No one minds spending thousands on a precision weapon and a scope they could see Mars with, but spending money on cleaning gear is something else.  In this instance quantity is a great indicator of proper cleaning gear.  If someone arrives with a bore snake and some solvent, you know they are going to have issues.  The shooters who shows up with the bore snake is the same guy running up and down the firing line looking for a one piece rod to remove a stuck case with.

Cleaning a weapon isn't rocket science, it just has to be done right.  The first thing you need is a one piece cleaning rod.  M16/ AR15 take down rod won't do.  They have joints that don't fit correctly and when they impact the crown or throat area they can and do cause damage to the barrel.  A one piece rod is mandatory.  You have two things your trying to get out of the barrel, copper and carbon with some power residue thrown in.  Like wise you need compounds that will remove these and not hurt the barrel.  How do you know what type of solvent, and there are tons of them, read the label.  The next thing I need is a good bore brush, not stainless that will scratch that match barrel.  The other tools will be listed as we go through the process.  Make sure you have your scope caps down.  Getting solvent on the lenses will destroy the fluoride coating and you will have star bursts on your lenses.

You start cleaning your weapon after you are sure the weapon is clear and safe and all ammunition is removed from the area, that serves two purposed, it limits the chance of negligent discharges and it won't destroy the ammunition with solvents.  Now that ammo is removed, you depress the muzzle and support the stock in some way.  You then remove the bolt and set aside.  I start cleaning with the bolt lugs and chamber area first, that way I don't contaminate the barrel that I've already cleaned.  They make a neat tool that uses dental rounds that do a great job on the chamber and bolt lugs.  The chamber area sees far less gunk then the barrel unless your shooting a suppressor.

To clean the barrel you now insert a bore guide.  A bore guide replaces the bolt and allows you to run a patch or brush down the barrel with out drowning the chamber with solvents and ruining you bedding.  It also centers the brush and patch as you use them.  The brush is removed, cleaned and a Jagg replaces the brush.  The jagg has a point that pushed through the patch to keep it centered In the bore and will fall off as it passes through the barrel.

Now comes the interesting part, how many swipes do I take to clean the weapon and what brand solvent do I use.  Brother, that secret formula is up to the driver, the bottom line is, did you get it clean. and am I doing it the same way every time.  Consistency and attention to detail everything, be it cleaning or shooting.

Ok, I've cleaned the a good all purpose solvent that removed the carbon and copper with my brush now what?  Unless you don't mind buying brushes every time you clean you need to clean the brush you just used, yes the same solvent the breaks down the carbon and copper will eat your brush.  

Now that the bore is sufficiently cleaned you use dry patches to remove the trash.  Make sure you buy the round patches to clean the bore, not the big burlap bag square one that are half the price.  The only thing those are good for in bending your cleaning rod when they get stuck.  Pass clean patched through until they come out clean, and oh yeah, wipe the rod off to, If you don't you will re contaminate the barrel with the dirty rod and you will never get it clean.

The final teller to whether your barrel is clean is use a high ammonia based solvent.  Ammonia reacts with copper and brass and turns bright blue.  If you see blue with a dry patch repeat the cleaning process until you don't.  After the barrel and chamber are cleaned you go after the surface areas, inside the weapon and out.  The bolt can be cleaned with a combination of brushed and patches soaked in solvent.  Make sure all visible copper is removed from extractor and ejector areas of the bolt face.  lubricate all bearing surfaces when reassembling your weapon.  A bearing surface can be seen with wear marks on them or where two surfaced rub together.   Remember, Don't use anything other than prescribed cleaners for the scope glass.  Once weapon is reassembled function test the weapon for reliability.

Are their other ways to do this, yes a million.  Bottom line, how you get there is up to you as long as it is clean and you didn't damage the weapon.  

Failing to properly clean and maintain the weapon will add to cold bore issues and barrel life as well as shot to shot accuracy.  PS. don't forget to check inch pounds on receiver bolts every time you shoot....

Another addition you might consider is the use of blue nitrile gloves when using bore cleaners.



You wouldn't drink bore cleaners so why absorb them through your skin?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5_vO2Donhg

I agree it is important to have the right tools available, and a bore obstruction will end your day at the range if you don't have a good cleaning rod.

Remember to wipe out your ammonia based bore solvent, as it will continue to eat away at the steel if you leave it in for a long time.

John from the mail-call Mondays episode linked above said he cleans every 500-600 rounds on his .308.

There is still a lot of debate on the topic, but many precision shooters advocate leaving the bore at copper equilibrium. The theory is that the bullet always leaves a little bit of copper behind it when it goes down the barrel. It also picks up some of the copper that was already in the barrel. The first few shots after a cleaning, the bullets leave a lot more copper than they pick up and the difference shot to shot is quite large. After a certain amount of fouling has built up in the bore, things get really consistent as the bullet picks up as much as it leaves behind.

