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Cleaning your hand guns and rifles. Do you you clean yours after use or only after performance drops off?? I been seeing a lot of guys posting that they never clean a .22 but maybe 3 or 4 times a year.

I field strip and clean the guns I use every week. I deep clean them about once a year or sooner if I have to take them down for something.

I do not clean my rimfires very often, only when I see a drop in functioning/performance. Some people choose to clean their pistols more frequently, it's just a matter of personal preference.

R,
Bullseye

It is fairly common gospel that 22 target pistols do not need bore cleaning. My experience in the 70s was cleaning my HS 106 STr bullseye gun and it would take about 20 shots to settle back into 50 yard accuracy. Today i seldom clean the 22 pistol bores. Chamber, breech, mags, and lockwork does need cleaning as needed for function.

On the flip side, my 70s shooting smallbore prone rifle, they needed a bore clean every 20 shot stage to stay grouping.

In the HS pistol I used Remington green box (SV). In the rifle, Tenex.

Hardball,
+1, on bore cleaning. I do clean the actions, bolt faces, extractors, and chambers on a monthly basis but the bores get cleaned about every 20-30,000 rounds. It just takes too many rounds to condition the bore after cleaning and by that time the slow fire stage is over (not that my score would show any difference)(EUREKA moment!!! If I clean the bore every time, I have a built in excuse for tanking my slow fires.)

FWIW

I field strip and clean after every shooting session. I also do a good looking over as to whether anything more needs attention. I touch up any blue wear, too. Much easier when fresh.

If nothing else, it is an opportunity to find a loose or damaged part that would be missed if I just put the gun away after shooting. A gun can have a lot of problems and still shoot okay at first, or maybe something happened with the last shot before I packed up ??

I detail clean the action of my MKIII about every 2000 rounds. I do not touch the bore. I do clean the bolt and receiver every 500 rounds. But I clean this without remove the barrel.

Centerfire - yes. For long guns I may let them sit for a day or two (if I'm too tired or busy), but for those CCW pieces I clean them after every range time religiously.

Rimfire - not really.. sometimes just a pass of boresnake, sometimes... let them wait...

I find if I do not clean my Mark II every 200-300 rounds it gets a creapy trigger - swab through the barrel once or twice and put the bottom in ultrasonic cleaner. 1911 every 200-300 rounds clean top end, every 500 or so bottom and top. It just gets too dirty after that. Shooting .38 with Am. Select and Berry bullets stays so clean it could go almost for ever without cleaning, but gets it every 200-500 rounds.

Range guns get oiled every 100 or so rounds when shot indoors.

I guess I been shooting lead to long as we all know the puff loads that are used lead the barrels a little. Beings I have to field strip it I usually just go ahead and clean the whole pistol. That's a weekly chore with 200 or less rounds run through the pistol.

Now with the .22's it has been a long time since I shot any of them and I always pulled the bolts and cleaned the bore and everything else short of taking the barrel off. I'll see what happens if I skip the bore for awhile.

Carry and home defense weapons are kept in prime shape all the time and cleaned after every use.

Generally speaking, why does the frequency of cleaning differ between centerfires and rimfires?

Georgezilla:
In theory, .22LR bullets are externally lubed and are made of soft lead, so the crud in the barrel will reach a certain point and then stay about the same.
The action will need about the same level of care, centerfire/rimfire matters less than blowback/manual cycling.

Personally, I worry a lot more about the action of my guns than the bore, most of the time I run a solvent patch and then a few dry patches through on a rod (pistol) or an Otis cable (rifles), rarely scrubbing except in cases of serious grunge or suspected chamber fouling. The action gets the detail work, in my opinion most people spend too much time on the bore and neglect the moving parts.

I usually go more by round count. 1000 rds in my rimfires. my CF pistols i won't clean unless i have over 100 rds. and my AR i'll clean around 500-1000 rounds. I try to keep my SX3 cleaned and lubed because it sees the least action through the year.

like others my CCW is usually clean.

When I first got interested in the shooting sports, I recall reading and hearing people say how dirty .22 LR rounds were. However, based on what I have seen the past few years, it seems to me that most CF rounds are dirtier than .22 LR.

I think rimfire has gotten cleaner since my earlier shooting life around 1980. I don't seem to use as many patches now that I did back then. I can't say on centerfire, as I haven't bought any this time around.

.22 ammo has definitely become less of a fouling problem over the years.
When I first started shooting back in the early '50s, it was pretty mandatory to clean .22s after every session.
Now, I concentrate more on the actions, and usually run a Hoppe's swab through the barrel, followed by a dry one when the actions get scrubbed. That's about it for the barrel.
Center fire, I usually clean after each use, barrel and action. I use a lot of cast lead bullets, and its easier to keep them scrubbed out, than have to do a major de-lead operation. I use several different solvents, depending on what I need to concentrate on, - copper, lead, powder fouling, or all 3 sometimes.