22LR / Rimfire and barrel cleaning

[TommyD11730]

Hi Guys, new to shooting Rimfire.

I almost hate to create a thread about cleaning anything, much less a barrel. So here goes nothing.

My interest is in shooting as accurately as possible. I hate to use the term benchrest because my 22LR is a repeater. That being said it does have a barrel so ... that's where my questions lie.

Reading on the internet and trying to separate the wheat from the chaff. It seems most agree its OK to clean the chamber. So that works for me. No carbon ring, check. Then the wheels fall off the wagon.

Shoot strictly (and we'll lubed) led projectiles only. And.... dont clean the barrel. Let it "season" . If the accuracy falls off scope it and if necessary patch it out.

Huh

That's a lot to digest from someone who cleans his 30BR every 15 or so rounds.

So guys.. I come in peace. Educate me.

Thanks!

 

[marazzi59]

Rimfires operate differently than center fires. Way less velocity and pressure and temperature. For me I clean when the gun tells me to by doing something different than expected

 

[Csafisher]

I’m not a BR shooter. I shoot rimfire prs style stuff. I clean the chamber every match or every other match. The bore just gets a couple dry patches to get the bulky crap out. So far I haven’t noticed any appreciable loss in accuracy over several thousand rounds in a couple different barrels.

 

[Tim Slater]

My usual suggestion is to clean often enough, and thoroughly enough to maintain whatever accuracy level you need/want.

I'd add the observations that I've found proactive cleaning better than waiting until you see a problem, and that cleaning straight after shooting is much easier than several hundred or thousand rounds.

 

[Hi-NV Shooter]

Hi Guys, new to shooting Rimfire.

I almost hate to create a thread about cleaning anything, much less a barrel. So here goes nothing.

My interest is in shooting as accurately as possible. I hate to use the term benchrest because my 22LR is a repeater. That being said it does have a barrel so ... that's where my questions lie.

Reading on the internet and trying to separate the wheat from the chaff. It seems most agree its OK to clean the chamber. So that works for me. No carbon ring, check. Then the wheels fall off the wagon.

Shoot strictly (and we'll lubed) led projectiles only. And.... dont clean the barrel. Let it "season" . If the accuracy falls off scope it and if necessary patch it out.

Huh

That's a lot to digest from someone who cleans his 30BR every 15 or so rounds.

So guys.. I come in peace. Educate me.

Thanks!

I would use the same reasoning behind your cleaning you do for the 30BR let the barrel tell you what it wants.
FWIW I deep clean after every range/match and run a wet VFG pellet and 3 dry ones after every ARA target during a match. about 40-50 rounds

Lee

 

[Krogen]

An article below for your consideration . . . . It's just one man's opinion (not necessarily mine). I'm sure some will take issue with his approach, but he does seem to have the creds. Certainly Vudoo is a hot button of sorts, but still he may know something.

A Guide to .22LR Barrel Care for the Precision Rimfire Shooter - The Truth About Guns

By Gregory J. Roman As anyone involved in the shooting sports knows, precision rimfire is growing rapidly. The internet is full of tons of advice, good and bad, on how to perform better as a shooter. If there is one thing that my time at Vudoo has taught me, it’s that there is not much ... Read more

www.thetruthaboutguns.com

 

[dstoenner]

For rimfires, when i come home from the range i push 2 dry patches down the barrel and a wet patch with Kroil on it. If i am going to a match the next weekend i clean my barrel with the bullet central system. It cleans out all the carbon including the throat and carbon ring. Takes about 15 minutes. At the match i put 15 rounds for fouling the barrel of a cheaper level of the same manufacturer and then at least 5 rounds of my chosen match ammo for a solid zero.

David

 

[tominboise]

RFBR shooter here. I run two wet patches and two dry patches after a 4 card match. I also clean the chamber by soaking any carbon ring with C4. I brush the barrel about every brick of ammo through it. On a 6 card match, I will wet patch a couple and dry patch halfway through the match. I've wet patched after every card before but my rifle accuracy seems to hold up through a 4 card match without cleaning, so I generally don't. The guy that wins the majority of our matches doesn't clean between cards either.

Rifle is a 2500X with Shilen Octagon.

 

[grauhanen]

If the words of Gregory Roman are to be believed, the cleaning regimen he advocates in the article linked above will improve the ES/SD of the ammo.

Of course one cleaning method or another are nowhere nearly as important in ammo ES/SD as the ammo itself.

 

[1813benny]

If you are interested in accuracy, clean the rifle barrel completely after each range session. Use a good solvent, bronze-phosphorus brushes and a bore guide.

Run several wet patches thru the bore. Put solvent on the brush and push it completely out of the muzzle and take it off. Pull the rod back while wiping it clean each time, put the brush (or jag) back on and repeat until finished. Dry patches at the end. Wipe the muzzle clean.

As a master class prone, 3-position and F-class Smallbore competitor with over 45 years of trigger time and 12 various national titles and multiple national records, this is what works for me. I was taught this method by the late Frank Boyd, a former national champion who fired over 100 perfect daily smallbore prone aggregates of 1600.