If you take out all the copper and  you just have to put it back in, so I personally don't try to get completely clean patches.
Last time I cleaned my .308 barrel the round count made it to nearly 900. I do take care of the bolt, lugs and chamber every couple hundred though.

Madeuce, what interval do you recommend for cleaning a precision rifle?

And, same interval for precision bolt and semi-auto?

Txl

Biggest reason you want to clean the copper fouling out of your barrel is the grooves in the barrel. Sure, if you take the copper out of your lands in the barrel, after you clean it, the first 2-20 rounds will fill in the microscopic depressions in your lands, and in most cases "settle down" and shoot tighter groups. Problem with not light cleaning your barrel every 100 rounds, is those grooves fill up with copper and it's like welding copper into them. Those grooves get smaller and smaller, your chamber pressures get higher, and you will wear out your barrel faster. I've seen AR 10 barrels build up so much copper fouling inside the gas hole inside the grove that rounds keyholed (sideways impacts) at 100 yards. There is some very bad advice given to not clean your barrel. I have over 20 years of teaching military and civilian sniper experience, either as a sniper or sniper instructor. That doesn't make me an expert by any means, but I've seen and experienced a lot of things. Usually it was because of my dumb ass mistakes. Bottom line, I clean my barrel every 100-150 rounds. Concistancy is accuracy so I clean my chamber, bolt, I run one wet powder solvent patch, one wet copper solvent patch down the bore, wet my bore brush with copper solvent and give the bore approximately one pass for every 10 rounds I fire. I then run 3 wet powder solvent patches down the bore, 3 dry patches down the bore, then one wet powder blast (this solution drys fast and ensures no copper or powder solvent is left in the barrel) I then run 1 dry patch down the barrel. I have seen no clean cold bore deviation with this process.

Every 500 rounds, I clean my barrels with JB or sweets and clean it until it's completely clean. I do this at the range where I can then confirm my zero and fire 3-8 rounds to ensure the barrel has fouled.

With all that said, you don't have to clean your barrel at all. 1000-3000 rounds, but your going to decrease the life of your barrel. We did a test when I worked for a company overseas. We fired 4,000 round through an M24 and 5,000 rounds through an SR25. The SR25 had to be rebarrelled because it would hold but a 2 MOA group. Before, it fired a 1/2 MOA barrel (total rounds through the rifle was 5347 rounds) The M24 had to be rebarelled at 6200 rounds. All of our other rifles we cleaned in the above mentioned process and we got on an average of 12,000 rounds out of the barrel. We had a sniper on our team in Baghdad who never cleaned his rifle, ever! After failing the FBI qualification 5 times, we bore scoped the barrel and you could barely see the lands and grooves. The barrel throat had eroded and measured almost a 1/2 inch. We filled the barrel with sweets copper solvent, put an earplug into the end of the barrel, hung it bore down for 2 weeks. Tried scrubbing all the copper out of it. Never could get it shoot after that. I fired him and sent him home. His excuse was is that he was told in Army sniper school that the SR shot better dirty!

Just my opinion, nothing more. Semper (I can't spell worth a damm, so excuse my knuckle dragging)

Really interesting - makes a lot of sense.

Am I a bad person for using a boresnake?

I've been using bores snakes, just bought 4 Otis ripcords on bogo sale to try then out.  

I also use a Dewey rod.

ETA: this was supposed to be attached to the Boresnake comment.

I don't think they get the entire chamber/lug area on an AR or a bolt gun clean. I have noticed my AR with the outside front edge of the chamber gunked up worse after a quick pass with a Boresnake. I guess it pushes stuff out to the corner.
When I have used them, I am thinking the whole time.... I hope it does not break off in there.
I would like to see one without brushes that would be used like you would use patches after the gun is basically clean.

The Otis Ripcord does not have an integral brush.
It has a threaded portion on the tail end that allows you to attach a brush.

What's a good cleaning kit for a bolt gun?  I see a deweys on brownells

I'd like to know as well. I always have issues with jags. I use the plane slotted tip to pull patches.  

The patch may just be too big. If the patch bunches up as it's inserted or slips off the jag that can cause it to jam. I much prefer spear jags to patch holders, or rod type jags such as the Parker Hale.

Place the spear through the centre of the patch, insert patch and jag carefully in bore guide, watch closely to make sure the patch is flattening evenly against the jag, and never pull the rod backwards once it's in the guide or bore.

