Some don't clean their AG bores, I'm not one of them.

[nced]

I shot a very low score at today's field target match (shooting hunter class) using my .177 HW95.

The gun hasn't been shot a lot since the last bore clean (or so I thought), however testing different brands of pellets plus my normal plinking seems to have "crudded up" the bore.

Intitally the intent was to break down the HW95 when I got home after the match to see if something "bellied up". First a few groups were shot and here is a scan of the target shot upstairs at 18 yards.........

The top two groups were shot "dirty bore", followed by pulling through a piece of old cotton tee shirt moistened with RemOil, followed by a couple dry patches. The bottom group on the left was shot while "seasoning the bore". I found that the "clean bore" groups "tightened up" as expected, however the surprise was that the groups themselves shifted to the left to be "in line again" with the aim point. These groups were shot without turning the scope turrets and all shifting was due to only the bore clean.

Here is a pic of the first "pull through" of the patch through the bore..........

[truck]

What device do you pull the patches through with?

[Buldawg76]

I agree that when accuracy starts to degrade that cleaning the bore is the first step in diagnosing what the issue may be. Airgun barrels do get fouled just as PB barrels do just not as fast.

Mike

[nced]

What device do you pull the patches through with?

I use a JL CrownSaver. The one on the left is a couple decades old, the one on the right is a couple years old...............


Here is a pic of the older Crown Saver in th epic when it was new after pulling a patch through a brand new "outta tha box" .177 Beeman R9. LOL, the price tag gives an indication of how long ago that was............

[Pandur_HR]

I bought soft rope. Push it trough the barrel, and attach soft cotton rag by a sailor running knot. Push trough, remove rag, pull back rope, attach new one, etc. etc. Until cotton rags are clean and dry.
I put white paper, below barrel to see to what is coming out.

From time to time I pass the barrel with Ballistol to remove extra lead.

How frequent I clean?
Depending on chrono and precision. Lately, as I am familirized with rifle, I can hear by a sound when cleaning time is near (it become loud as shooting ultra heavy pellets).

On a picture you can see Gamo oil, that is for outside parts.
From set of brushes (on a soft plastic rod). I use cotton brush only to put Ballistol. And rearly nylon brush, if I see a pieces of lead on a paper.

After cleaning I blow with air (spray can) to remove pieces of cotton.

After cleaning, difference in sound, precision and chrono is very notable.

If I did "dry" cleaning, chrono is stabile and precision restored after few pellets.
If I did "wet" cleaning (Ballistol). That depend on how good I dried barrel, dryer it was, less pellets are used to get rid of dieseling.
Usually, after "wet" cleaning, I wait for few days before shooting, and then there is almost no dieseling at all, only little on a first pellet. Precision is restored and chrono stable after several pellets.

[Pandur_HR]

There is also something, I rarley read, and people mention. That is stability.

Pellets get unstable as barrel get dirty.

First picture is from today. It shows JSB 18.13 .22 after hitting a plywood at 150m and penetrating it about 5 mm. They are all correctly deformed and left correctly shaped hole. Meaning they were flying stable all the way. Rifling is clearly visible on a skirt.

Second picture show 2 sideways impact at 100m few weeks ago. Pellets were thumbling, and most likely spiralling too. Barrel was dirty, stability restored after cleaning.

[truck]

I don't imagine these things would work very well on a Benjamin Marauder with all the baffling, would they. I guess I'd have to disassemble the rifle to clean the barrel.

[Buldawg76]

I use a 30# test monofilament fishing line leader that has a loop molded into the end and feed it from breech to muzzle then place patches in the loop and pull thru dry to see just how dirty the barrel is and then determine if any wet solvent/lube is needed. I also use one of the bore snakes with the brush bristles captured inside the snakes cloth to minimize any abrasion of the rifling if the barrel is real dirty. So far has worked well for me.

I do use FP10 to lube the bores after cleaning and on some pellets in the guns with tight bores or my WAR HF .25 barrel in my Brod per Jim Gaska's recommendations..

Mike

[unionrdr]

I like to clean mine after every session. Dewey ball bearing handle rod and spear tip jags with Bushnell phosphor/bronze or nylon brushes. I like the round 7/8" patches for .177 & .22, Bushnell's 1 3/8" woven patches with .22 spear tip jag for snug fit in the .25 caliber's. Rem-oil patches till pretty clean, then dry patch. I use the brush in between rounds of wet patches. I've also found this helps them break in faster by keeping fouling to a minimum.

[Back_Roads]

 I clean them when I get them, lube my pellets, then only clean if accuracy falls off. Nice part of air gunning vs. powder burning.

[fwbsport]

Part of the reason is "fouling the bore" settles the gun into it's pattern to stay there, while cleaning a bore requires a real projectile or a few to get the zero back.

I do look into the bores of all my break barrels and inspect them chamber to muzzle from both ends.  It's not because I'm particularly fastidious in cleaning but rather I like looking at rifling in these guns.  Once in awhile I see a very small spot of lead that stayed in an area of the bore but by the next shot it is gone.

Excessive cleaning is the number one cause of damaging rifling and bores.  Nothing but bullets should be scraping around inside there.  No chemicals either--especially fire arm solvents like Hoppe's #9 and the usual powder solvents.  These are chemically damaging to air rifle bores!  HW says that in the instructions!

[nervoustrigger]

The notion that any common solvent would damage an airgun barrel would elicit an eye roll from most any competitive shooter.  I don’t doubt that a very careless person can manage to damage their barrel by repeatedly raking a dirty cleaning rod against the crown, but I think the concern is vastly overstated for anyone practicing the slightest bit of care.

For example, many 25m benchrest shooters will clean their barrel after every card.   That’s after only 25 pellets + sighters.  Granted he knows what he’s doing but he may clean his barrel more in one day than the typical airgunner would in a lifetime. 

