Barrel cleanliness and accuracy

[Reloadron]

Barrel cleanliness and accuracy

Just an observation on my part. I am not a bench rest type guy. I do shoot and have membership at Kelbly's Range which is home to the annual Super Shoot in the bench rest community. These are the 100 & 200 yard bench rest competition shooters. These bench rest guys are an interesting lot. I watch them load on the range, shoot 3 shots and clean the barrel. Every 3 rounds they are punching a patch on a jag down the barrel aft to fore with solvent then a few dry patches. Then 3 more rounds and repeat.

Me? I may run between 100 to 200 of 223 and 308 down range. I then wet my barrels real good and make the hour ride home. Once home I use a bronze brush followed by clean patches. Been using the Hoppes #9 with the copper solvent. I wipe the rifle down with a Rem Oil wipe and that's fine till the next time.

Ron

 

[tws3b2]

I wouldn't really know how long you can go without cleaning before it affects accuracy. Mainly because I'm a gun cleaning nut.
I deer hunted with my Remington 700. Usually 2 days a week during season. If I didn't shoot the first day I would not clean it that day but I would wipe it down inside the barrel and out with wd40. The second day it would get cleaned regardless.
Any other gun, If it gets shot it gets cleaned. That night. All guns get cleaned every few months even if not shot at all. Just the way I've always been.

 

[Remington1911]

IMHO if you want the little holes in the same spot every time there is one word we hear again and again. Consistency. Everything needs to be the exact same from shot to shot. There are books written to make sure each round you load is the same, people want the same lots for brass, primer bullet and powder. They have little gizmos that say just how hard it is to push the bullet into the case, and if you look at one of their reloading rooms you would think they robbed a hospital for their scales. Everything as perfect and above all the same as possible. Thing is each shot you run down that barrel guess what you just changed it from the last time. No matter how small there is a change, temp, "dirt", whatever it did change no doubt about it.

I have seen the bench rest guys do that same thing talked about above, and use only 1 brass reloading it each time.

All that said I THINK there comes a time that after a barrel is cleaned, there is a given "dirty" level of that barrel and it will just kind of hang right there. Now I am talking smokeless and cased bullets. This is the sweet spot and once you learn where that is, you are good to go.

Now again IMHO, does this really matter if you are not a BR guy or one of the nuts that shoot F, doubt it, if your rifle at 100 yards is shooting 8" off from where it is after 5 rounds something else is wrong.....but for bambi she is not going to care, for most of us that think 1moa at 100 yards is the end all and be all, big deal. Now add another zero to that 100 yards and this is where you need that.

Myself, depends on the rifle, a simple bolt gun a quick clean off is all I will do. If it is something old like a auto5 or model 8/81, with all those goofy little levers and so many moving parts yea I will take it down and clean and lube all those little moving bits. Actually most of the time I will pass on the barrel, more interested in all those moving parts in those old things.

Again this is with modern smokeless I just don't think that powder is that dirty anymore.....it is more a case of getting everything lubed up, and those moving parts get the attn.

 

[starnbar]

I shot high power and yes to be consistent all cases have to be weighed and capacity/volume the same. the projectiles yes weighed and checked for concentricity and sizing. powder goes without saying one lot number period same with primers. Rifle well I have seen some off the rack shoot very good and then that same rifle rebarreled put one on top of the other after some stroking. The most common variable is the shooter that is consistency and it takes quite awhile to do the same action time after time the exact same way. Cleaning, each rifle is different and therein is how well you know your rifle.

 

[taliv]

I legged out in CMP and shot High power with a rock river and a Wilson barrel from white oak. I would clean the barrel thoroughly before the season over the winter and then shoot 3 matches a month until camp perry in august. Then clean it again in winter. Did that from about 04 to 09 I think

I used lapua brass and Sierra 69 and 80s but never weight sorted the brass or bullets.

 

[lightman]

I clean my varmint rifles with custom barrels after each range trip. I may clean a few of them as much as twice a day if we get into a large Prairie Dog town. I use brushes, patches and solvents on these. I seldom do more than run a wet patch and a few dry patches through my hunting rifles after the seasons close. Unless they get wet!

Hand guns and AR's get cleaned after each range session.

 

[Poper]

I do see streaks of copper coloring (or green oxidized coloring) in some of the barrels..... do I need to worry? Does copper fouling build up over longer periods of time and begin to become a problem?

In regards to your hunting rifle(s), it appears it is fired maybe 10 rounds per year. Yes, copper fouling does build up. I will relate a real-life occurrence: My brother inherited my dad's .270 Win. Parker Hale deer rifle. Dad bought it new in 1971 and used it annually until about 1985 or so and Dad passed it on to Brother Poper about 1991. About 10 years ago (2011 +/-) I received a call from Bro: "Hey, I think the barrel is shot out on this thing. It won't shoot a group smaller than 6"!"
The upshot was that I knew both Dad and Bro were rather relaxed in their gun cleaning regimens, so I told him: "No more rounds than have traveled down that barrel (probably less than 300) over the years, I think the problem is likely copper fouling." After telling him how to remove the copper fouling by giving him explicit, detailed, labor intensive instructions to remove said fouling, he proceeded to clean the bore of the rifle. Once cleaned, the ability of the rifle to shoot 1" groups returned. (Surprise!)
The point being: Yes, copper fouling will affect the accuracy of the barrel. But it will normally take quite a few hunting seasons for it to become noticeable to the average hunter. If you use your rifle for hunting season only and rarely shoot during the off-season, I think an annual general gun cleaning, including the bore, will probably be adequate for your needs. If, like my brother experienced, your accuracy suddenly goes to pieces, then a fastidious deep cleaning of the bore may be in order and a detailed inspection of the sight base and rings screws as well as checking the tightness of the action screws to the stock.
The average competitor will probably notice the change within 100 rounds. But then he will most likely be cleaning it more often than that.
I hope this is helpful.

 

[.38 Special]

It depends on the gun, and the purpose. During my time in benchrest competition, most guys cleaned every 15 to 25 rounds, including me. For most bores, that's when accuracy would start to drop off - though it's worth noting that most bores needed a fouling shot or two before getting back to work, and also worth noting that we are talking about obscene standards for accuracy. Few of us are going to notice if Ol' Betsy starts shooting groups a tenth of an inch larger than normal.

I don't know how long my hunting and sporting rifles can go before fouling affects accuracy, as I've never shot them enough to find out. It's more than 50 rounds, anyway. When I get home I clean them thoroughly, if for no other reason that I often don't know when they will be used again and I'm trying to head off corrosion before it starts.

Most of my handguns are lead bullet only, and don't foul to any significant degree. I generally wipe off any powder fouling with light oil on a rag, and then run an oiled patch down the bore, and that's it. The few guns which are used with jacketed bullets usually get the same treatment, with a quick look down the bore for excessive copper fouling. If I see it, I'll get it out, but I honestly don't remember the last time I had to do that.

The short version is that I don't have a "standard" for bore fouling, and let each gun tell me what it needs.