Is my cleaning technique good enough?

Bart B.

New member
I agree with David N. A lot of commercial barrels are rough enough that until enough jacket copper's laid down in them, they'll irregularly wipe off jacket material unbalancing bullets. Once those micropits are full of copper, bullets no longer leave a tiny part of their jackets behind.

I've shot matches with Winchester factory match rifle barrels and always went to the sighting in range to shoot a few shots to condition the bore before going to the range where the match was. Otherwise, the 2 sighting shots allowed before the first record shots were fired didn't foul the bore enough for best accuracy. They started out going towards 10 o'clock; apparantly unbalanced such that they jumped in that direction upon exit from the muzzle. 86 rounds later, the barrel still shot very well, but it got totally cleaned that night.

CC268, never put more than 100 rounds through a barrel before cleaning it with bore cleaner. I sometimes would dry brush it after 40 or 60 rounds. I've never used copper remover after Shooter's Choice. I have used Sweets 7.62 ammonia based copper cleaner and it's probably the best. But it's high level of ammonia burns my fingers and the fumes are not pleasant in my nose. I've also used a 50-50 mix of Hoppe's No. 9 and 28% ammonia which is way too toxic for my liking.

When Shooter's Choice first came out, they got sued by some errant rifle shooter who never cleaned his barrel too well over several thousand rounds. The barrel's throat was so full of crud that it still shot reasonably well. The strong cleaning of Shooter's Choice cleaned all that stuff out and left the very eroded, rough leade and origin of the rifling bare to scrape off and deform really good bullets. So proved the attorney for Shooter's Choice before they went to court. The errant rifle shooter decided it wasn't a good idea to pursue it further. As told to me by Boots (Barrett) Obermeyer, the barrel maker who made the barrel in question.
 

603Country

New member
I certainly can't disagree with anything said so far, and I'm happy to hear what Bart said about the barrel brush moving in and out of the muzzle being Ok.

Nobody has mentioned one of the biggest variables in bore cleaning, which is the individual rifle. Some need more cleaning than others, and cleaning needs may vary. My 220 Swift needs Shooter's Choice after 20 or 25 rounds, and accuracy is negatively impacted by copper fouling after maybe 40 rounds or so. The 260 needs far less cleaning and rarely ever seems to have much copper. The rest of my rifles seem to be sort of in the middle range of the two rifles mentioned above.

As for copper removal, I use Boretech Eliminator, which is far more effective than Sweet's and is less stinky.
 

jmr40

New member
Get a boresnake, and a can of balistol. You will never go back to what you are doing again.

Bore snakes are OK for emergency use in the field if a barrel gets wet or small debris needs to be removed.

I'd strongly suggest there use be limited, if at all. Yea, they are easy to use, but it is just a matter of time before something breaks and you are left with one stuck in the barrel. I sure wouldn't recommend one as a primary cleaning tool.
 
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