How often do you clean your 22lr

[Hi-NV Shooter]

I shoot an old Anschutz model 54 super match in an indoor gallery league (every tuesday night, October through April). It will shoot X's continuously all the time. I think the barrel was cleaned sometime back in the 1980's but can't be sure.

How far is the target? and how big is the X?

Lee

 

[Bugs]

How far is the target? and how big is the X?

Lee

The way I shake and wiggle around anymore, it doesn't really matter.

 

[flatlander]

I've spent a good deal of $$$ on custom barrels for several of my .22RF rifles, and I wipe them out after every range session, using good quality rod guides and rods. Have seldom seen the need to use a bronze brush, though I do occasionally use a nylon brush when breaking in a newly chambered bbl if I feel any unusual resistance while pushing a wet patch through the bore. If I haven't polished the leade in such a barrel, it will sometimes cause a little leading, but it doesn't happen all that often, and never seems to happen again after the first 50 or so rounds. Never really seen the need to use anything stronger than Ed's Red, which is a mix of equal parts of dexron-II ATF, kerosene, mineral spirits, and acetone. It has to be stored in a glass container because of the acetone, but I'm still using a 1/2 gal apple cider jug that I mixed up about 10yrs ago to refill a smaller glass container that I use on the cleaning bench.

I've read & heard all the opinions about not cleaning until accuracy drops off, and just don't see why anyone would treat a good rifle that way - whether it's a .22RF or any other chambering. I recently cleaned a V-22 repeater for a friend who'done just that - shot it until the accuracy dropped off. I borescoped it after putting a few wet patches through the bore, and decided it needed brushing due to not finding the bore as smooth as I'd hoped it would be. Even after brushing, I was seeing something that looked like fine pits in the bore - and this was a custom stainless bbl. Hope his barrel isn't ruined, but I've never seen anything quite like what I saw in his barrel in any of my stainless custom barrels, so don't know whether it was caused by lack of cleaning or ??? I bought a nice new Rem 541T back in 1993, and found that it shot really well with a lot# of WW Super-X hi vel copper washed HP. I cleaned it fairly regularly, but after the POS plastic mags I had for it crapped-out on me, I must've been disgusted with it, and put it in the closet w/o cleaning, where it stayed until I bought a couple of John Reed's beautiful SS 5rd mags. Got it out and took it to shoot on paper at 50yds with its favored lot of Super-X, but accuracy had dropped off quite a lot. Cleaned the bore thoroughly, wiped it dry, and borescoped - it looked somewhat rough, like perhaps the chromemoly barrel had developed some pits from being stored fouled. I'm in western Kansas, and we typically have pretty low humidity, but it looks to me as though I'm going to wind up re-barreling this rifle if I expect decent accuracy out of it again...

 

[justinp61]

I pull a dry patch through the bore with a piece of 80# monofilament through the bore after every shooting session and check the chamber and bore with a scope after every three or four trips.

 

[Hoser]

I've read & heard all the opinions about not cleaning until accuracy drops off, and just don't see why anyone would treat a good rifle that way - whether it's a .22RF or any other chambering. I recently cleaned a V-22 repeater for a friend who'done just that - shot it until the accuracy dropped off. I borescoped it after putting a few wet patches through the bore, and decided it needed brushing due to not finding the bore as smooth as I'd hoped it would be. Even after brushing, I was seeing something that looked like fine pits in the bore - and this was a custom stainless bbl. Hope his barrel isn't ruined, but I've never seen anything quite like what I saw in his barrel in any of my stainless custom barrels, so don't know whether it was caused by lack of cleaning or ???

I have seen quite a few barrels here at the Olympic Training Center that are pretty heavily pitted on the bottom quarter. Its just from the nasty priming compound and not cleaning often enough.

One of the resident athletes didnt clean a 2 grove barrel very often because you "dont need to." It was toast after about 20K rounds. It was a hammer too.

 

[grauhanen]

I have seen quite a few barrels here at the Olympic Training Center that are pretty heavily pitted on the bottom quarter. Its just from the nasty priming compound and not cleaning often enough.

One of the resident athletes didnt clean a 2 grove barrel very often because you "dont need to." It was toast after about 20K rounds. It was a hammer too

Indeed. Gravity causes the greatest accumulation of the debris the propellant and priming compound along the bottom of the bore.

 

[flatlander]

I've borescoped the barrels of several older smallbore match rifles, from an Anschutz 1611 I bought from Mac Tilton to five CMP Win 52Ds & Rem 40Xs. All but one of these rifles had the typical 'sandblasted' appearance in the lower half of their bores - the one that didn't was a pretty nice 40XB that either hadn't been shot that much, or had been cleaned regularly. The Annie 1611 was still capable of cleaning a 100yd NRA smallbore target, but I always wondered whether it was a club or school rifle, or had been someone's personal one. I've got three V-22 repeaters (2 Kriegers, 1 Bartlein), and still have one jelrod-converted 40XB with two barrels that I fitted & chambered for it (Krieger & Lilja titebore). All these rifles & barrels have had several thousands of rounds through them, and I still borescope each of them with some regularity - and have yet to see signs of 'sandblasting' in the lower third of any of these barrels - they get wiped out with Ed's Red after every range session, regardless of whether they've had 10rds or 150rds fired out of them. I paid good money for every one of these custom barrels, and put a good deal of effort into fitting & chambering them, so you can bet that I'm going to clean with care every time I shoot them. Anyone who feels that he or she doesn't have time to clean is just fooling themselves...

