As the title states I am looking for the proper and correct wasy to clean my ak barrel without doing any damage to it. With my AR's, the barrel sits in the upper well enough to take a bore guide to it. As everyone knoes with the AK it is the opposite. So is it still wrong to clean from the muzzle end or should I go in through the reciever and risk marring the barrel and the insides of the reciever with the cleaning rod. Yea I get its an AK and there are plenty of people who dont give a shit but I baby all my firearms and dont want to do any damage. So whats the consensus???

You can clean from the chamber end if you use something to protect the receiver from the rod rubbing on it.
This can be as simple as putting a cloth over the rear of the receiver.
The rod shouldn't make any contact with the inside of the receiver.
You may want to use a smaller caliber rod that will flex more.

To clean from the muzzle, just buy a brass cone-shaped muzzle guide.
If you keep it pressed into the muzzle, it centers the rod and prevents any contact with the muzzle.
This is how I do it.  I haven't seen any wear of the muzzle or crown.

http://www.brownells.com/gun-cleaning-chemicals/cleaning-rods-amp-accessories/muzzle-guards/dewey-brass-muzzle-guards-prod5650.aspx

There are the pull-through cleaners like the cheap Bore Snakes and the better Otis.
The Bore Snakes just don't do a very good job of cleaning.  They're intended to be a field quick cleaner for use until you get back home and your rod.

The Otis is good, but like ALL pull-through cleaners, they can and will break off in the bore, leaving you with a serious problem.

As far as"proper way" , you will get many opinions. I clean my ak from the muzzle and pull, same direction as bullet travel, no muz guide.
AK is totally stripped down and with thread from rod end in receiver at eject port opening, , I screw on the brush and pull. Been doin this for years.
Without typing too much detail here, I have zero carbon anywhere on my sgl.
Get a tipton best vise, helps a lot.

Hmm I've never thought about trying it that way. I read that Breakfree CLP has Teflon in it and not to use it in the barrel, and I know eveyone has their own opinion, but what do you guys use on the barrel to get the crap the surplus ammunition leaves behind? I tried MPro 7 on one of my pistols and it was SHINY.

 

]Hmm I've never thought about trying it that way. I read that Breakfree CLP has Teflon in it and not to use it in the barrel, and I know eveyone has their own opinion, but what do you guys use on the barrel to get the crap the surplus ammunition leaves behind? I tried MPro 7 on one of my pistols and it was SHINY.  


ballistol to clean everything & bore, clp to lubricate(my manual recommended clp for all)

Teflon is not at all harmful or an issue in gun barrels.
The US military has used CLP with Teflon for MANY years.  If there was a problem we'd have heard all about it.
I don't know where this idea of Teflon being bad started.

I also clean my AK from the muzzle by pulling the rod.  I do use the brass cone-shaped muzzle guide to protect the crown.
I put the rod down the barrel, attach a bore brush or a patch and pull it into the chamber.
Then I use a plastic pipette bulb to give the chamber a squirt of bore solvent, then pull the rod out the muzzle, keeping the brass muzzle protector against the muzzle.

As for corrosive primed ammo, the only cleaner that's effective is something that contains water.
The corrosive element is a form of salt.  You cannot "neutralize" salt, all you can do is dissolve it and flush it off the metal.
The only thing that can dissolve salt is water.
No oil or other standard lubricant, modern bore solvent, ammonia or any product that does not contain water will work.
If you want to know if something will work, put some in a small glass and add a little table salt.
If the salt just lays there the product is useless.
If the salt dissolves and disappears into solution it will work.
As said, CLP and almost NO other lubricant will work to clean a gun fired with corrosive primed ammo.

You can buy something like Ballistol and mix some water in with it, or you can just use water.
Since nothing works better then water, and nothing is cheaper then water, I just use hot water to remove the salt residue.
Other products like Windex and store ammonia work only because they're almost all water.

Note that cleaning a rifle fired with corrosive primed ammo is a TWO PART process.
Process One is to dissolve and flush off the corrosive residue.
Process Two is to use a bore solvent to remove carbon, powder, and copper fouling as with any firearm.
Just because you've cleaned off the corrosive residue does NOT mean the firearm is clean.  You still have to deal with carbon, powder, and copper fouling.

I don't shoot corrosive ammo so a coupla pull throughs with  bore snake with the head end dipped in Hoppes seems to do the job.

- OS

This with a pass of CLP at the final pull through.

Just clean as you would a black powder firearm and you are good to go.

I've used the Otis pull-thru cables for years and have never had one even think about breaking.

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I've used the Otis pull-thru cables for years and have never had one even think about breaking.

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You can clean from the chamber end if you use something to protect the receiver from the rod rubbing on it.
This can be as simple as putting a cloth over the rear of the receiver.
The rod shouldn't make any contact with the inside of the receiver.
You may want to use a smaller caliber rod that will flex more.

To clean from the muzzle, just buy a brass cone-shaped muzzle guide.
If you keep it pressed into the muzzle, it centers the rod and prevents any contact with the muzzle.
This is how I do it.  I haven't seen any wear of the muzzle or crown.

http://www.brownells.com/gun-cleaning-chemicals/cleaning-rods-amp-accessories/muzzle-guards/dewey-brass-muzzle-guards-prod5650.aspx

There are the pull-through cleaners like the cheap Bore Snakes and the better Otis.
The Bore Snakes just don't do a very good job of cleaning.  They're intended to be a field quick cleaner for use until you get back home and your rod.

The Otis is good, but like ALL pull-through cleaners, they can and will break off in the bore, leaving you with a serious problem.

I've used the Otis pull-thru cables for years and have never had one even think about breaking.

This.  The Otis pull-throughs are a stainless woven cable.  They're not a standard string like the boresnake utilizes and is known to break.

The Otis failures I've heard of are cases of the threaded patch holder stripping and pulling off the cable, and a couple of cases where the end of the cable broke off.

The Otis is a nice field cleaner, but it CAN fail.

All my Otis gear is metal. No plastic bits anywhere.  If you're pulling hard enough to completely rip metal threads clean off, you were doing something else very wrong before you got to that point.

If you get a patch stuck in the bore, forget about trying to beat it out with a cleaning rod and a hammer.

Just pull a bullet from a cartridge, chamber it and fire (into a safe backstop, of course). The primer should have enough power to drive the obstruction out of the barrel without much trouble.

I dislodged a stuck projectile out of a 1917 Enfield with this very method, and it worked like a charm.

x3