Gunsmithing Barrel and Action cleaning

[keith jones]

I know its been as several times.But never seen a for sure answer. Got brand new rifle. What steps do I need to take before shooting?Then when do I clean it again? What method an products do you guys use? It's a Remington 700P .308. Thanks guys,and once again I have searched this before. Just looking for sure responses. Plus is break in procedure needed. Thanks Hide Members

 

[fargo007]

Off the rack gun?

I would look through the bore first just to make sure there isn't any kind of obstruction. Then run a tight dry patch or two down it to get any machine oils out that might have been left there.

Then - just shoot it. And for as long as it's shooting great, leave the bore alone. Don't put ANYTHING down the bore. Not a boresnake, not a dry patch and especially not "just a little bit of oil to protect it."


When the groups start opening way up, it's time to clean it again but that won't be for several hundred rounds at least.

You will still clean the bolt, bolt raceways, lug sockets with your solvent of choice but stay out of the bore, 110%.


Reasons why:

1 - If it's shooting good, why are you going to interject with a process that will interrupt that?

2 - It's far easier to clean a barrel to death than it is to shoot one to death.

3 - The barrel will not last forever. It is a consumable. You are going to need another one at some point, so let as many shots out of it as possible be worthwhile.

4 - If you clean it every time you shoot it, you will be chasing your zero every single weekend with 1/3 of your precision ammunition. 1/3 Of your barrel life and ammo budget will be spent putting rounds in places you don't want them to go. And then right before you go home, it's shooting great again, then you go home and completely reset the clock. If I worked for an ammunition company I would tell everybody to proceed this way, but I don't.

5 - Risk of damage to the muzzle crown. Even the slightest imperfections scored onto the surface of the crown can affect the bullet. It is the most important part of the bore, and the most easily damaged due to a brush & chemical scrubfest.

HTH,

--Fargo007

 

[agbm]

Great rifle I love mine, my Rem 700p and my Rem AAC-SD both shoot well below .250 MOA at 100 yards when I do my part. Remember your Rem 700p has a parkerized finish on it, so make sure you oil on it.
Run a couple of patches with a jag down barrel with froglube and barrel is clean. Look over action to make sure its clean Next I started my break in, quick and simple I just followed directions in the kit.
My break in was done using a David Tubbs Kit: 308 FinalFinish + TMS Loaded Ammo Complete Care ProPack
Also get a good bore guide, items I use: Lucas bore guide and Possum hollow bore guide, Tipton carbon fiber rod a must, Sharp shooter wipe out patch out & accelerator, Froglube, Tipton jags, Cotton patches,Nylon bore brush. Bore on Rem700p rifle has been coated with smooth Kote Sentry Solutions: Smooth-Kote™ 2 oz. jar and been burnished with BP2000 Sentry Solutions: BP2000 Powder™
I never put any type of metal bore brushes ever down my bore's on either my Rem 700p or my Rem 700 AAC-S. Both factory .308 barrels and they shoot great.
Just have fun and enjoy

AGBM

 

[wapiti16b]

Everything mentioned in the previous responses and one more thing , NEVER use any copper removal cleaning agent that uses ammonia !! . If you smell ammonia PASS ! . My smith showed me the results of the chemical/heat reaction on a hunting rifle of mine and the bore looked like an alligators back under the bore scope .
Use JB Bore on a patch wrapped around a nylon brush and scrub until clean .

 

[Asperly Aimless]

Copper solvents containing ammonia is fine. Just don't try to save money and dump household ammonia down the barrel and let it sit over night.

JB Bore paste is an abrasive. Good stuff, just keep in mind what it is.

I shoot until accuracy falls off. When that I happens I use butches bore shine on a patch, let it soak in the barrel while I step outside for a smoke, and patch it out after my smoke. Easy as that.

For my benchrest guns I scrub the barrel after every string.

 

[LRI]

Off the rack gun?

I would look through the bore first just to make sure there isn't any kind of obstruction. Then run a tight dry patch or two down it to get any machine oils out that might have been left there.

Then - just shoot it. And for as long as it's shooting great, leave the bore alone. Don't put ANYTHING down the bore. Not a boresnake, not a dry patch and especially not "just a little bit of oil to protect it."


When the groups start opening way up, it's time to clean it again but that won't be for several hundred rounds at least.

You will still clean the bolt, bolt raceways, lug sockets with your solvent of choice but stay out of the bore, 110%.


Reasons why:

1 - If it's shooting good, why are you going to interject with a process that will interrupt that?

2 - It's far easier to clean a barrel to death than it is to shoot one to death.

3 - The barrel will not last forever. It is a consumable. You are going to need another one at some point, so let as many shots out of it as possible be worthwhile.

