Re: Cleaning .17 hmr ?
Bonnie and I have 4 of those rifles and we learned a lot about them. Our matches require 60 rounds during the match and we never have accuracy problems with that many rounds.
As I posted elsewhere, we had a copper fouling problem with our rifles. We took two days to clean them using Butch's Bore Shine and Hoppes #9. The most harmful thing you can do to a rifle barrel is run a rod through it so I keep that to an absolute minimum. Of course, run the rod in from the breach end.
We use a wet patch and let it sit for a while. I put the rifles in a rack, use a wet patch then go watch TV. Later, I'll use another patch. If it comes out green, I'll keep repeating that until the patch comes out clean. If the bore is very dirty, I might take one pass in and one out with a brass brush. Use no scrubbing and never reverse the brush inside of the bore.
Ditch any segmented rods as the joints between the segments can hurt the rifling. Get a good, one piece rod. In fact, when you pass the rod from breach to muzzle, be very careful not to catch the joint between the rod and jag on the muzzle edge.
Later, as the rifling gets smoother from firing, the copper fouling is much less. We seldom need to do that two day cleaning ritual anymore.
Remember, don't scrub. Let the chemicals do the work, avoid mechanical damage from the rod and if the patch is green, it's not clean.
Flash