I subscribe to Old Painless' newsletter. I bought a Husky portable air compressor and cleaning is a snap

My gun cleaning kit includes couple of boxes of black heavy-duty nitrile gloves, all sorts of solvents and lubricants; from Hoppes No. 9 to Kroil; Dewey rods, bore brushes, swages, patches and whatnot.

A good cleaning mat and a solid set of tools to assemble/disassemble my weapons. Yes, I do have a couple of Bore-Snakes for a quick wipedown of the barrel, but for a proper cleaning, you definitely need to invest some extra cash in quality gear.

I have a winchester cleaning kit with brass rods and brass bristle brushes, i run the brush down the barrel for the first time after 500 rds. Ran the brush through 3 times, used a few pat hes with hoppes 9 then 2 patches to dry it off. Is that terrible? I have a lothar walther barrel thats lapped and very accurate. Im also super careful with it

Cut the patch in half and try it again.

Parker-Hale jag yo. surface area science

I've just been using an Otis kit with the Otis 085 ultra bore solvent and patches on everything.  Precision bolt gun, AR15, handguns, etc.  

Am I doing it wrong?  I read threads like this and think I need to buy a bore guide, rod, copper solvents, etc for my Larue barreled upper and my bolt gun.  Maybe I just don't shoot enough for it to matter.  I've probably got less than 300 rounds through the bolt gun and less than 100 through the Larue.  The couple AR's that have around 1k rounds through them haven't shown any notable loss in accuracy,  but they're not sub MOA shooters like the other two.

I use a smaller patch than what is advertised.  That is, if I'm using a .30 cal jag, I typically use a .22 size patch.  For .22 jags, I cut a bit off.  And I don't use thick ass patches.  

This is what works for me, but I'm not exactly a guru in such matters 

That said, I have a big damn bag of old t shirts - I need to get off my ass and make my own patches.

Boresnakes are useful. A really good use for them is if you are out in the field overnight. The bore will often get condensation once the sun comes up. If you leave a round in the pipe for several days, they can stick to the chamber due to this corrosion and cause a failure to extract. Every day in the field, 45 minutes after the sun comes up, run that snake through to prevent this from happening.


There's a lot of debate about the copper equilibrium thing. I have found that guys who have the government buying their barrels are more likely to not clean. It's also true that hundreds of rounds will not degrade the accuracy. Anecdotal evidence suggests that this burns barrels up faster.

I personally clean out bores every year, or 200 rounds for 5.56 precision, 500 rounds for carbine, 100 rounds for 30 cal precision.

I would love to do a serious scientific experiment with 30 equal guns under different cleaning regimes.

I let my bolt guns tell me when it's time to clean. Any drop in accuracy and then I'll consider it time to clean. Usually in the 300-400 round range through my AI when shooting suppressed. I'll pull the bolt every 50-100 rounds and clean it and lube the lugs with grease. I track my round counts religiously though in a log book with different books assigned to different barrels I run on the rifle. 

My semi autos get cleaned closer to the 200 round mark as they get a bit dirtier.

This... every few hundred rds or when accuracy starts to go, I run a few patches thru with Hoppes 9.. let the chemical do its thing.. and push a few patches thru... done.
GI brush to the bolt face... wipe the bolt down, re grease lugs and re oil... done...

Used the same one piece cleaning rod with jag...

Exactly.  Try a parker-hale style jag and you won't go back.  

I also recommend a little trick included in my book and in an NSSF video I did: get a small glass jar with a metal lid (wide-mouthed baby-food jar) and store patches with some solvent in it.  Then, you can just pull out a wet patch and push it through.  You just refill it with some extra patches every so often and I pour my solvent on brushes over the jar which keeps the jar with enough solvent in it to keep the patches wet.

So all of the info placed in the OP I like.  

The only addendum I would make would be with regards to the copper solvent and needing to use ammonia.  I used ammonia for years, but my gunsmith turned me onto Boretech products.  Holy shit.  This stuff is more expensive, but it is just ridiculous how well it works.  It is not ammonia, is non-toxic, can be left in the bore until doomsday, and you don't have to fear it coming into contact with the rest of your rifle (or optics for that matter).

The color of blue that I was pulling out of my barrel was insane.  This shit works phenomenally well, but that's why it's on the costlier side.  They know what they've got.  If you can find the Boretech Eliminator, that is the go-to product from them.  It cleans everything carbon and copper in one swoop.  I rarely use the Eliminator, but I do use the Carbon remover on it's own.  I don't clean copper out but once a year, if that, hence the Eliminator is used less frequently.

Anyhow, anyone reading this doubt what I'm saying, give it a go.  I found it hard to believe too, but this shit is amazing.  It smells really good too!