Eye opener on rifle cleaning

bryan

bryan

Bryan Armatys
Just thought I'd throw this one out. I pretty much shoot only Benchrest Competition, though I have a couple of pistols and a Savage model 12 in .22-250 that I mess with on occasion.
A good customer of mine was in yesterday and we got to taking. He has a Remington 722 in .244 and said it was an extremely accurate rifle, but the last coyote he shot at (dead middle top of the back) got hit in the head. Could I sight it in for him? I agreed and will do that this weekend. He gave me the rifle and tonite I cleaned it for starters. Blue patches till hell won't have it! I spent better than an hour with Sweets but finally got it clean. The bolt was sticky to say the least, so I cleaned the lugs-raceways-trigger etc. and the rifle is now alot easier to cycle. It's like a whole new rifle.
I just cannot believe what some guys will let a rifle's condition get to!
I suppose those of you who are gunsmiths get this and worse on a regular basis!
Bryan
 
you wouldn't believe some of the stuff I see starting about the middle of october every year:eek: it's amazing anybody kills anything with some of that stuff:rolleyes:
 
Here Is A Horror Story

A few years back, I was at the old Lake Houston Gun Club, and a couple of Hispanic guys were having trouble with a lever action Rifle. It seems it would not chamber a round.

I watched them struggle for a while, and went over to take a look.

This is what I found. There was a case stuck in the chamber. I looked up in there and saw that it was fired. I asked the shooter to tell me what was going on.

He stated that the lever was very hard to get open when they first arrived, but they did, and now the Rifle would not chamber the round.

It seems that about three years before, they had shot a deer on a cold rainy morning, and put the Rifle away. Nobody ever bothered to extract that fired case. Sitting in the humid closet, that case had turned green, and had literally grown to the chamber walls. When the shooter yanked the lever down, it just pulled a chunck off of the rim.

I took a cleaning rod, and tapped the case out. The extractor was ok. I told him to clean the Rifle, and it might be ok, although the chamber might be rusted.

He left, and I never saw him again.

Scarey......jackie
 
Bryan ...

bryan said:
He gave me the rifle and tonite I cleaned it for starters. Blue patches till hell won't have it! I spent better than an hour with Sweets but finally got it clean. Bryan
Click to expand...

Next time try 3 to 5 tight fitting patches of JB bore cleaner after a couple of patches of Sweets and a few patches of Butch's Bore Shine and the process should go much faster.
 
i just posted this on another forum, where i had inquired about the possibilities of replacing a savage 99 300 savage bbl.......

"let this be a warning to any and all of you:
don't try selling a gun with a dirty bbl!

i just paid $200 for a 1950 savage 99 in 300 savage.
excellent blue on all but the lever, which is case colored on the inner, but well worn on the outside.
funky stock, amature re finish ?( i'm sure the gun has been re-blued)

but the two bills was my offer because when i looked down the bbl, it was lumpy...not smooth at all. it was based on the high probability of needing a bbl.( see how i starter this thread)

got it home ran a couple of patches thru it to see just how bad it was. the first thing i noticed was how smooth and even the patches went thru.

i'm not done cleaning, but the this bbl looks very good for its age. yes there is some lite pitting in the bbl, but lite.....small spots here and there... will have to shoot this thing to see whats going on.

but it aint a 200 dollar gun.......
i guess some people just should not own such nice things..."

mike in co
 
I had a guy come over to the range a while back with a 416 Taylor. Nice 700, Douglas air gauged barrel, Holland muzzle brake, McMillan stock....all in all a nice elk rifle.

He was a handloader and he'd worked up a good load for it "last year" and he came over with a 50rd box of clean looking reloads with Barnes bullets and another smaller box of some sort of solid. He was planning a New Zealand trip and maybe Africa.

The rifle would not shoot at 200yds and he was frustrated. He'd put 4-5 groups down and the barrel was getting hot, I suggested mildly that maybe he should give it a rest and clean 'er up and start fresh. Maybe he was having trouble with follow through etc.......... He mentioned that it'd "quit shooting" quite some time ago...... He'd tried all sorts of loads and powders. (I doubted it was follow through though, dude weighed in a 375lb and he rode that little gun down like a sack of feed...his head didn't even twitch.)

He rummaged around looking through some antiquated cleaning stuff and asked if I had any Hoppes or something........

??

I asked him when he's last cleaned it.

Well, "right after he got it" he'd cleaned it a couple times.

"So how many rounds ago?"

"I dunno, maybe 450??? Didn't foul much, Match barrel......"

:eek:

I STOPPED everything and cobbled a fat jag onto one of my rods.

That bore felt like a lava bed. I soaked it and swabbed it and soaked it repeatedly with Butch's for about an hour until the patches would go through without jerking. We must have ran 50 patches through that dawg before they started to come clean.

Luckily he'd come early.

By late afternoon he was cutting nice little moa groups and we were cleaning every 10 rds. He was convinced!

