Cleaning Rods

#9
Anybody like Dewey?

There are some others that are similar now, Dewey used to be the only one that well made FWIW. I still use 'em though. My M110 came with a high end "cheap brand" rod that's just as nice.

What makes Dewey sing are the female brass fittings and male rod. It's a slightly stronger setup at the end.
 
#11
Dewey for the ARs as they have a pretty nice kit all bundled and ready to go.

I use Bore Tech Rods for the Bolts but recently tried an Ivy Rod for my AI AT 6.5CM barrel. I know they are pricey but damn they are nice and totally custom made. I have heard good things about Montana X-treme as well from a good bud.
 
#19
As a profesional in field of carbon fiber composites , i can tell you its not a material suited for cleaning rods at all and its beyond me why they are selling them , carbon fiber composite is stiff and light but also abrasive once you wear trough thin surface resin layer.Its also far more brittle than any other rod material and abuse can resoult in injury real fast. Ideal cleaning rod would be of polished and hardened spring steel with high yield strenght , nothing plastified or soft metal nothing into which carbon and other deposits in the barrel could embed..

Those that doubt carbon fiber will abrade steel can try runing it over some steel and will be suprised how fast it will dig in.

We all fall for the fancy handles with ball bearings but that is really the least important part of the cleaning rod ,the important part is the stick ,that will not carry embeded carbon , gall the surface(stainless rod on stainless barrel ) but it the end much is up to using a proper bore guide.

Best rods ever are probably the fancy melonited ones that Stiller made sometime ago. After that likely Ivy rods and Montana Xtreme
 
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#25
I use Dewey rods as well, but will probably pick up a Montana Xtreme rod just because I've heard such good things about them.
At the end of the day though, as long as it's a 1 peice cleaning rod thats not exposed steel and the handle is freely spinning, does it matter that much? All of them will eventually need replacing, CF will start to fray, coated rods will start to either chip away or will be worn down to the steel, some may bend permanently. I'd consider them consumables to be honest.
 
#26
Kopfjager said:
I use Dewey rods as well, but will probably pick up a Montana Xtreme rod just because I've heard such good things about them.
At the end of the day though, as long as it's a 1 peice cleaning rod thats not exposed steel and the handle is freely spinning, does it matter that much? All of them will eventually need replacing, CF will start to fray, coated rods will start to either chip away or will be worn down to the steel, some may bend permanently. I'd consider them consumables to be honest.
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probably, but ive had one of my Montanas for quite a long time.what always failed for me on Dewey was the plastic handle. if you drop it it breaks. the montanas are aluminum. the bearings are smooth as butter and you can get them in many different lengths. I think you will be pleased if you try them.
 
#27
i make my own cleaning rods.

turned aluminum handle with replaceable shafts made from stainless steel and theyre threaded for standard 8-32 jags.....and i can swap the rods out for rifle or pistol length........got tired of breaking cheaper rods.

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#28
Mr.BR said:
As a profesional in field of carbon fiber composites , i can tell you its not a material suited for cleaning rods at all and its beyond me why they are selling them , carbon fiber composite is stiff and light but also abrasive once you wear trough thin surface resin layer. Ideal cleaning rod would be of polished and hardened spring steel with high yield strenght , nothing plastified or soft metal nothing into which carbon and other deposits in the barrel could embed.
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+1

In my opinion, 416HT SS, which is used by Pro-Shot, is the best material for a cleaning rod. A bit softer than most of the barrel steels, polished Pro-Shot SS rods do not easily pick up any abrasives, but these rods are still mechanically strong enough not to buckle or bend inside the bore when used for cleaning or stuck case removal. Being softer than barrel steel material, Pro-Shot rods do not damage the bore. Personally, I do not use any aluminum, brass, polymer coated or carbon rods.
 
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#32
mcameron said:
i make my own cleaning rods.

turned aluminum handle with replaceable shafts made from stainless steel and theyre threaded for standard 8-32 jags.....and i can swap the rods out for rifle or pistol length........got tired of breaking cheaper rods.