YMMV.

 

[1911nut]

Then there’s the post here about Saeed Al Maktoum from Dubai who’s Bleiker shot lots of groups in the 1’s @ 50yds; when asked about his cleaning regime said: “Never clean 22 rimfire. These groups were shot after at least 20,000 rounds through the rifle!”

 

[TRSR8]

If the words of Gregory Roman are to be believed, the cleaning regimen he advocates in the article linked above will improve the ES/SD of the ammo.

Of course one cleaning method or another are nowhere nearly as important in ammo ES/SD as the ammo itself.

That guy has spread more BS than any human alive.
His entire process has little to do with accuracy, primarily with cold bore repeatability.
Remember he’s the guru that stated in an early video, don’t really need a boreguide for anything.

 

[TRSR8]

Then there’s the post here about Saeed Al Maktoum from Dubai who’s Bleiker shot lots of groups in the 1’s @ 50yds; when asked about his cleaning regime said: “Never clean 22 rimfire. These groups were shot after at least 20,000 rounds through the rifle!”

First, study up. Most of those groups are less than accurate, plus some of them are all over the place.
Second, let’s maybe remember, as nice as I’m sure he is…..never fired a single round in a match.
Third, Blieker’s own site has detailed cleaning recommendation showing regular cleaning using RF blend and a bronze brush.
Good lord, 2026 and guys are still going with a 1958 cleaning mindset.
Go to a large RF match you’ll see virtually everybody cleaning, most often between every card or two.
The higher quality your RF, the better the benefit from REGULAR CLEANING. The only place this is controversial is internet forums.
Lee is one of the few match shooters here.
Lee is an accomplished shooter.
Listen to Lee

 

[PWNolan]

I'm hesitant to jump in on another rimfire cleaning thread. So I'll just leave a link to Steve Boelter's excellent article here....

Rimfire Cleaning

Introduction At the initial onset of this section, I had no idea it would grow to this size. There is a lot of information here to digest, and quite frankly it’s more than what most readers are...

web.archive.org

 

[1911nut]

First, study up. Most of those groups are less than accurate, plus some of them are all over the place.
Second, let’s maybe remember, as nice as I’m sure he is…..never fired a single round in a match.
Third, Blieker’s own site has detailed cleaning recommendation showing regular cleaning using RF blend and a bronze brush.
Good lord, 2026 and guys are still going with a 1958 cleaning mindset.
Go to a large RF match you’ll see virtually everybody cleaning, most often between every card or two.
The higher quality your RF, the better the benefit from REGULAR CLEANING. The only place this is controversial is internet forums.
Lee is one of the few match shooters here.
Lee is an accomplished shooter.
Listen to Lee

I’m not sure what you mean, this is one of the 50 yd targets, not the best or worst of the 9 targets shown from the gun that hasn’t been cleaned in 20,000 rounds.




I run a wet patch and two dry patches after every card. At home: two wet patches, short stroke the leade with a nylon brush , wet patch, dry patch, oil patch.

 

[TRSR8]

Not one of those groups is accurate.
For instance a group with two holes touching would be, say .220”.
That .239” at a minimum, a small .300.
Lot’s are nice but c’mon let’s be reasonably accurate. Zero importance relative to cleaning.
P.S. that gun shoots a RFBR match, I’d suspect not much to crow about……..we’ll never know.

 

[Hi-NV Shooter]

I'm hesitant to jump in on another rimfire cleaning thread. So I'll just leave a link to Steve Boelter's excellent article here....

Rimfire Cleaning

Introduction At the initial onset of this section, I had no idea it would grow to this size. There is a lot of information here to digest, and quite frankly it’s more than what most readers are...

web.archive.org

A lot of what Steve wrote about I use when cleaning. I hope someday to run into him at our club as he is a member at DSRPC he is somewhat secretive about stuff he is doing.

Lee

 

[Tim Slater]

Blieker’s own site has detailed cleaning recommendation showing regular cleaning using RF blend and a bronze brush.

It's interesting to note that Bleiker have changed their cleaning instructions, and now recommend a brush after each session, where previous instructions suggested brushing every few hundred.

They even had a proprietary "lead" solvent for a while, so seem to have been concerned about metallic fouling.

 

[Paddyd]

Mine is a 10/22 so no breech access.
Ive never put more than a boresnake in my .22
I turn it on end, muzzle down and drip some bore cleaner into the chamber and let it sit about 30 minutes. Run the snake through it a couple times and im done. It shoots as well as any Ive seen and after thousands of rounds, never has had a rod in it. Never will. .22s dont get as fouled as a high pressure center fire round and before I ever bought a boresnake, all I did was tie some patches to a string and pull through. Sometimes I will use a brush in the chamber, but that's all.

 

[ttfreestyle]

Bore guide
One piece rod
Jag
Patches appropriate size
Brush bronze
Good solvent
Don’t overthink this.