what's minimum maintenance for a bolt action 22LR in your opinion?

huntershooter

huntershooter

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Recently purchased a Savage bolt action 22LR. I haven't shot it yet and plan to sight it in soon. I like to take descent care of my gear. What's the minimum maintenance in your opinion? Should I guy a bore snake? If so what brand? Should I buy gun oil? If so what brand ? Thanks
 
huntershooter said:
Recently purchased a Savage bolt action 22LR. I haven't shot it yet and plan to sight it in soon. I like to take descent care of my gear. What's the minimum maintenance in your opinion? Should I guy a bore snake? If so what brand? Should I buy gun oil? If so what brand ? Thanks
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The first thing with any new or new to me firearm is a full teardown and inspection. Mistakes happen at the factory and you don't want to have metal shavings or other debris in the barrel or trigger mechanism. Often new guns will have heavy oil or grease for storage that is not ideal for actually using the firearm. Guns are not rocket science, a few you tube videos and some patience and you will have it apart, cleaned and ready for shooting in no time.
As far as tools and lube ext. there will be many opinions offered. Some love bore snakes some don't. Some love brand x oil some y. But at minimum you will need a few lint free rags, some kind of degreaser, some kind of oil. a few cotton swabs, a bore snake or rod. I assume this is your first firearm, welcome to the club.
 
I use and would recommend the Otis small calibre cleaning system. It is only a bit more money than a bore snake and a better system. The Otis product that comes with the kit is fine, or alternatively a bottle of Hoppes No 9 solvent and a bottle of Hoppes gun oil.
 
Minimum maintenance?

Skip the bore snake. Wipe it down with an oily rag once in a while to prevent it from rusting. Shoot it often.

There are 50 year old Cooeys around, with tens of thousands of rounds through them, that have received no better treatment than this, and still shoot true and reliable.
 
Definitely buy some gun oil, and a .22 caliber cleaning kit. Cotton patches are much better than synthetic ones. Some people swear by one brand or another, I buy what's available and cheap so I won't hesitate to use it.

22lr is a dirty round a lot of .22lr ammo is waxed lead bullets. At minimum I would take the action off the stock to wipe it down with oil and run a 22 caliber brush down the barrel. Some people never do anything as far as cleaning. In my family we call those people lazy and their guns get oiled as soon as I get my hands on them.
 
grelmar said:
Minimum maintenance?

Skip the bore snake. Wipe it down with an oily rag once in a while to prevent it from rusting. Shoot it often.

There are 50 year old Cooeys around, with tens of thousands of rounds through them, that have received no better treatment than this, and still shoot true and reliable.
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I agree, well said.
 
I do an initial strip, clean and oil of any new gun. But with regards to my .22 I will give it a scrub and clean when it starts to fte, or before I sight it in for hunting with a specific brand of ammo. Then I leave it be till it needs to be claned, it gets a wile with an oily rag periodically.
 
ok so 2 things.
1 - im in my mid 40's and i only started actually taking care of my guns about 10 years ago and my father who i got the bad habit from has been shooting all his life and he still does not clean his guns.
so my original 10/22 i got back in 1984 and i put 100,000 rounds down it and my cleaning of it consisted of a couple shots of WD40 whenever it would get really bad. and the WD40 would run out of it like mud!!
my dads Cooey 84 that he shot since childhood ive never seen him clean it.
same as my ruger, couple shots of WD40 if it started to not eject or what have ya.

so guns can go a hell of a long time without cleaning.

what i do now.
ive found now that i have a lot of money tied up into my guns and a lot more time to play with them that they run better and more consistently if i keep them cleaned. that isnt saying i clean them after every range hit, my pistols every 2-3 range trips, my 22's maybe every 4-5.
but i do things a little different.
like mentioned above when i get a new gun i take it right down - every last screw.
check everything over and have a good look at it.
while i have it down i use G96 on it.
that gives it a good base.
what i mean by that is it makes cleaning them going forward easier.
the oil is absorbed by the metal and it protects it.

so from there forward its easy.
also, ive stopped running 'dirty ammo'.
if i run dirty ammo i clean the guns right away.

when i do clean its just a simple spray coat of G96, let sit for 60 seconds than wipe clean.
shot down the barrel, bore snake it, done.

that initial cleaning and coat of G96 does a LOT of preventative work for ya.

also, all my guns get a yearly clean even if i dont use them.
this usually takes place in the winter on a cold night when the snow is falling and there is nothing but re-runs on the TV.
ill take 2 or 3 out to the shop, put on some good music and give them a nice cleaning.

and before anyone gets all upset about my dads guns, im a good son, when i go to visit ive over the last couple years given all his guns a good base cleaning and when we go out together i give his guns a quick clean. it makes me smile now when i catch him actually doing a little cleaning of his own guns.
so you can teach your dads stuff from time to time!

oh, and like mentioned above, the last thing that i do to my guns when i have them out, even for a quick shuffle through the safe is i take a lint free rag that is in my safe and i take off any finger prints (that oil will cause rust!)

on a related note i have been tossing around the idea of getting into those 'gun socks' but im not 100% sold on them yet.
 