Click to expand...

Do those bad boys rotate to follow the rifling?
 
#33
No they dont.......mainly because ive never found "rotating rods" to really be all that useful......and thats partially because i am not that anal about cleaning......in fact i very rarely actually clean a significant amount of copper out of my barrels.

but i use them mainly for muzzleloaders and shotguns, which i clean after every outting.

bur it wouldnt be tgat hard to make them rotate....just need to drill out the handle to accomodate a few bearings

 
#34
mcameron said:
No they dont.......mainly because ive never found "rotating rods" to really be all that useful......and thats partially because i am not that anal about cleaning......in fact i very rarely actually clean a significant amount of copper out of my barrels.

but i use them mainly for muzzleloaders and shotguns, which i clean after every outting.

bur it wouldnt be tgat hard to make them rotate....just need to drill out the handle to accomodate a few bearings
Click to expand...

Yeah I agree that cleaning isn't an "everytime" activity and when I do clean its pretty mild Hoppes, patches, time and a light oiling.

I do believe though that the rotaing rod gets the patch into the edges of the groove and may remove a little bit mor of what you are trying to remove.

No rotation and the patch will "skip" over a section of groove as you move down the barrel rifling.

Of course pull enough patches you should hit the places you missed.

Just my thought but I don't have an engineers stamp or PE after my name.

Ill stay in my lane and still go with rotation as its what makes me feel like Im getting a hug from Mom and allows me to sleep at night.
 
#36
kortik said:
+1

In my opinion, 416HT SS, which is used by Pro-Shot, is the best material for a cleaning rod. A bit softer than most of the barrel steels, polished Pro-Shot SS rods do not easily pick up any abrasives, but these rods are still mechanically strong enough not to buckle or bend inside the bore when used for cleaning or stuck case removal. Being softer than barrel steel material, Pro-Shot rods do not damage the bore. Personally, I do not use any aluminum, brass, polymer coated or carbon rods.
Click to expand...

In general you would want rods to he harder much harder than barrel steel not that dificoult to get as barrel steel is quite soft , also you want a mis match in materials , the stuck case removal is where carbon fiber rod can hurt you realy bad and there are enough cases of broken Cf rod , going trough limbs. .
In any case with barrel life on most of my centerfires rod is non much of an issue but with rimfire and air rifle only the best is good enough

Chinaman makes bunch of stuff cheap even rotating handles for DIY rods
http://www.rotchi.com/
 
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#37
Mr.BR said:
In general you would want rods to he harder much harder than barrel steel not that dificoult to get as barrel steel is quite soft...
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Out of curiosity, what is the reasoning behind the above statement? I can see the reasoning behind wanting a cleaning rod made of softer material than the barrel (in the event of rod-to-barrel contact, the rod takes the damage rather than the barrel), but the only thing I can think of to specifically want a cleaning rod material harder than the barrel would be because it'd be less likely (than a softer material) to get embedded with contaminants (carbon flakes, etc...); but that would mean that the barrel would be more likely (than the cleaning rod) to get trash embedded into it, and I don't understand why that would be preferable.

I'm not trying to argue so much as I'm trying to learn.
 
#38
Mr.BR said:
In general you would want rods to he harder much harder than barrel steel not that dificoult to get as barrel steel is quite soft , also you want a mis match in materials , the stuck case removal is where carbon fiber rod can hurt you realy bad and there are enough cases of broken Cf rod , going trough limbs. .
In any case with barrel life on most of my centerfires rod is non much of an issue but with rimfire and air rifle only the best is good enough
Click to expand...

I do NOT want cleaning rod material to be harder than the barrel steel for a lot of various reasons.
 