To this day I don't know if that barrel was salvaged or not but when he left it was certainly consistent enough for anything out to the ranges he intended to shoot. BTW, that was an impressive cartridge, scared me just to pick it up. I did shoot a group with it and other than a face-slap of hot gas and a roar like a freight train it wasn't unpleasant. The Holland brake certainly worked. But nobody ever told him that he had to clean it!

"That's why I bought the SS barrel, low maintenance."


He hunted deer with it too, actually his wife used it. With solids. He just taught her to always aim for the far shoulder bone from any angle at all. It wasted very little meat, clean wound channel, and she'd never needed a followup shot. She did have one experience though where she shot a deer in a light, fresh snow. Dead broadside, stopped at about 50yds....and she pegged BOTH shoulder bones of course. He claimed that there were three long strides between where it stood and the imprint in the snow where it landed! Backwards. Untouched snow.........

Anyway, I think he cleans it now :)

al
 
Dusty Stevens said:
you wouldn't believe some of the stuff I see starting about the middle of october every year:eek: it's amazing anybody kills anything with some of that stuff:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Dusty, reminds me of an incident a few years back. I was in a dealer/smith store and a gentleman brought his "deer gun" in and said it would not shoot. Well being a "thuty ought cix authormatic" my first impression was how in the ell to you hit anything. The following conversation went like this, the dealer asked him if he cleaned his gun, he said yes, then the dealer asked how, answer "I take a oily rag and wipe'er down", no, I mean the bore, what's that, the dealer just shook his head. I'm standing looking at the wall trying not to laugh. He had bought the gun from said dealer almost ten years back and had never cleaned it. I left before I got into trouble laughing. I was back in the shop later and he said it took him several hours to clean the gun.
 
Lynn said:
Al
We have a longrange shooter down here in California
that you will get to shoot against at the NBRSA 600 and 1000 Yard Nationals if you make the trip.

He has won both events atleast once or twice and this year alone he set 19 National High Power Records to boot.

He cleans about every 350 rounds wether it needs it or not but one of his guns hasn't been cleaned in excess of 2000 rounds.

He is the current NBRSA 600 Yard National Champion.
He also jumps his VLD bullets 0.060 - 0.125 inches
Just digging through my data he has never finished out of the top 5.
Lynn
Click to expand...


i'm not surprised.....esp if it is with a coated bullet....

mike
 
About all year - -

I have been cleaning at home, after shooting an entire match. I think that may be too often with my particular situation. I am going to try every other match next year to see. Perhaps more damage IS being done by cleaning than shooting.

I will add that I believe "Factory" barrels need to be cleaned more often. Most of them I have looked at aren't exactly"Match Grade" and they seem to more "Anal".
 
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I'm not a gunsmith and I don't play one on TV. But, I did pick up a Cooper Model 21 in Tac 20 a couple of years ago that had clearly been neglected. It looked pretty good, although it did have some handling marks and the dealer told me that the previous owner had a sizeable collection of Coopers. I actually shot it a few times before I cleaned it and it didn't seem to shoot as well as I had expected.

A cleaning job showed why. The first application of Wipe Out preceded by Accelerator showed deep, deep, blue patches, so I followed up with another application of the same. The result was the same, if not worse. The patches were so blue they were almost black. The third application pulled chucks of copper and two or three spirals of the same. I was beginning to get worried by now. But, the fourth application showed normal light blue and after a patch of Lock Ease, the Cooper shot as expected...very well.

I typically clean my rifles after 150-200 rounds in a dog town, but I do use all coated bullets (WS2). I clean my 30BR after a VFS match, usually in the neighborhood of 150 rounds. All my stuff cleans up easily with WO + Accelerator and I do use WS2 in everything.

Rick
 
About 15 or 20 years ago I was working up some loads for a friends Rem 700 Mtn Rifle in .280. I was cleaning the bore between powders or every 15-20 rounds when the only other guy on the range shooting an identical rifle asked how often I cleaned the barrel. I told him and he said that he'd had his rifle for a couple of years and had never cleaned the barrel. Then he asked if I'd clean his barrel for him.

Nope, because I'm not nearly as dumb as I look and he likely wouldn't have wanted to pay for my time and supplies
 
first thing i do when i get a "broken" gun in. inspect and clean. that fixes 90% of them. easy and cheap for me supplies are cheap. time is not and they pay for that. hadf a good one this year. mud in the face of the bolt. rounds wont chamber is what i was told.
 
Lynn said:
Al
We have a longrange shooter down here in California
that you will get to shoot against at the NBRSA 600 and 1000 Yard Nationals if you make the trip.

He has won both events atleast once or twice and this year alone he set 19 National High Power Records to boot.

He cleans about every 350 rounds wether it needs it or not but one of his guns hasn't been cleaned in excess of 2000 rounds.

He is the current NBRSA 600 Yard National Champion.
He also jumps his VLD bullets 0.060 - 0.125 inches
Just digging through my data he has never finished out of the top 5.
Lynn
Click to expand...

