Question about barrel wear from cleaning.

cdnredneck_t3

cdnredneck_t3

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Hello all. I have recently ordered my first precision rifle and though I would read up on proper brake in and cleaning practices. I have cleaned many a hunting rifle and never gave as much attention as I intend to with my new rifle. My question is about the wear to the barrel caused by the cleaning rod and accessories. Everybody preaches a bore guide to align the rod and I don’t dispute that. The brush or jag and patch align the end. But how do you prevent you cleaning rod from contacting the barrel once a patch has been pushed through. You have to unthread the rod from the handle and pull it through or unthread the jag from the rod and pull it back with nothing to support the rod in the barrel. Are you supposed to thread the mop on and pull it back towards the chamber to align the rod? And another thing is axial force on the rod will also cause it to bow in the middle which may also contact the bore. I may be missing something and want to know what everyone else does to alleviate these problems.
 
In my opinion, break-in is a ritual without any basis of fact. Just shoot your gun. I do not ascribe to the whole break-in BS, and since nobody can produce one piece of proper scientific or engineering evidence that it makes one bit of measurable difference, it remains - in my mind - a waste of some of your barrel's most accurate life.

Cleaning technique on the other hand does bugger barrels if done wrong. A bore guide is important. A good cleaning rod is important too. Use a coated one-piece like a Dewey, All rods will contact the bore is pushed hard, which is why a coated rod is important.

All brushes should be pushed in one direction ONLY (Yes, push the bore brush through the crown and remove it to withdraw the brush. Carefully withdraw the rod over the crown.

Mops and patches can be used in both directions, but for me, a patch is a one-way trip and i am meticulous about avoiding crown damage.

Recipes remain a matter of personal preference and ritual, but limit the cleaning of your barrel to when it is needed, and try products that limit the need for scrubbing such as "wipe out".
 
Back in the day when i shot a lot of BR (and I did OK), it was common practice to clean the barrel after every target (usually 7-10 rounds depending upon the number of sighters fired). The cleasing ritual consisted of ten passes with a brush and the solvent of choice; followed by a few patches to dry it out. Barrels with 2000 rounds through them had been cleaned this way at leat 200 times yet damage was minimal (undetectable). I used Parker Hale rods and a rod guide at the rear. I always felt that a muzzle mounted guide would be a good idea but never did get around to making and using one. Mostly because, good idea or not, it didn't appear to be necessary. If a rifle shots under .2, it ain't too badly hurt.
If the muzzle crown was left flat and sharp , with no bevel, the crown did show signs of damage and seemed to need touching up evry 500 rounds or so. This seems to me a good reason to not use a flat, sharp edged crown!
Wipe the cleaning rod down when using to make sure any grit is removed and not run through the bore. Regards, Bill.
 
Obtunded said:
In my opinion, break-in is a ritual without any basis of fact. Just shoot your gun. I do not ascribe to the whole break-in BS, and since nobody can produce one piece of proper scientific or engineering evidence that it makes one bit of measurable difference, it remains - in my mind - a waste of some of your barrel's most accurate life.

Cleaning technique on the other hand does bugger barrels if done wrong. A bore guide is important. A good cleaning rod is important too. Use a coated one-piece like a Dewey, All rods will contact the bore is pushed hard, which is why a coated rod is important.

All brushes should be pushed in one direction ONLY (Yes, push the bore brush through the crown and remove it to withdraw the brush. Carefully withdraw the rod over the crown.

Mops and patches can be used in both directions, but for me, a patch is a one-way trip and i am meticulous about avoiding crown damage.

Recipes remain a matter of personal preference and ritual, but limit the cleaning of your barrel to when it is needed, and try products that limit the need for scrubbing such as "wipe out".
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Why do you feel that the bore brush should only be ran one way than removed.
 
1/2 MOA said:
Why do you feel that the bore brush should only be ran one way than removed.
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He suspects that pulling the brush back over the crown could cause damage.

I, on the other hand, DO follow break in procedure (even if Ian wishes to sneer at me for it :p) and I do not worry about the bronze brush harming the crown of the barrel.
 
To each there own/ After 300 through my main prone gun last summer I decided to clean it. I use wipe out and got no copper at all and then decided I should not have cleaned it and have not since. If you are not in a preservation situation clean it when it does not shoot as well. I have seen lots of barrels buggered by cleaning and never seen one buggered by shooting, you can always clean it if needed. I am believing in the Border Barrel break in method and if you do that you will never want to clean again after that.
 
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I am in the 'don't bother with break in' and 'don't clean till the accuracy goes south' group.

Better quality barrels copper foul very little. Modern powders are very clean.

Every now and then, I will run a couple of dry patches down the bore to push out the surface carbon. I rarely chem clean anymore.

I would rather be shooting then cleaning.

Jerry
 
The crown is the very last part of the rifle and one of the most important parts that influences the flight path of a bullet. Crown damage results in asymetrical venting of air in front of the bullet and gasses behind. It takes very very little to bugger a crown and the results can be devastating to accuracy.

I never drag anything across the crown, especially metal brushes.
 
Any one bullet passing through the bore at high speed with a bunch of high-pressure-super-hot gasses behind will wear your barrel more than one year of cleaning.
If you don't believe me, go measure yourself
 
legi0n said:
Any one bullet passing through the bore at high speed with a bunch of high-pressure-super-hot gasses behind will wear your barrel more than one year of cleaning.
If you don't believe me, go measure yourself
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Why is it that powder burning in a barrel for about a ten thousandths of a second heats it up, but an ox-acetylene torch wouldn't do anything with a thousand or even ten thousand times the time to do it in? :confused:
 
Dogleg said:
Why is it that powder burning in a barrel for about a ten thousandths of a second heats it up, but an ox-acetylene torch wouldn't do anything with a thousand or even ten thousand times the time to do it in? :confused:
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Powder combustion only contributes a fraction of the over-all heat. It is the near instantaneous rise in pressure to 60,000 PSI that generates the most heat.

Any one bullet passing through the bore at high speed with a bunch of high-pressure-super-hot gasses behind will wear your barrel more than one year of cleaning.
If you don't believe me, go measure yourself
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Agreed, but cleaning doesn't result in uniform wear, it can result in localized areas of damage, or in some cases, damage along the entire bore from over-cleaning, or cleaning with the wrong tools.
 
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