Rim Fire Bore Cleaning

KAZ · Post by **KAZ** » Wed Jul 29, 2009 10:44 am

I KNOW that this is a topic that most have strong opinions on and have methods/tools that have served us for years. I also am aware that if a new concept is advanced most of us will keep an open mind. That said, the barrel is the component that provides the accuracy level(or not) that we require of our rifles. So, proper barrel cleaning is essential for that factory rifle that luck of the draw is target grade or the custom with a famous maker barrel. Bill Calfee makes his point that he has had to re barrel some of his customs because of improper cleaning method by some his(Champion Benchrest) customers. Yes, he does charge them, but would rather spend his time building new rifles. Here is how he feels it should be done, your mileage may vary

HOW SHOULD A BORE BE CLEANED
The bore of one of our little rifles should be cleaned with a proper cleaning rod, one that won't hurt the bore, and a good, well constructed cleaning rod guide. Good cleaning patches should be used along with good bore solvent, as well as properly constructed cleaning brushes. Ok Bill, what are the proper components to use and how.

CLEANING RODS
I know a bunch of you folks are tired of hearing this, but a SAFE cleaning rod must be made of hardened, highly polished steel. NO COATED CLEANING RODS! But Bill, man, a cleaning rod with a nice soft coating can't possibly hurt a hard steel rifle bore. Oh yes it can. Folks, I have written here is ARA News before about why a soft cleaning rod is worse for a bore than a hardened steel rod. We don't need to re-hash that again.

CLEANING ROD GUIDES

Boy, where to start. Folks, if you can put a cloth cleaning patch on your cleaning rod jag and push them both through your cleaning rod guide, you ain't guiding the rod properly. And not only that but why would you want to take a new clean patch and push it through a cleaning rod guide before you push it into your bore. What kinds of junk are going to be on the inside of that cleaning rod guide that the new clean patch will pick up and transfer to your bore. Man, that don't make no sense.

Some years ago the bore cleaning industry went from cleaning rod guides that actually guided the rod, to cleaning rod guides that keep solvent out of the action and trigger. I guess they felt it was more important to keep the solvent out of the action, as it would loosen glue-in bedding jobs and gum up triggers, than to actually guide the cleaning rod in the bore. What a terrible mistake. Oh, if you can keep the solvent out of the action and trigger AND properly guide the cleaning rod at the same time, fine. But the most important thing for a cleaning rod guide to do is to actually GUIDE the cleaning rod.

OK Bill, where do we get the proper cleaning rods and guides? Boy, that's the 64-dollar question. The absolute best cleaning rod I personally know of is made by Bill Myers. Bill is not in the cleaning rod business, as such, he is a gunsmith who has tried to fill a need. His cleaning rod is made of stainless steel and heat treated to 40 plus 'C' scale Rockwell hardness. Most barrel steel is in the 20's 'C' scale Rockwell hardness. Some are a little harder and some a little softer. So his rod is much harder than the bore of our little barrels. But his cleaning rod is expensive. When you have to pay $50.00 or more for a centerless ground, hardened rod blank, before you ever do any machining on it, and when you have to try to drill and thread steel that hard, the finished product ain't going to be cheap. I know Bill is not really interested in making these rods. He can't be making any money on them. He has done this more as a service to the shooters to help protect their bores.

And cleaning rod guides. A proper cleaning rod guide should be a close fit to the breech bolt raceway of your action, and the hole through the guide must be perfectly centered and a gauge fit to your cleaning rod. Then the thing will actually help keep the cleaning rod centered in the bore. In other words, it will actually GUIDE the cleaning rod.

See folks, a quality rimfire benchrest action will have the breech bolt raceway on centers with the bore, it won't be close to centered, it will be perfectly centered. So when you make the cleaning rod guide fit the breech bolt raceway closely, and if the barrel is threaded and chambered properly and if the hole through the cleaning rod guide is perfectly centered, your cleaning rod will be perfectly centered in the bore, which means you ain't going to be wiping the lands and chamber lead away, like you can with an un-guided cleaning rod, like one you can push a patch on your jag through.

OK, WHERE CAN ONE GET THE CORRECT STUFF TO CLEAN BORES PROPERLY WITH?
I know what you folks are thinking; Bill, I got a house full of cleaning rods and stuff. Why should I go out and buy a bunch of more stuff? Would you like for me to give you Carl Dean's telephone number, or my local two friends or the several times National Champion? I bet they will be glad to tell you why.

Folks, like I said, there are a lot of you who do clean your bores properly, but if you have any doubts at all, please listen to this information. I don't want you folks to have to buy a bunch of more cleaning stuff either. But I also don't want you to have to replace that killer barrel that you may ruin from faulty cleaning. And something else; I ain't in the bore cleaning supplies business, so I have absolutely nothing to gain, financially, by preaching about bore cleaning like I do. I only want to help you folks to protect your little bores so you can do that killer shooting, for a long time, that I and you love to see. And I have a bunch of rifles in competition, and the stuff I am writing about I for sure want the folks using my little guns to follow.

chadflys · Post by **chadflys** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 10:37 am

Well I just got my new CZ 452 Varmit yesterday. Love and want to take the best care of it so it will last.

