Canadian Airgun Forum

I hear many different views on this subject, can someone help and clarify this subject?....TIA

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Shoot Safely, Shoot Often & Share Your Sport!...

Cleaning a barrel is something that is either done religiously, or avoided like the plague. I run a patch through my barrel after ever fill. I use the Crown Saver pull-through with a tight fitting patch, and fold it over to get the most use out of it. For some rifles, this system is much easier and safer than a cleaning rod. The little cleaning felts can be used, but my recommendation for those, is to back them up with a round nosed pellet, or even a pointed pellet, to force the fibres into the groves for thorough cleaing. There are many that never clean their barrels and find that their sccuracy does not suffer, at least in their eyes, so that is fine.

Lead has been proven to build up over time in an air gun barrel, and should not be taken lightly about the effect it can have on accuracy. A friend of mine, who is one of the top US FT shooters, went through hell with his barrel until he got a bore scope and found that the first four inches of the barrel were perfectly clean. As the scope was pushed further into the bore, the groves got progressively more filled with the muzzle end groves being nearly completely filled with lead. Many brush strokes full of Shooter's Choice lead remover later, the barrel was returned to it's original clean condition. Now, he consistantly gets groups smaller than your pinky nail at 40 plus yards, with most being a slightly ragged hole. He cleans the bore with patches every 200 shots, now, but is keeping an eye on it for any change in accuracy, and if it does change, out will come the brushes and Shooter's Choice. Of course, your milage may vary. Take care.

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Keyrigger
CAFTA Governor

When you are long winded, is that a sign of Wisdom or Old Age?

You'll hear a million different opinions on cleaning your barrel, and most of them are right!

Some people clean it very often (before every match)

I've also heard that once you clean a barrel, it will loose a bit of accuracy until the right amount of lead buildup occurs, at which point your accuracy will improve. Then once there is too much lead, it'll open up again.

I honestly haven't been able to test my rifle in the proper conditions where I can confirm one way or the other. But I'll soon be able to perform such testing.

In the end, I believe that some methods will work well for some barrels, so if I were you, I'd start with a clean barrel, see how it performs, then monitor it. See if it gains accuracy, and if so for how long.

Thanks for the input fellows....

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Shoot Safely, Shoot Often & Share Your Sport!...