Posted by Dave Groves on Aug 18, 2018; 11:35am
URL: http://oldforum.flyshooter.com.au/Gun-cleaning-tp5710047p5710052.html

Hi Fred,
               This will be an interesting read if we get a few responses, I suspect that there are many different procedures and processes that people follow, for all sorts of different reasons. My process is a hodgepodge of things that I have learned from different people over the years but it seems to work OK for me.

I generally clean at home, rarely at the range unless I absolutely have to.

I did clean my BR mid shoot at BB last June, but that was because Callum and I were sharing the gun to shoot Light Gun, Russ had bore-scoped it for me and says that the barrel has a bit of fire-cracking and was holding on to copper a fair bit, so I didn't want to stretch the boundaries with it, cleaning after 50 shots.

I use a boreguide to try and keep the solvents out of the action.

First step for me is a dry bronze bristle brush run through the barrel both ways on a Tipton carbon fibre rod, the CF rod is very forgiving and doesn't "take a set" when bent, the brush presents a lot of resistance! I find this breaks up the powder fouling just in front of the chamber, if I don't do it, I can usually feel a "choke" develop just in front of the chamber when patching out. If you watch carefully you can see the dust pushed out of the barrel with each pass forwards fly out of the barrel like a jet of steam, I continue until there is very little dust coming out with each pass.

Second step is a snug brushed flannel patch liberally soaked in Metho on an alloy jag, pushed through the barrel to get rid of the dust from the dry brush, then two or three dry patches to get rid of the metho.

Third step is solvent on a stainless wound nylon brush, the rod is a Boretech one.  I saturate the brush with a needle oiler style solvent bottle, then run it through the barrel, generally three loaded brushes full, then let the solvent do it's thing for ten to fifteen minutes.

Fourth step is a metho rinse as per step two and several dry patches. The reason for this is to neutralise the solvent in the barrel and rinse it out, leaving no active solvent in the barrel.

I repeat steps three and four until I am satisfied by the colour of the first metho patch that I have removed the majority of the copper from the barrel. I really like using the metho in between, as it can be a little frustrating  to just keep on getting blue patches out of a barrel, with this method you know that you are only seeing the colour on the first patch from that "cycle" of solvent.

Next I put a couple of wet oil patches (CLP is the oil I use) through the barrel and then patch out thoroughly to basically get rid of the excess, with up to 5 or 6 patches. I was once told that the jacket on the projectile serves several functions, and an important one is as a "lubricant" in the barrel, I was told that firing a projectile down a very clean barrel could be detrimental, the remaining oil in the barrel provides a lubricant for that first projectile. No idea about the truth of the matter, and this is one area where there will probably be many different views, again, it works for me.

Next is to dry the chamber thoroughly to ensure that the case can grip the chamber walls effectively.

The last thing I do is find a bright surface to look at through the barrel to ensure that there aren't any fibres of cleaning patch in the barrel.

After a stern talking to from my Gunsmith I have now re-commenced using JB Bore Paste about every 100 rnds on my barrels, Russ looked at my barrels before the Nationals in Perth and told me there was a lot of carbon in them, so I am relying on the JB's to get the carbon out.

I think that a borescope would be a good tool for checking that you're getting your barrels clean.

I cut my own patches to size, and have separate jags for each calibre to try and get a nice snug fit in the barrel.

Lastly on my cleaning regime, if your wife is going to Spotlight and you ask for flannelette for patches, specify that you want the white stuff or risk being the laughing stock of all that observe your pink and blue printed flannelette cleaning pathches...

Cheers.

Dave.