dirty barrel

Many guns require some leading fouling their barrel to get accuracy. Too clean poor accuracy that's normal for some guns. Is it what it is. Some guns I never cleaned and has always shot perfect believe it or not.

Number One rule (which I have a hard time following), clean only when accuracy indicates it. Having a history in RF and CF bench rest, barrel cleaning was a ritual, always done after no more than 25 or 30 shots, depending on match format, and usually more often. Leaving the range with a dirty barrel was unthinkable. But, with air guns we have nothing but lead with which to be concerned, no primer or powder fouling, which makes it more simple, and much more forgiving. Depending on pellet and lube, some barrels need only very infrequent cleaning. I have an FX Royale 400 which, in stark contrast to the FX liners, seems to never need cleaning. My newest rifle is an HW100 in .22, and it seems to need cleaning after 50 shots or so, but it is not yet broken in, and I expect it will change. 

Most barrel need some sort of bedding in, at the end of the day we are looking for consistent surface. Generally speaking smoother the barrel surface less cleaning you need. FX and polygon barrels are as smooth as you can get from factory, I haven’t cleaned my superior liner at all and only cleaned my STX barrel once, even with that one time cleaning it wasn’t dirty at all. Like someone already mentioned we don’t have burnt powder to deal with, only double filtered air. Then again regular barrels with sharp edges from cut lands are the one could really benefit from lead filling in the rough spots and sharp edges.


my LW barrel on my 1720 doesn’t need much cleaning either and I didn’t even bother clean out the factory grease from my Pp700 and pp750 because burn through at lease couple of hundred pellets to tune/chronograph them anyways. All my barrels have hundreds to thousands of shots through them straight from the tin. Maybe I got lucky? Regardless I follow the rule of not cleaning unless accuracy goes away because I’m lazy but the funny part is every time I did clean my barrels it took quite a few shots to get the accuracy/consistency back so I’m just going to embrace my lazy self when it comes to barrel cleaning. 

Number One rule (which I have a had time following), clean only when accuracy indicates it. Having a history in RF and CF bench rest, barrel cleaning was a ritual, always done after no more than 25 or 30 shots, depending on match format, and usually more often. Leaving the range with a dirty barrel was unthinkable. But, with air guns we have nothing but lead with which to be concerned, no primer or powder fouling, which makes it more simple, and much more forgiving. Depending on pellet and lube, some barrels need only very infrequent cleaning. I have an FX Royale 400 which, in stark contrast to the FX liners, seems to never need cleaning. My newest rifle is an HW100 in .22, and it seems to need cleaning after 50 shots or so, but it is not yet broken in, and I expect it will change.

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Ditto that. I come from the powder burning accuracy world as well, and I used to RUN for my cleaning rod after 20 rounds. Ed Shilen, the late founder of Shilen Rifle Barrels, and some experimenting changed my thinking towards cleaning.

Mr. Shilen had a couple of quotes in re: barrel cleaning that resonated with me. Paraphrasing...

"Clean your barrel when accuracy falls off, and only clean it to the point where accuracy returns. It does not have to be squeaky clean. A lot of barrels shoot better fouled".

"More barrels are ruined by incorrect cleaning techniques than by any other reason".

I found that my tactical and live varmint rifles didn't need to be cleaned every 20 rounds, and depending on the individual rifle, some could go A LOT longer between cleanings without a noticeable loss in accuracy.

I know, I know...powder burner drivel. I'll stop. But I have a healthy suspicion that there are some commonalities between PB and air rifle barrels that are worthy of paying attention to...

Justin