Reviving this thread...
I have recently been diagnosed with the dreaded "barrel worms".
This is my 22-250 barrel. I don't scope it every time I clean it, but I keep track of every round fired by date, and every cleaning.
It happened somewhere between 218 (2/13/22) and 742 (11/14/24) rounds. Looking at my notes, it's not uncommon for it to sit dirty for several months during this time span.
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What's odd is that I scoped the rest of my 10 rifle barrels, and
this is the only barrel with this issue. I even have another barrel from the exact same manufacturer that uses the same powder, and I've used a similar cleaning regimen on, and it does
not have this issue.
Notes:
- All of this occurs in a section of the barrel about 3" to 6" from the muzzle. There is a lot of it in that stretch, but
nowhere else.
- All rifles are stored in the same safe, inside my house, in the upper-midwest, with two of those rechargeable silica dehumidifiers.
- All barrels are stainless.
- All are cleaned primarily with Boretech Eliminator. -- I've never owned that M7 or whatever stuff referred to earlier in this thread.
- All rifles are shot suppressed.
- This barrel still shoots pretty well. I'd have to shoot it a bunch more to see if and by how much precision has decreased.
Now, I'll admit that my dehumidifying solution for the safe could be better. I don't stay on top of those rechargeable packs as well as I should. Maybe a plug-in style rod would be better. And obviously, I should clean them if I'm going to let them sit for a while, but I don't always know when that will be.
Any new thoughts from the crowd? Could I be lucky enough to summon @Frank Green ?
Considering the location of the "worms" is limited and none of my other barrels have this issue, I'm inclined to think that a defect in the steel could be a factor. However, this was not seen the 2 other times I scoped this barrel, at 0 and 218 rounds.
