One more line item in the vast library of "Stuff I don't understand":

Many guys far more knowledgeable than I have opined as how "excessive cleaning" will wear the bore out faster than just blazing away with the bore dirty.

I don't really understand how a bronze brush moving at 1.5 fps down the bore at room temperature can cause more wear than a bullet moving at 3,000 fps and being pushed by gases at 7.6359 bazillion degrees centigrade.

On the other hand, I CAN intuitively see how a bullet pushing lots of poo-poo ka-ka in front of it could be hard on the rifling.

What am I missing? Help me out here.

Just give me a minute to don my Nomex coveralls.

SD

well we are talking numbers.
say 10 rounds and 200 passes vs.
1000 rounds w/o cleaning.


the only way to keep your gun new is not to shoot it.  other than that it's a disposable object that erodes during operation.  if you shoot it you are destroying it.  if you clean it you are destroying it.  

under normal range use it's not a big deal.  super accurate match guns suffer from over cleaning.  "blasters" suffer from excessive firing.  bot are at extreme end of the spectrum.

I've been looking into this issue recently as I am developing a proper cleaning regime for my Bushy M4gery.

The general notion that 'Overcleaning is Bad" (gleaned from reading through the archives) not that the bronze brush that damages the bore, it's improper use of cleaning tools and solvents.

Statistically speaking here, if your bore cleaning program involves running various patches and brushes down the bore 30 or 40 times, there is a good chance that in one of your cleaning sessions you won't have the brush on properly or the rod will scrape down the barrel causing lots more damage then even a succession of bullets will.