two different metals are in contact with each other there is an electrical potential there. Usually that's not good. I haven't read about barrel pitting in a long time, so I don't know if that (leading left in the barrel, rather than cleaning it out) plays a part in developing pits or not. Probably doesn't help, though. ;) I'd rather just clean mine periodically than find out.
Bull's-Eye said:
I have a question, can lead rust?
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I have my new to me Rem Model 12 all broken down for cleaning. got rid of all the the build-up from the years of firing, only problem is, the bore is chock full of lead. Spider-webbing all over the place. Does anyone know an effective method to clean this all out? I've never encountered a bore with this much lead in it!
 
I hate to ask a stupid question, but is it possible to over-clean a barrel? I recently bought a cz 453 varmint, and clean it around 200 rounds (a day at the range for me), hopps patch, then clean ones.

Also, whats a good way to remove rust from a bolt? I tend to rust metal when I touch it... its a ##### at work. I've put a little oil on the bolt to keep the rust from spreading, but am reluctant to take steel wool or emory cloth to it in fear of damaging the bolt. It's my first rifle.

Thanks in advance
 
If you have a good rod and bore guide so you're not damaging anything, then it should be fine. Most damage from cleaning comes from having improper equipment. If you have a bore guide that properly fits the rifle and properly fits the rod then it shouldn't be a concern.
 
Amen.
could not say it better myself.

_Shorty said:
How do you get the sand out of the barrel that's left in there after each and every shot from the primer? ;)

Everybody has their own do's and don'ts about cleaning. Boresnakes are great. Boresnakes are death. Coated rods are great. Coated rods are death, just like boresnakes. Segmented rods are fine. Segmented rods are death. Very hard, polished stainless rods are great. Very hard, polished stainless rods are death. Bore guides are a must. Bore guides don't matter. Cleaning from the muzzle end is fine. Cleaning from the muzzle end is death.

Rarely clean a rimfire. Clean a rimfire often. Only clean it when accuracy falls off. (Falls off how far? Compared to what kind of accuracy to begin with?) And on, and on, and on. Asking a benchrest shooter that's worried about the gun getting so bad that it *starts* shooting 0.25" groups (THAT'S HORRIBLE!!) is a little different than asking a hunter if he's going to clean it because it's shooting 1.5" groups. (THAT'S GREAT! Still hit the grouse in the head. This gun is awesome!)

Fact of the matter is, you're not likely to ever have anything embedded in your very soft and pliable boresnake that isn't already being dragged/scraped through the barrel on every shot by a, relatively speaking, hard bullet. If anything did happen to be in your boresnake that could potentially do your barrel any harm, the fact is the material the boresnake is made up from is going to be plush enough to give way anyhow. You'll likely die before you see any ill effects from using a boresnake, even if you shoot a couple hundred rounds a day and clean after every session. You'll probably wash the thing now and then anyway.

I still prefer a stainless rod, with brushes that have solvent poured on them, and then patches with solvent on them, and then dry patches, until the thing sparkles. And then a lightly oiled patch to finish off. But I have a boresnake in my match-day kit, too, even though my rods and bore guides are also in the rifles' cases. Usually I'll clean after a day of shooting, but if I put it off some time and think it could use it, I happily pull the boresnake through in just a few seconds and live with that.

Both my CZ and my Anschutz spray shots around to varying degrees after cleaning, until they've had enough shots run through them to get the lube down the entire length of the barrel. Good rule of thumb for that is one shot per inch of barrel. Both shoot rather well after doing so, but they absolutely need those 'seasoning' shots before they settle down. They both shoot accurately enough for silhouette matches (an inch or so out at rams) without cleaning for 1000-2000 rounds or more, save for a wipe of the crown now and then. If I'm taking the Anschutz to the odd benchrest match, it gets cleaned immediately before, as accuracy for that type of thing begins to fall off enough to matter there after a mere 150-200 rounds, if not less. So, it all depends on the amount of accuracy you want/need.

Unless you're hamfisting it horribly while cleaning, the only likely damage your barrel will ever see will come from simply firing the thing and continually running bullets over sand contained in every round, and that's what'll wear it out, if you keep it long enough for that to happen. But even in that case, desired accuracy is relative, and you may or may not notice or care when it starts to worsen from the chamber leade getting shot out, or the bore ahead of the chamber showing more and more wear. A hardcore benchrest dude will replace a barrel long before a silhouette guy would, or a casual hunter or plinker, who may never replace one because it never gets bad enough for them or the type of shooting they do. It's all relative.
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tommy jay said:
I hate to ask a stupid question, but is it possible to over-clean a barrel? I recently bought a cz 453 varmint, and clean it around 200 rounds (a day at the range for me), hopps patch, then clean ones.

Also, whats a good way to remove rust from a bolt? I tend to rust metal when I touch it... its a ##### at work. I've put a little oil on the bolt to keep the rust from spreading, but am reluctant to take steel wool or emory cloth to it in fear of damaging the bolt. It's my first rifle.

Thanks in advance
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Over-cleaning will not hurt - improper cleaning can and probably will cause damage.
Remove rust with some 0000 steel wool and a little solvent or light oil. This should not scratch the finish. Emery cloth is not as good as it doesn't conform to the shape as well and it is more abrasive.
 
I use a length of weedeating plastic line, with a melted blob on one end and the other end it sharpened. Poke it through a wet pactch, the blob catches the patch and I pull it through the barrel. No muss no fuss, and a long roll of weed whacker string goes a long ways.
 
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