cleaning regimen .22 mag??

[fordwrench]

was looking for insight on how to maintain peak accuracy and take good care of a 22 mag? most of my 22lr i do not clean very often. in my centerfires i clean the barrels oil after the days shooting. tell me about a 22 mag? how does this cal differ from the others? the gun shoots excellent with the new hornady critical defense ammo. my best shot at 120 yds on a gray squirrel. it has become my favorite rifle and would like to take the best care of the barrel.

 

[Shynloco]

fordwrench,
I don't own a .22 mag, but do several .22lr including Savage, Anschutz and Remington. I'm heavily into the accuracy thing and shoot only paper these days, mostly at 50 yds. Now I know there are various schools of thought on this issue, but I've found that to maintain BEST accuracy, particularly in the Anschutz and Savages (I don't worry about my Remington because of the age of her (1950 and still shoot reasonably well). I first off have NEVER shot anything but coated ammo thorough the barrels of the previously mentioned two rifles, and secondly, I run AT LEAST two dry patches down the barrel when sitting down to shoot or one wet patch and three dry patches when shooting over 50 rds. I also ocassionally run a nylon brush down the barrel, but don't get crazy in repeated run throughs, perhaps maybe 5 - 10 at the most and that only after 200 - 300 rds. After that it usually takes only about 5 rds max for my barrels to get back on and are properly coated again that allows my rifles to perform nice tight groups . Thats what seems to work for me as well as patching the barrel anytime I switch from one ammo brand to another. Hope that helps!

 

[Hugh204]

Hmmm......I'm shooting 22 Mag as well and it never occurred to me till I read this post that shooting the 32 grain VMAX is a non-coated bullet, its copper like my centerfires. Any one out there know if this means anything special, or is it more of a personal preference thing?

 

[Shynloco]

Hugh,
IMHO, the only difference you may see between your non-coated bullets and my coated ones, is there is a far greater likelihood of a copper deposit/build up in your barrels than mine. Most of my centerfire rifles have stainless steel barrels which I clean after every shooting for maintaining best accuracy and I reload and shoot non-coated bullets. As far as rimfire rifles go, because I'm an accuracy freak, I carefully watch what goes down my barrels in terms of bullets. And if you check out what ammos the competitiors are shooting, they are all using "coated ammo" because of the demand for accuracy with very minut variation allowances. It is not that non-coated ammo will hurt anything. Its that ultimate accurarcy in rimfire barrels seems to be well established in that they shoot their best with coated ammo when target shooting. Just my thoughts.

 

[Radar]

What is coated ammo? Are you talking about copper washed bullets or just lubed lead rimfire bullets in general?

Shooting a jacketed bullet in a 22 Mag should make cleaning alot easier than removing lead from using the other bullets. Copper is easy to remove,lead and carbon not so much.

 

[CJ6]

Coated (rimfire ) would be the Beeswax/Tallow/Parrifin coating applied at the factory. Centerfire would be the Lubalox/Moly/Danzac/WS2 applied at Factory or at home. I clean "Jacketed" 22 mag bores as I would a centerfire . If I use lead bullets I clean as I would a "Normal" 22RF. I don't swap back and forth either.