4 - If you clean it every time you shoot it, you will be chasing your zero every single weekend with 1/3 of your precision ammunition. 1/3 Of your barrel life and ammo budget will be spent putting rounds in places you don't want them to go. And then right before you go home, it's shooting great again, then you go home and completely reset the clock. If I worked for an ammunition company I would tell everybody to proceed this way, but I don't.

5 - Risk of damage to the muzzle crown. Even the slightest imperfections scored onto the surface of the crown can affect the bullet. It is the most important part of the bore, and the most easily damaged due to a brush & chemical scrubfest.

HTH,

--Fargo007

+1 eleventy billion trillion.

Well said. Sticky this biche!!

 

[keith jones]

I agree this should be a sticky. That was very clear and simple. I even messaged him thanking for great response. Hit nail on head

 

[wapiti16b]

Believe what you want about ammonia based copper removal agents , but a study from a local smith and Sandia Labs ( one of the premier labs in the world ) confirms the chemical reaction between ammonia and the heat generated by firing a round from such a barrel treated with ammonia no matter how clean you think you have gotten it and you are positive all the ammonia is gone will create micro fractures resembling an alligators back under a bore-scope . It only takes microscopic amounts over many cleanings to ruin your bore !
JB should only be used as needed , not as a every cleaning ritual as it is slightly abrasive .

 

[Asperly Aimless]

I will.

I used to shoot with some of the most barrel scrubbing loving individuals. They used 7.62, Butch's, and many other ammonia based concoctions and scrub between strings every time. These guys shoot aggregates that are better than most of the hand selected groups posted here.

Do you have a link or scanned copy of the research and testing done by the local gunsmith and Sandia labs?

 

[wapiti16b]

I do not have a link just the opinion of my smith after research with the labs and the opinion that you shoot real world regardless of cleaning between strings . Cold bore is one thing and match is another . I also have used sweets 7.62 and barnes and shooters choice . Shooters choice is the only one recommended by my smith and only after extensive scrubbing to remove any solvent remaining . Pristine bores have no relation to match or hunting applications and IMHO you are much better off shooting dirty than pristine as this is real world conditions .. Take that for what it's worth , I just know after bore-scoping that what I observed was true and I regret using copper solvents to the tune of 800 to 1200 dollars for a new barrel for my rifle after only 1,000 rounds est...
my barrels are chromemaly both hammer forged and Douglas air gauged . The Douglas faired better than the Sauer as the Sauer was way more over-bore , 300 WIN MAG VS 25-06 Remington . FWIW !

 

[Asperly Aimless]

Is match real world? I'm pretty sure the benchrest matches are, in fact, matches. That would make them real world. There are parts of the shooting world where groups are measured and verified along with the moving target backer...

Are you sure your smith wasn't just seeing fire cracking and blowing smoke up your backside? How did a local gunsmith get a world renowned lab to do the tests for him? Did he share this information with anybody else?

Sorry, but I'm raising up the BS flag here. You are just regurgitating what you read here.

 

[wapiti16b]

My smith is located less than two miles from the Sandia Labs complex and does work with them all the time and has many clients that work at the labs , his muzzle-brakes were researched at the labs before the final designs were manufactured . Could he be blowing smoke ? , I doubt it he seems like a very matter of fact individual and a good man that does not tolerate BS . I think if he were less than reputable he wouldn't have been in business for as long as he has been !
I don't know where the regurgitation comes into play , this is the first post on this subject that I have made . I'm just passing along an opinion from someone with a lifetime of smithing and shooting experience .
As to benchrest match being real world you are correct it's real . Tactical and hunting are also just as real but with different restrictions . I'd never set out to kill a Elk with a spotlessly clean barrel knowing I may have to take a second shot , possibly at longer range than the first and why would I clean my painstakingly sighted match rifle during a match only to change my POI in doing so ?
I'm familiar with Fire Cracking and this went well beyond that both in severity and location .
I seem to have upset you somehow , that is not my intention

 

[xringaccuracy]

Not jumping into the ammonia part. I agree only clean when accuracy falls off. One thing I think is worth while is the rectangle internal lug cleaners. I advise my customers to keep a film of grease on the back side of the bolt lugs. That grease will build up.

