.17 Centerfire shooters--what's your cleaning regimen?

[Dave R]

A coupla years ago, I inherited a .17 wildcat. .357 mag pistol brass necked down to .17. A great varmit rifle. I've put over 1k rounds through it. (Based on shooting the bag of 1k bullets I inherited with the rifle.)

My cleaning regimen has evolved to:

-Bore snake every 20-50 rounds or so.
-Foaming bore cleaner every 100 rounds.

Seems to be working great. But I'm paranoid about wearing down the bore. Those teeny lands are only about .002 or so. Don't want to over-clean, but don't want to under-clean, either.

So what do you do for your .17 centerfire?

 

[10 MickeyMouse]

When the groups start to open up (or I start missing the praire rats), I clean the bore. Really haven't had many issues with it, though. Most rounds I've fired in a day was probably 120 or so. I usually take at least two rifles when I go to a busy dog town.

Mine is a Remington 700 LVSF in .17 Rem. I use 23 grains of H322 behind a 20 grain V-max.

 

[Dave R]

Thanks, 10.

Any idea how many rounds it takes before groups start to open up? I'm wondering if I'm over-cleaning, every 100 rounds or so.

My load is 15.5gr. H335 pushing a 25gr. Hornady.

I should probably try the 20gr.

 

[Ruger4570]

I pretty much have gone to the foaming bore cleaners. I hate to run a rod down the barrel any more than I have to and the foams just seem to work very well. I also use a Tipton carbon rod as I think it is less likely to hurt the bore if it goes astray somehow.

 

[10 MickeyMouse]

Hodgedon powders tend to be really clean in my experience, and modern metallurgy has drastically reduced copper fouling. As I said, I generally put few than 100-120 rounds down range in one session, and have never had to clean it inside that number. Beyond that, I haven't paid much attention to the round count when accuracy goes south. It's usually a barrel heat issue after 20 or 30 shots at 'dogs in rapid succession, so I grab a different rifle.

Sorry I can't help you more. Good luck.