Bore Cleaning and Accuracy

[Sir Henry]

I have many milsurp firearms and clean/lube them to military specs but on other firearms (mostly rimfire) I don't clean them nearly as much. For my Ruger 10/22's and CZ's I mostly just run a boresnake down the tube and they shoot straight. But what I'm finding is that my Henrys seem to have a drop off in accuracy. Looking down the barrel I can't see anything and I look close.

So this weekend I cleaned several Henrys with good ol' number nine. The barrels seems to be brighter and I'm wondering if that will translate into better accuracy? Can't go to the range today and LEO has the range closed tomorrow for training so it might be Wednesday before I can get to the range.

Any guesses as to what I should expect?

[JEBar]

no clue what you should expect but am sure looking forward to hearing what you find out

[ditto1958]

Yeah. I wanna know if I can keep being lazy about cleaning my rimfire guns!

[Sir Henry]

I'm not lazy. I'm conserving energy.

[CT_Shooter]

I'm not lazy. I'm conserving energy.

That's my go to excuse, too. So far, so good.

[RanchRoper]

Some people do more work than they should so it's my obligation to do less to keep things balanced.

[RanchRoper]

I have many milsurp firearms and clean/lube them to military specs but on other firearms (mostly rimfire) I don't clean them nearly as much. For my Ruger 10/22's and CZ's I mostly just run a boresnake down the tube and they shoot straight. But what I'm finding is that my Henrys seem to have a drop off in accuracy. Looking down the barrel I can't see anything and I look close.

So this weekend I cleaned several Henrys with good ol' number nine. The barrels seems to be brighter and I'm wondering if that will translate into better accuracy? Can't go to the range today and LEO has the range closed tomorrow for training so it might be Wednesday before I can get to the range.

Any guesses as to what I should expect?

So far, with my limited experience, I believe my rifle shoots better & more accurate when it's just been cleaned. I have always come away with better looking target results so far.

[bandit1250]

My CZ's and old Remington 22's all shoot their best between half a dozen shots to around two boxes of ammo. They lose accuracy faster if I keep changing to different brands with out at least wiping the bore out. Some times a bore snake will take care of it but their is nothing that beats a brush and solvent when they have had a lot of rounds down the pipe. When we were kids if we didn't clean our rifles Dad would tell us no shooting again to you take care of your rifle and that meant a brush and Hoppe's no.9 and some clean patches through the bore. I clean mine because of the powdered glass in the priming mix that accumulates in the bore and has a sanding effect with every round that goes through the barrel. The priming has no anvil in a rim fire and needs the powdered glass to create friction to fire. There was an article in Precision Shooting(I believe that was it) one time I remember they said the bottom of the throat will show out of round wear from the powdered glass that falls to the bottom of the bore and wears away at the metal in the throat on high use 22's. The bore showed more wear at the bottom and they said it is from the powdered glass falling to the bottom from gravity. I have looked through bores on very dirty rifles before cleaning and they usually always look more dirty at the bottom. Everyone has their own idea of cleaning their rifles and some say their rifle won't shoot after cleaning but that can be a very rough barrel that needs to be dirty to fill in the rough spots before it will shoot. My rifles shoot better than friends of mine that never clean theirs. I will continue to clean mine as it has worked all these years for me so why change now.

[Les]

I've never really "cleaned" any of my .22's either, including my target rifles. They get a pull through with a boresnake after ever range visit, and that's it. If the accuracy ever goes off, it's normally because of the nut on the butt (in my case, that is ).

[Sir Henry]

My CZ's don't have the accuracy falloff like my Henrys so I'm still not convinced it is because the tube is dirty.

[ditto1958]

I can't seem to shoot my H001 well enough to tell whether cleaning/not cleaning makes any difference. My Henry H009, however, is an interesting case. Unlike my Marlin 30-30's, which don't seem to ever get very dirty, the bore on my Henry must be porous or rough. After shooting as little as one 20 round box of 30-30 ammo, patches with solvent come out really black,Mandy then green from copper.

[Bish1309]

If the accuracy ever goes off, it's normally because of the nut on the butt.

Oh, that is classic!

Great signature line.

[ditto1958]

I've been posting a few bragging reports on my new CZ 452. It appears I hit the accuracy jackpot with this rifle. As I do with all firearms I buy, before shooting it I cleaned it and then lightly lubed it. I then headed to the range and blasted away. Before casing it up, I ran a bore snake through it a couple of times. Since then, that's all I've done. If it ain't broke, I'm not gonna fix it.

If accuracy falls off, I will do a much more thorough cleaning.

[bandit1250]

This is a good read for anyone that thinks cleaning rim fires is not required to keep accuracy. A little long but a lot of information.
http://www.rrdvegas.com/rimfire-cleaning.html

[Les]

If the accuracy ever goes off, it's normally because of the nut on the butt.

Oh, that is classic!

Great signature line.

Nobody can accuse me of being dishonest.

[tractortad]

This is a good read for anyone that thinks cleaning rim fires is not required to keep accuracy. A little long but a lot of information.
http://www.rrdvegas.com/rimfire-cleaning.html

wow - alot more to cleaning a 22 than I ever imagined - almost sounds like you need a bore scope to know if your 22 barrel is really clean or not....

[Les]

wow - a lot more to cleaning a 22 than I ever imagined - almost sounds like you need a bore scope to know if your 22 barrel is really clean or not....

Bore scopes are great, if you know what you're looking at, but if not they can scare the life out of you!

[PT7]

A comment from the "cleaning nut." I'm seriously addicted to a clean firearm, and appreciate this very interesting article, Bandit.

I'm wading through it slowly, but I did skim it also. Very much looking forward to any helps under the "Tools, Solvents, and Accessories" section. I need to get a new rifle cleaning rod, so hope this has some good pointers. Found this to be an interesting intro paragraph to cleaning rods discussion:

The most important tool in your cleaning kit is the cleaning rod. The quality of this tool will make the biggest difference to the overall health of your rifle.

I also noticed there are discussion and differences in bronze jags, so will read up on that. I have some different-style jags, and will be interesting to find out more on how each one performs. Thanks again.

This is a good read for anyone that thinks cleaning rim fires is not required to keep accuracy. A little long but a lot of information.
http://www.rrdvegas.com/rimfire-cleaning.html

[CT_Shooter]

This is a good read for anyone that thinks cleaning rim fires is not required to keep accuracy. A little long but a lot of information.
http://www.rrdvegas.com/rimfire-cleaning.html

Thanks, Bandit. There's a lot to digest here, but I'm certain that after a careful reading, it will be helpful. I've just printed it out to help me to get through it.

[CT_Shooter]

I just finished reading it and am really impressed with the volume of valuable information and the quality of the advice. Thanks again, Bandit. I learned so much.