Dewey, Tipton, Boresnake, stainless rods - I've used all of them for cleaning my AR. I'll share my opinions about performance versus price & durability.
Once the nylon coating of the Dewey wears out, you're forced to consider buying a new one. Deweys run at least $26 to usually $30's. No lifetime use on them. The coating is black so its sometimes hard to see embedded crud, but you can feel it when it happens. Not a bad rod, but there's better.
Stainless Steel rod - from PRO-SHOT Products of Taylorville, IL, $22. "Hefty" steel has hardly any flex. The micro-polished surface reveals dirt & crud, both visibly & by touch. But the problem is its steel and your barrel is even harder chrome-lined steel. It gets scratched by the rifling, all of which are very fine, but probably the bore gets finely scratched too. I can see how it might get a deep deep scratch, and then I think the rod is trashed.
Tiptons are great because of the carbon fiber, which should never wear out. It'll flex a lot and return to normal, unlike any metal rod. But carbon fiber also means you better not abuse it much - they say you can "lightly hammer" thru a tough patch but I won't do that on my Tipton. Min $30's.
The Boresnake - great quick cleaning, but... after two years and a long winter season of downtime, I discovered that part of my Boresnake had broken down & disintegrated into a rubbery gooey mess. Maybe its my fault I left it dirty with solvent. $10-$15 for a quick clean accessory is halfway towards a very decent cleaning rod.
Bottom line...the TipTon is worth the money.