Ok still learning.....barrel maintenance.

When it seems as though my groups are not as good as usual i do a cleaning about 3 patches with ballistol and then clean ones till its clean and the groups tighten up one time they didnt tighten up and i put a brass brush about 4 passes and had some fragments come out then

back to normal

whatever works for you is what you should do .. important thing to me is they arnt firearms, theres no powder or leading to speak of with pellets anyway, and i want consistency ... what i dont want is a situation where ive stroked the barrel to produce glistening white patches then sighted it, then need to repeat that every few mags to keep it on sight .. no i prefer running a dry patch a couple of strokes every tin and calling it gravy .. one of my main go to guns ive had for 10+ years has never seen a bristle or cleaning agent .. i know right at this moment i could throw a mag in it, rack one in, and blow a nutter off the gate fencepost at 55 .. all without wondering if i need to scrub my barrel first lol ..so like i said. whatever works for you though ...

Like Bobby says, the clean it when accuracy degrades is the advice I usually give.

One or more of the following factors will necessitate more frequent cleaning:
1. rough bore
2. tight choke (if present)
3. high velocities
4. absence of lubrication
5. shooting slugs (more so than pellets due to larger bearing surface) 
6. high expectations

You might add other things to the list but suffice it to say there are enough variables to span a range of "I can't remember the last time I had to clean it" to "I have to clean it after every 30 shots". Though in my experience I would say the average pellet rifle will probably benefit from being cleaned every 500 shots or so.

Note the black patches don't necessarily say much about the barrel. That's just graphite. It is the silver (fresh) or gray (oxidized) that negatively affects things.

Since you're just getting started, it's probably early to introduce topics like barrel polishing but if and when you get interested, it can help extend cleaning intervals. For example I like to give a new barrel some attention with J-B Bore Compound to help smooth out the surface fretting left over from the manufacturing process. A good thread on the topic https://www.airgunnation.com/topic/barrel-polishing-5/

Then I'll thoroughly clean it and apply a hard wax. The wax sidesteps the need for seasoning shots and makes it easier to maintain. Some discussion here https://www.airgunnation.com/topic/wax-and-gun-bores/

If you shoot a gun enough you will learn if it needs cleaning as accuracy will go down. If you clean it and accuracy returns then you know you need to periodically clean that barrel.

I seldom clean barrels, pellet guns do not get powder residue ,maybe when you get a brand new gun you should clean the barrel,but I didn't until I read all the

the guys saying, you should clean the barrel,yea, ok whatever works, ...I usually buy used guns and when I did clean barrels I had to shot them a lot to get them to shoot as good as they did before I cleaned them......Maybe I can not shoot good enough to see the difference,fact is some people do more harm cleaning a barrel then they would if they never clean the barrel,look at it this way,especially if you do not shoot much;that little bit of fouling is helping prevent rust.LOL.

Airgun barrel maintenance is no more complicated than "how to pick up and seduce women". 

Every woman... I mean, barrel, is an individual; and may or may not react well, badly, or not at all to any given approach. Some react immediately, some slowly, and some never; regardless whether we're talking cheap women... I mean, cheap airguns, expensive, beautiful, homely, or somewhere between. And of course that last part is a matter of individual interpretations and tastes. Matter of fact I've just experienced an excellent example of all the above.

A few months ago I purchased what many more 'evolved' airgunners on this forum might laugh off as cheap, ugly, rude, crude and downright off-putting! However I've often confessed "I like slutty-looking women!" Behold... BIG BERTHA-

 

If you're still with me, I assume you've picked yourself up off the floor. But like many (most) things I do, there is (and was) a method to my madness. 

It having been a few years since I captured State and National Champion titles with airguns that sold brand-new for as little as $21.95 (that's 21 dollars and 95 cents, NOT $2,195.00), I saw the .30 caliber, 32" barreled, $500, Chinese AEA Challenger bullpup as having potentials no-one less insane than me would (or probably could) recognize. My intention with this purchase was to see if I could (again) turn water to wine by taking the cheapest, ugliest, rudest, crudest, and most off-putting (to sane folks) woman... I mean, airgun, to the winner's circle (again); this time in long-range airgun competitions of Bench-Rest Silhouette and Extreme Field Target (both shot out to 100 yards). I well realized it would be quite a challenge to tame the savage, unregulated, 150 foot-pound beast enough to avoid being laughed off the field in such cutting-edge airgun competitions. 

The taming/sophistication process involved 1) Reducing the power level, OBSCENE COCKING EFFORT, AND EIGHT-POUND TRIGGER-PULL by replacing the extremely strong hammer-spring with a shorter, lighter Ace Hardware spring, 2) Moly lubing everything inside there, 3) Dressing the muzzle crown, 4) Polishing the bore, and, finally, yesterday, 5) Fabricating a simple, but effective, sear-engagement adjusting gizmo. And, 6) Shooting thousands of rounds in the course of chronograph and accuracy testing. 

What kept me going through this process was each step producing positive results over the chronograph and on target. Each positive result was another step toward my admittedly LOFTY goal. 

Last nights still shooting conditions proved fabricating the sear-engagement adjuster to (probably) be the next to last step in achieving my goal. But given current pellet-availability issues, my usual accuracy-testing protocol of shooting five (or more) consecutive five-shot groups to calculate AVERAGE accuracy capabilities has, by necessity, been amended to THREE consecutive five-shot groups; especially when sacrificing tins of relatively expensive .30 caliber pellets.

With BERTA'S trigger now breaking like glass at 32 ounces, with every shot I consciously reminded myself, "don't even get on the trigger until ready to break the shot'". Here are the first 2, five-shot groups at 100 yards-



The group in red measured 1.20" center-to-center, the blue group just .59". In fact, all ten shots went into 1.20" c-t-c. Though extremely tempted to stop there, my testing protocol demanded a third group; and I was both too lazy to put up a new target, and confident enough in the guns abilities, to shoot the third group on the same target in order to calculate average group size.



Of course as expected, and contrary to my over-inflated confidence, the third group was not only the largest, but centered to a slightly different point-of-impact than the previous two. I've probably shot more bench-rested airgun groups than anyone on Earth, and the 1.06" average group-size is the best I've ever achieved at 100 yards with an airgun. And the .59" group is among the five best I've ever gotten. 

Mind you, this superb accuracy does not qualify as meeting my goal outlined above. However it's another step... correction- GIANT STEP towards that goal. 

So you ask, "what's the last step alluded to earlier?" That would be the Huma regulator arriving next week; hopefully in time for the (quarterly) TEXtreme Field Target competition I'm hosting that weekend (September 4).

Though I'll shoot BIG BERTHA in the TFT competition even if the reg doesn't arrive in time, regulated-consistency would be another, and no small confidence builder in an extreme competition brutally punishing of any lack of confidence. 

Depending on how it goes, I'll either post an update on this forum, or take a cue from the LOTFW... and GO INTO HIDING!

A lot of good info and recommendations in this thread from contributing members. 

@AirNGasman I like your analogy lol.

To keep things simple, here's a few things you can do;

- Get a PatchWorm from 20/20 Concepts.

- If it's a new gun, clean it following the instructions. Finish up with a few dry patches. 

- Lead in the barrel until groups tighten up with the gun's favorite ammo.

- Get your average groups at 25, 50, and 100 yards if you can in good weather conditions. 

- Remember which tins performed the best. If there's a lot number, write it down. Batches can change even from the same manufacturer. 

- After so many rounds of pellets through it and accuracy starts to degrade, clean it using the same methods you did when it was new.

- If accuracy does not return, then you can try other methods.