I don't believe that coated bullets will help but this may be a powder/load thing. Some loads don't foul as badly. This has never been my experience but hey, I can't argue with results.

al
 
I guess I just dont understand shooting a rifle until it requires that much effort to clean it in order to get it shooting well again. I shoot two five shot groups, then run 2 wet patches with Butch's, one dry patch, and shoot again.
I dont even take it off the bags to do it.

By doing this, the barrel doesnt get fouled enough to effect accuracy and can be shot all day. The barrel cools down while being cleaned and I load at the range while the barrel sits wtih the solvent in it.
 
Excess fouling

When a 6mm barrel is fouled to the point of being, essentially a .224, that's BAD. I know that it's not really possible, but Man!, starting with a 1-1/8 patch that was tight and going to a 1-3/8 pacth to finish up, that is just plain neglect.
I really think you gunsmiths that encounter this type of crap should charge for it under the auspices of "this is the price you pay for being stupid".
Bryan
 
Brushes, cleaning solvents, patches, cleaning rods, rod guides...

they all cost money, time, and effort.

there are 3 types of people:

Can do

Can't do

Won't do

Most shooters are in the Won't do catagory.
 
There is a difference

Apparently the smaller the hole in the barrel, the more often it must be cleaned. I would guess that Long Range rifles that don't need to be cleaned are at least 30 cal. In my case that it true. I have never competed with anything smaller. This is where the doubt and arguement comes in. We shoot different sized bullets and they apparently require different treatment. Best to state what one is shooting I guess.
 
continuing saga.......

I took the rifle out to sight it in today and the first shot went 2" right and about good on the elevation, second shot and third were spot on, so no adjustments were done. That's 3 shots..........took it home and cleaned it again and it was BLUE as blue can be. My borescope was out of batteries so I bought some ($18.08 yikes!). Pits till hell won't have it! It's also a 12 twist and the guy is shooting 95gr bullets.
Barrel time.
Bryan
 
It's not necessarily the size of the hole in the barrel, as much as the way the sport is played.

For NRA Highpower (including F-Class), there just usually isn't time to clean the barrel until the end of the day. Might be as few as 45 rounds, might be closer to 100 depending on the course of fire - and often we are moving *back* further as the day wears on. After the last stage is fired you usually see the F-Open types all standing around cleaning their barrels. The F/TR shooters seem closer to the Palma standard - clean it at the end of the weekend (200-300+ rounds), or when your conscience starts bugging you :D There is an 'urban legend' of sorts about crusty old Palma shooters who when asked how often they clean their barrel respond "Depends... what year is it?" :eek:

Once upon a time I picked up an old Rem 740 in .30-06 as a brush gun. It wasn't in too bad of shape, really. Shot 1-1/2 to 2" @ 100yds with cheap PMC 180 gr loads. Considering it was intended as a brush gun for elk, that was just fine. Then I had to get all smart and clean the darn thing. Patches of sweets came out smurf blue over and over and over. Cleaned that thing for quite some time, including liberal use of Kroil and JB. I was pretty please with myself when the patches came out nice and clean - until I picked the barrel up and looked thru it at a shop light. What had just looked dirty before now looked like a dried up mud flat. Took it to the range and it now shot abotu 6-10" groups. Great. I loaded up some 'spare' 150gr bullets, and 're-paved' the barrel, chinking all the cracks and crevices again. Got back to shooting about 2" groups, and I called it good. After that, I'd clean it to knock out the loose stuff near the surface, but no more deep cleaning!

Another one that brought tears to my eyes... I am the 'rebel' in my family... my idea of cleaning guns extends to more than wiping them off with WD-40 when dropped in the mud.:rolleyes: After my father passed away a few years ago, my brother asked me to clean up Dad's old .308 - Mexican Mauser action, Springfield two-groove barrel rechambered in .308, old monte carlo style stock with schnable fore-end - as it wasn't shooting very well anymore. Nothing real fancy, but it had accounted for a good number of deer and coyotes over the years for both Dad and us boys. Anyways, I put a .30 cal patch on my jag, and couldn't hardly push it through. I pulled it back out, and it had this weird brown stuff on it :confused: I put the bronze bore brush on it and put some weight behind the cleaning rod... when it popped out the other end, it did so amidst a cloud of reddish-brown dust. Then I realized what that brown stain was... rust :mad: The whole bore was pitted and rusted to beat heck. I cleaned and smoothed it up as best I could, but told my brother that most likely nothing short of a new barrel would 'save' it. He didn't like hearing that.

Monte
 
The moral of the story is......

If you let it go to hell, it certainly will.
This particular rifle is well bedded and has a trigger pull of maybe 2 lbs, maybe a bit less. The stock is in good shape, but the barrel is done.
Here's the question(s) I know the owner will ask.
1: What's the thing worth?
2: What's a new barrel gonna cost?
3: What's a new rifle gonna cost?

There is no sentimental value involved, so cost wise, I'd suggest a new rifle.....low end Savage or Stevens or whatever. That would be cheaper than rebarreling, but the action is slick, and the trigger is very good.
What would you tell the guy?
Bryan
 
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