How ofter do you clean?

[Hornet22savage]

I know that with my muzzleloaders I clean at the end of every range session. The only time they go longer is during hunting season as I hunt on a fouled bore for the best long range accuracy. However how ofter do you clean your centerfire's? Do you clean every time you shoot or is it ever 10,20 or 30 rounds? How do you know that you are getting all of the copper out or better yet how do you tell if you have copper fouling?

 

[ShawnT]

I clean every 10 to 15 rounds. That helps to keep the copper build up at bay. I also go a round with JB every 100 rounds.

As for checking the bore for copper short of a bore scope there is one little trick I use. After cleaning and drying the bore push one last clean patch up the bore but stop about 1/2" short of the muzzle. Hold the muzzle up to bright light or use a flash light to look into the bore. The White patch will reflect the light and let you see the lands and grooves pretty good, you can see even more with a magnifying glass. You can also use a clean dry Q-tip inserted into the muzzle a bit and shine a light in behind it, just rotate it around to look all the way around. If you see any copper in the muzzle you can be assured it is all the way through. Down side is you can still have some copper in the bore but not see it at the muzzle, but like I said short of a bore scope, I think it is a pretty good indicator anyway.

I took a mini mag flashlight, Q-Tip and a magnifying light to a local gun shop recently to look at a used Savage/Anschutz Target model 22rf. When I did this in the shop the 2 guys behind the counter, and 2 other customers, asked me if I was going to take its temperature next, and they all had a puzzled look on their face trying to figure out what I was doing. I asked them if they had not seen that done. They asked me what the heck are you looking, so I told them I wanted to look at the crown and the lands and grooves to make sure the rifling looked good (since it was a 22rf I did not think it would have copper) so I showed them, and they were amazed at how much of the lands and grooves you could see that way. Bad thing is the 2 guys have worked there for at least 20 years and you would think they had seen that little trick.

Give it a try, you might be surprised how well you can see in there this way.

 

[Hornet22savage]

Good to know thanks. I bought some of the JB bore bright last year. I'm going to clean the Savage today and after using your little trick I might hit it with the bore bright and see how that works for me.

 

[ShawnT]

Good to know thanks. I bought some of the JB bore bright last year. I'm going to clean the Savage today and after using your little trick I might hit it with the bore bright and see how that works for me.

You will not be able to see the copper in the bore if you mean to shine a bore light the full length of the bore. I am just talking the first 1/2" of bore from he muzzle end.

 

[AJ]

Many guns will hit a different POI on clean bore vs fouled bore. I let the gun dictate when it gets cleaned. When the accuracy goes I scrub the bore. I have some custom barrels that have not been cleaned in over 100 rounds. They do not foul much and the accuracy is still good, so they stay ready to go. Some factory barrels get cleaned every 30 rounds or so. It all depends on the gun.

The easiest way to tell if the barrel is copper fouled is to use Wipe-Out with some accelerator. Run a patch of accelerator through the bore and squirt the Wipe-Out foaming bore cleaner in and let it sit for 30 minutes. Patch it out and look at the color of the patch. If it is blue, you have a lot of copper in there.

 

[sqezer]

:yeah: AJ, spot on with your cleaning.

 

[Hornet22savage]

Thanks for answering, as I stated I cleaned the gun yesterday. Today I headed to the range with a know ammunition that shoots good the Nosler Varmageddon 55 gr. hp at 3850 mv, I also took three 100 gr. loads. The Hornady American Whitetail 100 gr. Interlock BTSP, Winchester Power Point 100 gr. and the Federal Powershok 100 gr. sp all at a mv of 2960. I started this because after shooting almost 30 rounds of the Hornady I was not getting acceptable groups for a CF. I shot a three shot group of the Noslers and was extatic it could be covered by a quarter. I switched to the Winchesters and had a sub 1 inch group, I fired a group of the Feds and again had a 1 inch group. Tried the Hornady's again and all was lost. Gun hates them. Loves them Winchesters though. Thanks