 

[NFW]

There's is a lot of back in forth about this clean don't clean, personally I think it's all about what your rifle likes. For the first 100-200 shots I didn't clean so it could brake in the barrel, but after that when findings a load did the same, but one thing I noticed from a buddy of mine that has been doing this a long time, he cleans his thoroughly after each shoot, why? He reasons behind it is that the copper that comes off gets in the lands, we'll the lands pretty much guide where the bullets gonna go, we'll after a certain point the there's a certain amount of copper in there that's not griping the bullet anymore or with constancy. He showed me this with his bench 223, after about 30 shots his groups were opening up, after a good hard scrub and a actually get everything out next time we went out it was back to one hole groups at 200yd, so explain that... Now with that in consideration my aac sd I shot one of my better groups load testing after about 40 shots, I loaded 50 rd and wasn't gonna clean in the middle. But since it was one of my better groups next time I go out I haven't messed with anything. With that said eariler in my load testing which got me to where I am now and pretty much found my load I wanted threw cleaning it very we'll after each shoot. My cousin hasn't cleaned his since he got his rifle and still shoots great, so it's just what works for you.

In my opinion take everybodies advise into consideration, shoot 100 rd if is stays consistence through out you know what ya need to do but if your not getting the groups you were after a certain point maybe be 20-30rd then go scrub that thing clean and get everything out. But in the end your just gonna have to see what best works for your rifle.

 

[bax]

FWIW: I have been shooting benchrest style for about 20 years. In that style, the barrel cannot be too clean. I recently started to shoot steel, prone off a bipod, at 500 meters. That is a different game where cold-bore shots matter.

If I get the gun on target at 500 meters then take it home and clean it with my method, the cold bore 500 meter shot will be about 1 foot high and 1 foot to the right. If I leave the gun dirty, my cold bore shot is pretty close but the second shot is on the money. The clean gun takes 2 or 3 shots to get back on the money.

Guidelines

Use a cleaning rod guide. I bought mine from Sinclair; there may be better ones. Use a one-piece coated cleaning rod, I use Bore-Tech and Dewey. If you don't use a rod guide and/or if you use a segmented cleaning rod (steel or aluminum) then it really doesn't matter how you clean the barrel because you are going to booger up the throat or the crown and the gun will stop shooting before the bore gets dirty. If you use a guide and a 1-piece rod, the rest of your system is up to you. The only really wrong things are too much cleaning (every stroke of the cleaning rod is a risk), too much ammonia (for high pressure, high velocity rounds, it aggravates barrel alligator), dirty patches (dirt scratches the barrel), and steel brushes (same as dirty patches, bronze or nylon are best).

My Cleaning Drill

Here is my cleaning drill, your mileage may vary. There is more voodoo about gun cleaning than weirdos at a Trekkie convention.

I use a nylon brush and Ed's Red for 10 careful strokes -- always be careful of the crown. Two dry patches. The goal is to thoroughly moisten the powder fouling with ER and wipe out as much as possible.

1 patch of wipe-out accelerator and 1 patch of wipe-out. Wait 5 or 10 minutes; 1 dry patch. Repeat for a total of 3 cycles. Wipe-out contains some ammonia -- a lot less than Sweet's. Ammonia and copper makes a blue organic compound. That color is the only good thing about ammonia, it tells us if the barrel still has copper in it.

If the 3rd dry patch comes out with blue on it -- blue means that there is still copper in the barrel -- run a patch of JB, 3 patches of Ed's Red and two dry patches. The idea here is: if the barrel is still not clean after 3 cycles of wipe-out then continuing this process means that you run the risk of damaging the barrel with the rod. Accelerate the cleaning process and reduce the rod damage risk by going straight to the nuclear solution. Why not go straight here and skip the wipe-out? Because JB is abrasive and won't help your beautiful 5R rifling.

If the 3rd dry patch doesn't show blue, the barrel is done. If it is close, I may do a 4th cycle. Or maybe not. Sometimes I just slap in some KG12 (just for the hell of it) and two dry patches. KG12 and JB both make the patch slide through the barrel like it was oiled.

When it is done, run a patch of oil, wipe the fluids off the brake and barrel, and put it in the rack. Why oil? Even stainless steel "rusts". And we just finished running metal projectiles through the barrel more than 2,500 feet per second under high temperature and about 55,000 pounds per square inch pressure. Then we clean the snot out of it with abrasive and corrosive stuff. The oil will reduce the chance that oxygen will combine with something in the barrel steel or something that we didn't get out of there and create a problem. If I am taking the gun to the field, I run a dry patch through it to remove most of the oil - if I leave oil in the bore, dirt will collect there.

Make no mistake, a clean barrel is not really clean. Find a guy with a borescope. It will make you wonder why you bother; but a clean gun shoots better than a really dirty one -- benchrest guys don't clean after every match just so they can screw up their barrels. </sarc> Barrels cost $400 a pop even if you buy them in bulk and chamber them yourself.

I put 70 rounds through one of the 7.62 guns last weekend and I didn't clean it at all, just set it in the rack. I will probably put a total of 200 rounds through it then clean it again. An acquaintance with a professional background pointed out that it is hard to clean a gun in a hide, targets won't wait, and clean-barrel cold-bore shots are not consistent.

