How Do You Clean A Barrel?

For air rifle a wooden dowel and felt cleaning plugs work really well and you'll never scratch anything with the dowel.
 
I use a standard 1 piece aluminum rod and jags for all my cleaning. I usually use, Hoppe's 9, shooting choice copper solvent and G96.
 
For getting rid of carbon I use Hoppes #9 and for copper its Barnes CR-10. Always using a Dewey rod and rod guide. Once or twice when I have let things get really bad I will do some scrubbing with JB Bore Cleaning Paste.

I recently purchased some WipeOut foaming bore cleaner, have to see how it works. I also have heard that GM Top Engine Cleaner is great for removing carbon fouling, plan to pick some up and give that a try.
 
Gunslick foaming bore cleaner if I really want to take it down to bare metal. Other than that I clean it by shooting moly coated bullets until the groups start to open up.
After I use the foaming bore cleaner and patch it out, I usually run a patch of Sweet's 7.62 to check for any copper fouling, then dry patch.
 
Obtunded said:
Wipe-out is no replacement for a good powder and copper solvent. I just had a older Button-rifled barrel that I have cleaned with wipe-out for the last year that started to lose accuracy and I figured it was toast. It "cleaned" fine in a couple of patches and I was always impressed... When I went to have it re-chambered, scoping the barrel revealed terrible carbon fouling against the rifling and the throat was not eroded to the point where it needed setting back.

An evening with carb cleaner and a bronze brush and the barrel is back to normal.

My wipe-out regime was to let it sit in the bore (plugged at each end with bore mops) for 4-hours, or even overnight.

I have 3/4 of a can here if anyone wants it for free.
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Wipeout for me and I find it strange that you have this problem. Maybe it is the way the rifling is cut.
But whatever. :eek:
 
Bore guide, Brushes/Jags from sinclairs(no steel or aluminum cored brushes!), good dewey cleaning rods.
I brush and patch with Butches Bore Shine and then if the rifle isn't going to be shot for awhile I put a couple of patches wetted with Butchs gun oil down the barrel. Dry patch next time I take it out of the safe.
 
I've had good luck with Butch's bore shine as well. I've tried just about everything. Iosso bore paste (none abrasive bore past I got from Sinclair) works really well also. Its just a PITA to get it all cleaned out of the barrel afterwards.

Lucas bore guides and coated one piece rods for all my rifles.

Also, pay close attention to your crown. Don't drag the rod back and forth over your crown.

Theres been many a quality barrel damaged by sloppy cleaning methods.
 
Amphibious said:
I seem to have good luck with an old AL curtain rod and some #00 steel wool. you wrap the steel wool around on end of the curtain rod, be sure to secure it with some bailing or lockwire, then put the other end in your hammer drill. stuff in the barrel and set it to a high RPM while moving it back and forth the full length of the bore. I usually take this time to dump in some CR-10, about half a bottle, but if I can't find that vinigar or left over battery acid works well.

I keep going until I've finished at least 2 beers. then I take everything out and wash out all the muck with the garden hose. be sure to spray some WD-40 down the pipe after you're done rinsing. makes your bullets go faster for the next few shots.
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You realize that if some new guy doesn't realize your cleaning "regime" was meant as a joke and tried it that they will no doubt want to hunt you down. After which being drawn and quartered would be fitting. :kickInTheNuts:

My cleaning regime:

Hoppes #9, Hoppes benchrest, and T/C bore foam cleaner. Depending on how fouled the barrel is.

Tipton brand carbon fiber cleaning rods and jags for cleaning. A bore snake for at the range before shooting, after and when changing ammo (2 passes).

After cleaning I spray the inside and outside of the barrel with G96. Also I use G96 for the receiver after it's been cleaned. Using G96 lets you just use a patch to clean out the carbon in the receiver. There's no scrubbing involved.

For a semi auto, I use rem oil on the action at the main points of contact. The bolts seem to do better with just the G96. Most likely due to the tighter fit / tolerances.
 
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KG 12 for cleaning with nylon brushes only, never pull back throgh the muzzle.
use good guide and rod (like sinclair). Works for me.
 
Blackcloud said:
I've had good luck with Butch's bore shine as well. I've tried just about everything. Iosso bore paste (none abrasive bore past I got from Sinclair) works really well also. Its just a PITA to get it all cleaned out of the barrel afterwards.

Lucas bore guides and coated one piece rods for all my rifles.

Also, pay close attention to your crown. Don't drag the rod back and forth over your crown.

Theres been many a quality barrel damaged by sloppy cleaning methods.
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I also tried some IOSSO bore paste. I would clean my barrel to what I thought was clean then run a patch with IOSSO bore paste on it. I could not believe how black the patch would be:eek: After doing this several times I began to wonder. I took a piece of clean ground stainless steel I had in the shop and rubbed some IOSSO paste on it with a patch. The patch was black after a few seconds. After one week this chunk of stainless showed rust. My conclusion is the IOSSO bore paste went into the garbage and I would never use it in a match stainless barrel.
 
If you find that wipeout is too messy to work with, you can always try Patchout which is apparently a liquid form of wipeout. I use it and it works pretty good.

If you have a really fouled barrel, it says to run a wet patch down the tube, then a few passes with a nylon brush, followed by a few dry patches. Its amazing what it'll take out.
 
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