Where do I start....Your the first that I have read to really stress highly posished stainless steel rods. I asked this question a while back and got lots of Dewey's and a few proshot and lots of Carbon fibers........The proshots are the only good quality steel rods I have seen. Not all that polished either. So darn I just special ordered two carbon fiber ProTec rods from a local guy here in Memphis. Stiff, and slick as snot. I guess I'll order a steel one too and compare. (Ivy Rod)

What's really confuzing......The real competitive guys here don't even clean their barrels except then they think they are losing some accuracy. Then they will run a few patches never a brush.

Next, what is the best rod guide for a CZ 452?

KAZ · Post by **KAZ** » Thu Jul 30, 2009 8:09 pm

chadflys, here is the bore guide that I use for my 452s http://cz452.com/boreguide.html

On the rods, I own several of the Dewey coated rods that have served me well for years. I do have a couple of 22 rf(one by Calfee) that I'm going to clean with the IVY rods. It's the hardness of the steel that he is recommending, and a good bore guide to keep the rod centered. you can wipe the tops of the lands off, and the leade of the chamber away, by using a cleaning rod guide that allows the rod to be off center.
He claims many rimfire barrels are ruined by improper cleaning, and would be better off left dirty. Many of us shoot thousands of rounds in a season, and you will build up a lead ring if you don't clean. Mine comes back with good groups in 4or 5 shots after I clean. You are well on the way with your excellent CZ. Regards

chadflys · Post by **chadflys** » Mon Aug 03, 2009 9:52 am

I have had the dewey rods shed their coating in my Ruger mkII. I know at the sacrifice of my barrel, but they are kina expensive to replace often. I'll be ordering one of the ivy rods. Thanks for the link. I'll check it out.

chadflys

KAZ · Post by **KAZ** » Mon Aug 03, 2009 11:30 am

Great, my dealer has my IVY rod and bore guide ready for me to pick up. It's not so painful when you are buying a new rod to go ahead and get the IVY. It's not like the others are cheap.

blue68f100 · Post by **blue68f100** » Mon Aug 03, 2009 2:41 pm

After working with materials engineers most all my life I have a problem using something hard enough to marr the rifling. It's kind of like taking a file to sharpen a custom knife. You still have the chance of damaging the rifling inserting the rod or removing the rod. If you have a burr or sharp edge on the tip it will do damage. If soft metals damages the rifling you do it every time you fire the gun. I will stick with my coated, and bare rods. Years ago they said to use brass rods, then steel, then fiberglass, then coated. None of my guns showed any wear from cleaning them. I would suspect more guns are damaged from improper storage than any thing else. None of my guns are safe queens, I see no good in have a gun you can't shoot.

arizona-hermit · Post by **arizona-hermit** » Tue Aug 04, 2009 8:14 pm

I have been cleaning weapons for over 50 years and for the past 40 or so, no metal rod or brass brush has touched 'any' of my weapons. I use the bore snake (or my homemade variants long before bore snakes were available) exclusively and have yet to experience a problem with them.

Just my .02

ruger22 · Post by **ruger22** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 5:10 pm

Here goes another two cents worth.......

I only have .22 handguns at the moment, but have had lots of other calibers and types over the years.

I stick with Hoppe's for everything. No.9 or occasionally their copper formula solvent. Hoppe's patches, bronze and nylon brushes, and their basic aluminum rods (keep wiped clean, they will pick up grit). And I always use a jag for patches, no loop ends.

I run a solvent soaked patch down the barrel, then go do something else for at least an hour. Then I do two in, out sweeps with a bronze brush. Then a solvent patch, and a dry patch. Then four in and out sweeps with a nylon brush. Then I do wet patches until I get one looking clean. Then a dry patch. If it is clean, one more wet patch finishes the job. It usually takes me about 12-15 patches after my average 200 rounds.

Another note, I rarely use round nose lead ammo, to save me cleaning lead fouling. If I do shoot any plain lead, I always finish the session with a dozen or so copper rounds. This seems to clear out the lead.

KAZ · Post by **KAZ** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 7:55 pm

I'm going to admit a rare admission on this thread. I clean most of my rimfires exactly like most of you do. That is not often, and without regard to being fanatic about it. I should have titled my post: "Proper Cleaning Of a Benchrest smallbore Rifle" where thousands of rounds a year of high end waxed lead bullets are fired in a season. This is a game of precision with large investments in actions,barrels,tuners,rest,ammo($999 for a 5000 rd case). Rebarreling is very expensive, and this particular Gun Smith/rifle builder says that he gets rifles(4 out of 5 in this example) that he built in for a rebarrel that could have been put off for a while by spending less than $100 on a hardened steel rod, and a proper bore guide. Regards