[nced]

The notion that any common solvent would damage an airgun barrel would elicit an eye roll from most any competitive shooter.  I don’t doubt that a very careless person can manage to damage their barrel by repeatedly raking a dirty cleaning rod against the crown, but I think the concern is vastly overstated for anyone practicing the slightest bit of care.

For example, many 25m benchrest shooters will clean their barrel after every card.   That’s after only 25 pellets + sighters.  Granted he knows what he’s doing but he may clean his barrel more in one day than the typical airgunner would in a lifetime. 

So true!

When my brother was shooting unlubed 10.5 grain CP heavies from his .177 R9 his accuracy became patterns at only 30 yards. He couldn't find the cause so he used his bore scope to see that the rifling just in front of the choke was so tightly packed that it wasn't visible. No amount of pulled patches would remove the packed hard lead Crosman alloy so he went "Draconian" with Hoppes #9 bore soak and brass brushing. He eventually uncovered the buried rifling at the choke and with that his accuracy returned. At that time we both started lubing CPs for our .177 R9s to prevent "soldered on fouling" and make the bore cleaning easier.

I've read that an airgun shooter should never use "powder burner stuff", so my brother's fouled bore solution caused me to do a test a R9 breech seal by soaking in  straight Hoppes #9 to see if the seal would soften or harden................

Since I don't deliberately soak my seals in straight Hoppes #9 for several days I figured that IF there was a need to use the "powder burner stuff" in the bore of my HW springers it wouldn't be an issue.

[triggertreat]

I don't imagine these things would work very well on a Benjamin Marauder with all the baffling, would they. I guess I'd have to disassemble the rifle to clean the barrel.

Just get you some smooth .080" Weed-eater line.  Pull off enough to double it over and twist with a drill.  Melt the two ends together then you are set.  You can push the looped end through the baffles with ease and have a very strong pull-through that wont break.


As far as cleaning barrels, I keep my barrels very clean.  There is very little shooting between cleanings.  My three shoot the best when very clean.  I will use a pull-through between rod and brush cleanings.

[Blueswaite]

Thanks for info on weed amp after line. I’ll give it a shot next time I clean my barrels.

[truck]

I don't imagine these things would work very well on a Benjamin Marauder with all the baffling, would they. I guess I'd have to disassemble the rifle to clean the barrel.

Just get you some smooth .080" Weed-eater line.  Pull off enough to double it over and twist with a drill.  Melt the two ends together then you are set.  You can push the looped end through the baffles with ease and have a very strong pull-through that wont break.

I'll give that a try.

[Kidpellet]

I shot a very low score at today's field target match (shooting hunter class) using my .177 HW95.

The gun hasn't been shot a lot since the last bore clean (or so I thought), however testing different brands of pellets plus my normal plinking seems to have "crudded up" the bore.

Intitally the intent was to break down the HW95 when I got home after the match to see if something "bellied up". First a few groups were shot and here is a scan of the target shot upstairs at 18 yards.........

The top two groups were shot "dirty bore", followed by pulling through a piece of old cotton tee shirt moistened with RemOil, followed by a couple dry patches. The bottom group on the left was shot while "seasoning the bore". I found that the "clean bore" groups "tightened up" as expected, however the surprise was that the groups themselves shifted to the left to be "in line again" with the aim point. These groups were shot without turning the scope turrets and all shifting was due to only the bore clean.

Here is a pic of the first "pull through" of the patch through the bore..........

Hello Ed!  Missed you at the  National's man, I was looking forward to finally meeting you lol.

I learned to clean my barrels on my 3 Gen1 Marauders about every 80 to 100 shots and then season them with about 15 shots.

That comes out to one 60 shot match including sighters and they will not make two matches without the groups getting large.

I absolutely stopped using CPH lubed or not. They were pretty dirty. I switched to AA10.34 and have had pretty good luck for the last 3 years. I still clean about every 80 shots but the patches are much cleaner.

My TM1000 shoots the same pellets but doesn't need cleaned anywhere near as often. Polished bore? Don't know. I know all barrels do not seem the same.

I made my own pull through out of fly fishing line and cut my own patches from white flan material. They are cut to fit really tight. So far so good.

Hope to have many chats with you Ed!

[triggertreat]

I don't imagine these things would work very well on a Benjamin Marauder with all the baffling, would they. I guess I'd have to disassemble the rifle to clean the barrel.

Just get you some smooth .080" Weed-eater line.  Pull off enough to double it over and twist with a drill.  Melt the two ends together then you are set.  You can push the looped end through the baffles with ease and have a very strong pull-through that wont break.

I'll give that a try.

Crimp the end of the loop a bit to fit.  Works really well and is fast to push through.

[Kidpellet]

I don't imagine these things would work very well on a Benjamin Marauder with all the baffling, would they. I guess I'd have to disassemble the rifle to clean the barrel.

Barry I pull ridiculously tight patches I cut myself from white flannel material with a pull through I made myself from fly fishing line. It's 3 years old and hasn't broken yet.

As far as the baffles go in the Marauder I use a straw to feed the pull through past them and into the barrel from the muzzle end. Never even dislodged the barrel oring.

In my three Gen1 Marauders they all need a couple of patches in less than 100 shots and then need seasoned with about 15 shots.

I gave up on CPH pellets and switched to AA10.34. Been 3 years now and have had pretty good luck.

[Muddydogz]

I only clean when I can find no other reasons for accuracy problems but when I do clean, I use a single strand of heavy weed whacker line. Heat one end up with a lighter and mash it so it will hold a patch. Cut the other end slanted so it will poke through the patch. I don't shoot field target so I don't run near the amount of lead down the barrel. Not all barrels are created equal and some with poor factory finish will foul up real quick.