Cleaning with brush - forward only?

[ScottMcc]

It is hard to believe how many opinions there are on barrel cleaning and break in. Years ago I heard someone say a bronze brush should be pushed down the tube forward only, and unscrewed from the rod rather than being drawn back through. I poo-pooed that at the time and never heard about it again for years, until I came across this on the Bartlein site:

"Always push the brush, Breech to Muzzle. Remove the brush before pulling your rod back through! NEVER pull the brush back over the crown. More damage to a good barrel is done from cleaning than actual shooting. The first to suffer is the crown. The crown is the last thing the bullet touches when it leaves the gun. Any damage here affects accuracy no matter what."

http://bartleinbarrels.com/BreakInCleaning.htm

I agree what they say about the crown makes sense, but will a brush do harm? No other custom barrel maker website I have seen recommends this, and no one else has mentioned it in all the hundreds of shooter website posts on cleaning and break-in I have read. What do all y'all think?

 

[jonbearman]

I cant wait to see the answer to this one.

 

[bigwoodsman]

I cant wait to see the answer to this one.

stay tuned

 

[K22]

Sounds good - even sounds right - BUT - I've never followed that laborious method and my precision rifles seemed to have survived 40 years of shooting - of course I've never set any benchrest records either. - BUT I've manage to take a ton of groundhogs and predators at some respectable ranges.

I think you can make this hobby as painful as you like to give you a sense of well being but I often wonder if some of these laborious procedures really have any value. Still, I guess it's interesting to debate such things.

 

[Alex Wheeler]

What is important about the crown of a barrel is than it is concentric. By pulling the brush back over the crown there may or may not be any noticeable wear, but it would be concentric. My dashers have show no noticeable degradation of accuracy with over 1k round and LOTS of back and forth brushing.

 

[WyleWD]

It is hard to believe how many opinions there are on barrel cleaning and break in. Years ago I heard someone say a bronze brush should be pushed down the tube forward only, and unscrewed from the rod rather than being drawn back through. I poo-pooed that at the time and never heard about it again for years, until I came across this on the Bartlein site:

"Always push the brush, Breech to Muzzle. Remove the brush before pulling your rod back through! NEVER pull the brush back over the crown. More damage to a good barrel is done from cleaning than actual shooting. The first to suffer is the crown. The crown is the last thing the bullet touches when it leaves the gun. Any damage here affects accuracy no matter what."

http://bartleinbarrels.com/BreakInCleaning.htm

I agree what they say about the crown makes sense, but will a brush do harm? No other custom barrel maker website I have seen recommends this, and no one else has mentioned it in all the hundreds of shooter website posts on cleaning and break-in I have read. What do all y'all think?

After 40 years of exposure to stainless steel in dairy, surgical, and mirror finish in paint systems.... you'll NEVER catch me even using a brush in a stainless match barrel. And ALWAYS push the junk out the muzzle. I've had more than a few stainless match barrels and none of them have ever seen a brush run through them. I just patch them out till they are clean.

There are a bunch of great shooters that do use brushes with great success, and I'm happy that they do have such good luck with that regimine. WD

 

[M-61]

I have patience, but not that amount. Probably would be good to improve finger dexterity also.

 

[Texas Solo]

My F Class rifle is my first REAL match rifle. It wears a $450 Shilen Select Match Grade barrel, so I was concerned about how to clean it. A buddy turned me onto Wipe Out/Patch Out, and the Accelerator. It's all I've ever used, and my stuff is clean. No copper, no fouling. No worries about the crown either.

 

[watercam]

When in doubt try nylon brushes. Custom barrels generally don't foul much and so do not need a ton of cleaning.
For myself, ten to twenty passes with Sweets on a nylon brush basically cleans the barrel to bare metal after 300-400 rounds of Long Range shooting. Nylon brushes can change direction while still in the bore so they do not need to exit the muzzle. I feel that as long as the movement is in-line with the bullet travel one is not embedding anything worse than hot copper at 50,000 psi screaming through the bore while being chased by burning powder at God knows what temperature. I just don't clean that often so the crown is not exposed to as much brush time. I realize that the bench crowd cleans much more often. I am not at all sure it is necessary with barrels that do not foul much to begin with...

 

[Leaddog]

I brush both ways in my Dasher and .308 barrels. Never a problem. A bronze brush will never hurt a stainless barrel. Just use a bore guide like the Lucas so that you aren't dragging rod and brush hardware across the crown.

 

[itchyTF]

I believe it's safe to say stainless is harder than bronze but the concern may be that the brush is carrying crud that may be considered abrasive and that may be what damages the crown. ??

I wouldn't have the patience to remove the brush every pass either.

 

[Forum Boss]

I wouldn't have the patience to remove the brush every pass either.

Unscrew brush: 4 seconds
Flush with solvent: 4 seconds (less if you have a squirt bottle)
Withdraw rod and reattach brush: 10 seconds

Common guys, think about it -- it takes no more time (maybe less) than pulling off a patch, drawing back the rod, and putting on a new patch. You do use patches, right? So you DO have the patience.

Remove brush, flush, and reattach brush. What's the big deal?