If you haven't yet shot it, clean the bore to make sure any factory swarf and preservative (if any) is removed. Take out the bolt and wipe it down. If everything functions as it should, go shoot it. Shoot it often and shoot it a lot. Bolt actions are not prissy. When winter comes, and you don't shoot at all or very much, clean it again. If the bolt is operating smoothly, there usually is no need to disassemble it (unless you want to be seen doing so). If a rifle gets wet, it ought to be wiped down. Most brands of gun oil are similar and there are many products that will clean the bore. A very good product is Bore Tech Rimfire Blend, which gets a lot of praise on the Anschutz forum over on Rimfire Central. It's available at Londero Sports. Ballistol is a CLP that serves many purposes in general gun cleaning and care, having been first used by the Kaiser's army in Germany. When I occasionally use a bore snake at the range I put Ballistol on it. In general, however, a one-piece cleaning rod is better than the bore snake, which should be cleaned periodically to remove the "stuff" it gets in it from passing through the bore.
 
silverfoxdj said:
Where does one find a bore-scope at reasonable prices
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That's the tough part. Best bet is when is when an owner passes and the family tasked with distributing their possessions doesn't know what they're dealing with. Otherwise if it's new and cheap it's likely not worth using, the image resolution will be too poor to see the fine detail that matters in the barrel. If ya want one, yer gunna have to suck it up and spends the cash. Only you can decide if it's of value to yourself.
 
WUN..............WD 40 is not a great gun cleaning fluid.
This I lernt a long time ago.
Works in a pinch if out in the bush and it's all you have.
Step up a bit and get some real gun lewb.
 
I fully understand your concern but a bolt 22lr is the most straight forward. Take the bolt out. Wipe it clean. Oil the bore and you are good to go. Have fun !
 
There seem to be two major camps on this issue. The first is the one that says don't touch anything until the groups start to open up. And that may take a thousand or more rounds. The second camp is the group that cleans frequently even during a shooting session and then shoots foulers to restore the bore to a consistent condition before shooting a string for scoring in a bench rest match. And when they return home the bore is cleaned until it's shinier than new before being put away.

The odd thing is that both camps seem to do just fine. I can see the cleaning and foulers and such for benchrest competition. But I've seen a lot of great shooting from rifles in the "once a year but only if it needs it" camp as well.

The one case where you NEED to clean it even if it hasn't been shot much is when the groups open up radically. That's a good sign of bore leading and that needs to be removed. It's also a sign that you might want to find different ammo that the gun likes. Or it may just be that the bore is shiny new. I've had a couple of new rimfire guns that leaded up badly at first. But after a couple of cleanings and a few hundred rounds they stopped leading up at all even with the ammo that caused it in the first place.
 
When it comes to twenty-twos I'm in the the "clean it every coupla years whether it needs it or not" camp. I do swab down all the blued metal with an oily rag after every session to prevent cosmetic rust, but as far as the barrel and action go, I clean the action when it's starting to look gnarly (or feeling gritty in the case of my vintage Win 490), but I don't fuss with the bore except to prevent rust/or pitting if the gun's going to be put away for a while. I don't give any thought to "fouling, carbon rings, etc". My tool of choice when it comes to cleaning accumulated powder residue is a tooth brush. I've been shooting the good old .22 since the 60's. They just kinda work.

All that said, I do fuss a little more with my CF's, particularly the higher velocity, tighter twist ones. My 45-70, not so much.
 
Depending on the .22, I'd give the bore a light scrub every 1000-3000 rounds. Some of the waxier ammo would require cleaning a little more often, functionally the bolt-actions still work just fine, I just don't like seeing gobbs of wax in all the crevices!

Also...like Kamlooky said, oil the outer metal and keep yer fingarts ouff tha ruztee bytz!
 
Run a patch down the bore before you shoot it. Then you can run a patch down the bore every few thousand rounds, I'm not joking don't go nuts scrubbing the barrel, every few thousand rounds will be sufficient. Wipe down the metal with a lightly oiled or better yet a silicone impregnated cloth after handling.
 
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