A properly broken-in barrel with about 50 rounds through it should produce a clean 4th patch every time. In that particular 7.62 gun with about 30 rounds, I will get a clean 3rd patch. That gun has a Kreiger barrel 5R on it. I have a 300 Win Mag with a Bartlein 5R that behaves the same. I have had many other barrels, cleaning depends on the individual barrel. I had a Gary Schneider in 300 win mag that never broke in; other people love them and wouldn't have a different barrel. I think that expensive barrels break in faster, shoot better, longer, and clean up easier. I will buy another Kreiger or Bartlein when I need a new barrel. I have owned Harts and Shilens, that Schneider, and Remington barrels - that was the worst. Threatening to load the weapon, even gesturing in its direction with a round, made the barrel dirty - no shooting required.

Action

I use an AR-10 chamber brush, it looks like the M16/AR15 chamber brush except the chamber bristles are bigger, and a brass pistol rod. That cleans the chamber and the space where the bolt lugs reside - a couple of turns does it. I usually wipe out the bolt rails with Ed's Red then dry them. I put very light oil on the bolt locking surface and the cocking surface. I disassemble the bolt (remove the firing pin and shroud) every time and knock out any crud. For my nicer bolt with the M16 extractor, I occasionally remove the extractor and ejector and clean in there. I put very little oil on anything where dust or dirt could adhere.

I have a fire-forming barrel for the 300 win mag. If I pull the barrel in order to fire form, I pull the action out and really clean in the space where the action sets. Otherwise, I don't fool with the action screws or the action.

Trigger

I have Jewell triggers. I have several. I already bitched to Arnold about how much they cost, "You bastard! I have a $1,200 of your triggers!" He laughed at me. YMMV. I never clean them. I check the pull weight once a year just to be sure. Mine are set to 4 pounds. I have never had one change by itself.

I saw a Jewell trigger stop working once. It was at the Crawfish benchrest match in 1994 or 1995. The shooter went to the line, the gun would not cock, he came back in a panic, borrowed a gun and ammo, went back and shot his match. While he was shooting Arnold heard about the problem, walked over, took out the trigger and disassembled it. When the shooter came back, Arnold was HOT!. The shooter had stoned some surface and Arnold noticed. I suggest that if you ever stone one of Arnold's triggers, don't let him find out.

The official cleaning method is: run naptha (lighter fluid) through it.

 

[brwn bggr]

All this cleaning for accuracy, is sure interesting...
We all mostly just clean um so as to keep the handle moving back and forth ...
Daddy says changing the oil in a gun when it's still working is a lot like changing the air in a tire when the old air was working just fine...
I do rub some oil on the barrel and let it soak in...keep the bullets from sticking you know...
Daddy don't like that...

 

[4000fps]

I would soak a new barrel overnight with Wipe-Out, then run a few patches through it and hit the range. Contrary to what a lot of people claim, I clean a new tube every 20 rounds or so until it settles down. Then it is usually every 40-50 rounds. I have yet to own a gun that shoots better dirty. After the first fouling shot, you are good to go.

 

[Jeff in TX]

Off the rack gun?

I would look through the bore first just to make sure there isn't any kind of obstruction. Then run a tight dry patch or two down it to get any machine oils out that might have been left there.

Then - just shoot it. And for as long as it's shooting great, leave the bore alone. Don't put ANYTHING down the bore. Not a boresnake, not a dry patch and especially not "just a little bit of oil to protect it."


When the groups start opening way up, it's time to clean it again but that won't be for several hundred rounds at least.

You will still clean the bolt, bolt raceways, lug sockets with your solvent of choice but stay out of the bore, 110%.


Reasons why:

1 - If it's shooting good, why are you going to interject with a process that will interrupt that?

2 - It's far easier to clean a barrel to death than it is to shoot one to death.

3 - The barrel will not last forever. It is a consumable. You are going to need another one at some point, so let as many shots out of it as possible be worthwhile.

4 - If you clean it every time you shoot it, you will be chasing your zero every single weekend with 1/3 of your precision ammunition. 1/3 Of your barrel life and ammo budget will be spent putting rounds in places you don't want them to go. And then right before you go home, it's shooting great again, then you go home and completely reset the clock. If I worked for an ammunition company I would tell everybody to proceed this way, but I don't.

5 - Risk of damage to the muzzle crown. Even the slightest imperfections scored onto the surface of the crown can affect the bullet. It is the most important part of the bore, and the most easily damaged due to a brush & chemical scrubfest.

HTH,

--Fargo007

Well said it just doesn't get any plainer or simpler. I've got to say you hit the nail solidly on the head with #1, 2, 3 & 4. Folks just don't understand or get this.

 

[miamigunsinc]

Gun target also nice experience.Thanks for the sharing.