Do this 5 times and you've added a whopping 90 seconds (18x5) to your cleaning regimen -- which probably only needs to be done every 35-55 rounds.

 

[284driver]

Plus, you pull that brush back through, what's the first thing that happens when the bristles clear the bore? They fling all that crud you are trying to remove right into the chamber, lug, and bolt raceway.

 

[ScottMcc]

Good points.. I probably won't bother on my current factory barreled guns, but probably will when I get a new custom pipe.

 

[ScottMcc]

Forum Boss- what kind of solvent do you rinse with? I use acitone when the action/barrel is out of the stock.

 

[louielouie]

I rarely use a plastic brush on my Shilen barrel in 260 but if I did, it only went breech-to-muzzle - after I got a 6.5x284 I went with a plastic brush to scrub the @#$% carbon from the throat but the brush still only goes out the muzzle, is unscrewed for removal and back in the breech. OCD at work again... ("CDO" after arranging the letters properly) ;D

 

[BoydAllen]

First of all, your options are somewhat determined by the kind of shooting that you do. If you shoot in a sport that does not provide the opportunity to clean during or between matches, then use whatever time consuming method that you like, If it cleans you barrel (To really know this, you will need access to a bore scope. Patches lie.) and makes you feel better, go for it. As far as barrel makers go, I seem to remember instructions from Hart that were something like "Brush well and brush often." This was before nylon brushed were even commonly available. Now about the damage thing...I have seen a lot of people use cleaning rods and brushes in a manner that might be more appropriate for a chimney sweep or plumber than someone cleaning a match grade barrel, so if I were in the barrel business, I might want to cover myself by being a bit conservative with my instructions. On the other hand, I am very careful with my rod technique, use cleaning rod guides that are in the top 2% (meaning that they are actually designed to do more than keep solvent out of the action), use solvent and patches till pretty much all of the easy to remove particulates are out of the barrel, and only then, use a bronze brush...being careful with my rod technique, so that I keep it properly aligned with the CL of the bore, and reversing it, just as it clears muzzle. With all of this, My barrels show no evidence of brush, or for that matter any cleaning related wear at their muzzles. I have had them recrowned when other work was being done, shortening or fitting a tuner, because I am of the opinion that the high velocity jet of unburned powder and other hot combustion byproducts that squirt past the bases of bullets just as they are clearing the crown, have a mildly erosive quality, and that barrels can therefore benefit from an occasional touch up, but this sort of "wear" is perfectly symmetrical. Short range benchrest is different than other shooting sports in many ways. People load between matches, and also clean, with very limited time, so all of the advice and opinion on the subject that cannot fit within these constraints, is not of much use. Years back, I interviewed a fellow at a match, who shot a very small group, during horrible mirage, at 200 yd. He had been using moly and wax on bullets since the process was first publicized, and was of the opinion that he had gotten better barrel life because of it. As we were speaking he was cleaning his barrel, using solvent, patches and a bronze brush, that he pulled back through the barrel. Since a lot of other fellows who had used moly cleaned less frequently than those who did not coat their bullets, I was curious as to how he cleaned. He told me that he cleaned between every match (individual group) and that he always had. He also mentioned that he had approximately 2,500 rounds on the barrel that he was shooting. Just remember, if you shoot, barrels wear out, and you cannot see hard carbon on a patch, so if you are too conservative an approach to cleaning for your powder and number of shots between cleaning, you may end up chasing your tail on accuracy because you have carbon in the barrel, particularly in the throat, that you cannot see by looking down the barrel. One other thing, at the short range CF matches that I have attended, both as a competitor, and spectator, I have never seen anyone remove a brush at the muzzle, and these were full on NBRSA sanctioned matches, with multiple record holders in attendance.

 

[Uthink Uknow]

I can never type as much as Boyd but I can shoot as much. I have never taken my brush off in order to pull the rod back through the bore. There just isn't enough time to do that and get a bore clean. There is enough time to push, wipe, flush the exposed brush with some bore cleaner, pull it back, flush and swab, and push it through again. One important thing to remember is that the brush to rod joint must be the same dimension or the brush ferrule must be smaller when pulling the brush and rod back through the bore. I suppose if you must follow the logic of everyone on a BR website and you must take your brush off, you could just file the threads off the brush, catch it on exit and pull the naked rod back through. It isn't a bad idea to touch up the crown on the lathe from time to time either.

 

[ScottMcc]

"you could just file the threads off the brush, catch it on exit and pull the naked rod back through"

Not a bad idea, Uthink. Actually the subject came up from the Bartlein barrels website.

 

[tenring]

Most brushes, both nylon and bronze, have a very tight fit to the bore, as they should. Unfortunately, the tight fit requires a gorilla to pull it backward before it exits the muzzle. Maybe I'm a weakling, but I struggle to reverse the brush in bore. My system is to push several patches of Butch's thru, let the solvent sit for about 15 mins and patch out. If I see evidence of blue or black fouling, I will go with Wipe Out. Sometimes even several applications will not remove carbon. At that point, I will saturate a nylon brush with JB, and run it completely thru the muzzle several times before patching out. It usually comes out clean.

BTW, NBRSA and IBS shooters re-crown good barrels regularly, even with no evidence of wear.