Barrel Cleaning

[beerthief]

Thanks

 

[igolfat8]

The 22 RF benchrest guys say not to clean your rifle till the accuracy goes south, and then it will take several hundred rounds to bring it back. Same for the PCP rifles?

Bill

Hi Bill, I’m not sure who you got that RF info from but around here we clean our .22 RF barrels after every card which is 30 to 50 rounds to maintain accuracy on our factory class BR rifles. Unlimited class rifles sometimes can go up to 2 cards between cleaning. After a proper cleaning it usually only take 5-10 fouling shots to restore the rifle’s accuracy.

When you are shooting RF BR rifles for record not many experienced shooters are willing to risk that their rifle’s accuracy doesn’t go south during a match.

You received some sound advice above for cleaning your air rifles bore so I won’t beat that horse any more.

 

[JimD]

I'm cheaper than ThomasT. I cleaned my P35-22 today, first cleaning since when I got it new about a month ago. I've put a couple tins of H&N Baracuda Match through it and my accuracy seemed to have fallen off a little bit. I'm probably blaming the barrel for my lack of concentration but I cleaned it. I pull a patch lightly wetted with ballistol and then turn it over and pull it through again. Doing it this way I only used 4 patches. I left the ballistol in the barrel and will check it's point of impact and accuracy next time I shoot it - probably tomorrow or Thursday. I also decreased the sear engagement a little and plan to use a new off brand bipod. So we will see if any of these changes improves anything.

The nice thing about cleaning with a plastic pull cord, Ballistol, and cotton patches is you pretty much cannot hurt the barrel.