 

[pfiori]

I am going to start with the disclaimer that this is not a comment for or against regular cleaning, but I will say that I am in the clean it every time you shoot it camp.
In my experience, the sandblasting has nothing to do with cleaning or not cleaning and there is nothing that you can do about it. I believe that it is caused by bits of primer compound, unburned powder and mostly grit from the primer compound bouncing around in the barrel behind the bullet. It has developed in every new barrel that I have watched/tracked over time. It seems to develop earlier in stainless barrels than in carbon steel ones, probably due to the stainless being marginally softer. I should also say that the barrels that I have this experience with are Anschutz and Walther factory target rifle barrels and custom barrels from manufacturers such as Shillen, Broughton, etc.

 

[Old Tanker]

My dad’s rule: take it off the rack, wipe it down before placing it back; shoot it, clean it. I live by that rule.

 

[AckleymanII]

22 RF priming compound is like a sand blasting effect over time, has glass in it. Lead in the barrel is another issue. Top quality match barrels are usually cleaned every 250 rounds or so, depending on type of ammo that is used.

CCI stingers will lead up a barrel pretty quickly, and so will most of the High velocity ammo that are 1250 fps and over.

I use bronze bristle brushes designed for 22 RF, bore guide in a Remington 40x barrel re cut with an Olympic Chamber reamer that slightly engraves each bullet. CCI Green Tag go in a single bullet hole in an under ground tunnel, Leupold 36x, 80 yards.

At or around 250 rounds, the accuracy drops off just like the guy told me that built Olympic 22's that whipped all the Russians in the Olympics.

 

[USMCDOC]

22 RF priming compound is like a sand blasting effect over time, has glass in it. Lead in the barrel is another issue. Top quality match barrels are usually cleaned every 250 rounds or so, depending on type of ammo that is used.

CCI stingers will lead up a barrel pretty quickly, and so will most of the High velocity ammo that are 1250 fps and over.

I use bronze bristle brushes designed for 22 RF, bore guide in a Remington 40x barrel re cut with an Olympic Chamber reamer that slightly engraves each bullet. CCI Green Tag go in a single bullet hole in an under ground tunnel, Leupold 36x, 80 yards.

At or around 250 rounds, the accuracy drops off just like the guy told me that built Olympic 22's that whipped all the Russians in the Olympics.

who was that guy?

 

[AckleymanII]

Lives in the San Diego area, you may know him. I don't want to use his name without his OK.

 

[linebaugh]

Last season I cleaned every brick or so. New gun and barrel this season so trying something a little different. Cleaning with a custom bore guide every time I shoot. Very simply run 3 or 4 tight patches of Kroil and a cpl dry patches.
Don't care if I shoot 50 or 250 but I come home and do a very quick clean as above then back in the safe. We shall see where that gets me by seasons end.

 

[TheOtherZilla]

You clean them??

 

[Exercion]

I have a Remington 541 custom sporter and wanted to know how often you guys clean your 22 rifles and what you use ?

When my horoscope says it's a good day to clean rimfire barrels. Or if the groups start opening up.

 

[JSH]

CCI Green Tag in one hole, that must be some old ammo. I have not seen, had or heard of any Green Tag shooting worth a hoot for close to 20 years.
I have a partial of a brick left from the late 80’s or early 90’s that shoots exceptionally well.

Buddies and I have hashed this subject over and over, cleaning.
My thoughts, where is the consistency of not cleaning till it quits grouping? If I were to do that groups would go to patterns at the most in open tune time.

Clean every time. If you shoot much at all, you should know by now how it starts, then where it is even a 100 shot string.

 

[Mark W]

@JSH I agree with you about CCI Green Tag. It shoots far worse than plain old CCI SV in my guns.

 

[ta6ppc]

I clean every time I get done shooting use bore tech rimfire blend and follow the directions on the bottle if accuracy slides which it does fright around 7-800 rounds I’ll brush it out and use the bore tech clean it dry and run some isso patches through it and completely remove all the carbon and re season the barrel with a good 30 rounds before shooting anything for score or in a rimfire match. It’s best to get all that old primer compound out of the barrel to prevent pitting

 

[nicholst55]

While much depends on the quality of the rifle and the ultimate use, not cleaning a precision rifle just isn't going to happen at my house. Here's some light reading (35+ pages) on the subject:

www.ssvtexel.nl/index.cfm?act=files.download&ui=C5C9D865-2200-0A21-B5F5CF897974784F

 

[rebs]

I clean every time I get done shooting use bore tech rimfire blend and follow the directions on the bottle if accuracy slides which it does fright around 7-800 rounds I’ll brush it out and use the bore tech clean it dry and run some isso patches through it and completely remove all the carbon and re season the barrel with a good 30 rounds before shooting anything for score or in a rimfire match. It’s best to get all that old primer compound out of the barrel to prevent pitting

what is the rimfire blend ? Is it better for rimfire rifles than the boretech eliminator ?