#39
Hard steel when polished will do less abrasion damage to anything it slides over than softer dinged metal , harder the steel less likely it it that it will embed any particles also less likely it is to dent and so present a 'cutting' surface ,highly polished surface by it self will not scratch its the rough surface, dings and mars + embeded carbon that do the scratching.

Anyone thinking that you need softer material than barrel steel is dead wrong. Highly polished surface with highest possible hardnes is desirable.
 
#40
Mr.BR said:
Hard steel when polished will do less abrasion damage to anything it slides over than softer dinged metal , harder the steel less likely it it that it will embed any particles also less likely it is to dent and so present a 'cutting' surface ,highly polished surface by it self will not scratch its the rough surface, dings and mars + embeded carbon that do the scratching.

Anyone thinking that you need softer material than barrel steel is dead wrong. Highly polished surface with highest possible hardnes is desirable.
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If my memory serves me well, small size carbon particles are known to be an effective dry lubricant. Carbon, of course, is also known to be a primary chemical element of a diamond, which is a highly effective form of abrasive. However, I've never heard that firearms are able to produce diamonds as a component of a carbon residue formed by the burned powder. In your opinion, is this possible?
 
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#41
Tipton Carbon Fiber. Buy a brick of primers or two for what you save not buying some ridiculously priced rod that does nothing any better than a Tipton.
 
#43
I went with a tipton carbon as it was what was on sale. Before that I just used muli segment hoppes rods. Can I tell you the difference in how well they perform? No. But I feel if you clean enough to ruin a barrel with a rod youre way over zealous in your regimen. All of these diffing opinions tell me that it doesnt really matter in terms of practicality.
 
#44
spife7980 said:
I went with a tipton carbon as it was what was on sale. Before that I just used muli segment hoppes rods. Can I tell you the difference in how well they perform? No. But I feel if you clean enough to ruin a barrel with a rod youre way over zealous in your regimen. All of these diffing opinions tell me that it doesnt really matter in terms of practicality.
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As is the case in most instances with many products. Occasionally there is one or two that are clearly better than the rest. But for the most part it’s really what you can find and what u are initially exposed to that you choose time and time again.
 
#46
Mr.BR said:
Hard steel when polished will do less abrasion damage to anything it slides over than softer dinged metal , harder the steel less likely it it that it will embed any particles also less likely it is to dent and so present a 'cutting' surface ,highly polished surface by it self will not scratch its the rough surface, dings and mars + embeded carbon that do the scratching.

Anyone thinking that you need softer material than barrel steel is dead wrong. Highly polished surface with highest possible hardnes is desirable.
Click to expand...

Yup. I've gone full circle with rods: Hard steel, coated, graphite. Have gone back to Pro Shot steel rods. One wipe with a shop towel between patches and it's clean, no fouling or residue. Quick wipe with alcohol before hanging them back up.
 
#48
I believe that Pro-Shot Products manufactures the best modular SS cleaning rods. For solid (one piece) rods there are other options available, mentioned by various posters. But for modular (compact) SS cleaning rod, Pro-Shot rules, both in quality and price. Which is the reason we (Borka Tools) offer Pro-Shot modular cleaning rod kits with our torque driver kits, which Pro-Shot makes to our own rod length specs. My very good friend Dave Manson (Manson Precision Reamers) was very impressed by the quality of Pro-Shot modular cleaning rods, and Dave deals with high precision tools and knows firearms stuff very well.
 
#49
Trying Pro-Shot rods....have 2 on order. Thank you sir for this explanation.

Mr.BR said:
In general you would want rods to he harder much harder than barrel steel not that dificoult to get as barrel steel is quite soft , also you want a mis match in materials , the stuck case removal is where carbon fiber rod can hurt you realy bad and there are enough cases of broken Cf rod , going trough limbs. .
In any case with barrel life on most of my centerfires rod is non much of an issue but with rimfire and air rifle only the best is good enough

Chinaman makes bunch of stuff cheap even rotating handles for DIY rods
http://www.rotchi.com/
Click to expand...

 
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