Here’s the HUGE problem with waiting for accuracy to fall off before you clean:
The accuracy falls off. And you don’t know when. If you only plink for fun, who cares. If you shoot matches or have money tied up in hunting, you’re asking for trouble.
Do you wait until your car breaks down to change the oil? Why treat your rifle the same??
The other big problem;
It’s not always the accuracy that falls off. For example, I basically wasted $500+ on the Rifles Only brawl this year because I didn’t clean at regularly scheduled maintenance. The rifle shot fine. Made first round impacts on a stage at 1k, 9, 8, 7 in high winds with 10 or 12” plates. Accuracy never fell off.
By the 4th stage bolt lift was sticky. By next day I was beating the bolt open and had lost so many points from that + the beating open, I stopped shooting with 3 stages left.
Between diagnosing with different methods and eventually a bore scope, the problem was a carbon ring so bad that it had turned my .020” jump into a jam. See the pic below.
So, wait for a problem to start (accuracy degradation is a problem) before you clean and see what happens to you.
The accuracy falls off. And you don’t know when. If you only plink for fun, who cares. If you shoot matches or have money tied up in hunting, you’re asking for trouble.
Do you wait until your car breaks down to change the oil? Why treat your rifle the same??
The other big problem;
It’s not always the accuracy that falls off. For example, I basically wasted $500+ on the Rifles Only brawl this year because I didn’t clean at regularly scheduled maintenance. The rifle shot fine. Made first round impacts on a stage at 1k, 9, 8, 7 in high winds with 10 or 12” plates. Accuracy never fell off.
By the 4th stage bolt lift was sticky. By next day I was beating the bolt open and had lost so many points from that + the beating open, I stopped shooting with 3 stages left.
Between diagnosing with different methods and eventually a bore scope, the problem was a carbon ring so bad that it had turned my .020” jump into a jam. See the pic below.
So, wait for a problem to start (accuracy degradation is a problem) before you clean and see what happens to you.