Clean your darn disco!

[GecoGuy]

I thought I'd give my two cents on this subject seeing as how it's a more controversial subject then global warming...
 
Here are a few things I have heard over the past year...all from multiple accredited airgun gurus
...There is no need to clean your air gun (this one I have heard the most)
...You should only clean the gun every (x amount of shots)
...You should clean your gun with goo gone
...And a whole other slew of do's and dont's, but I think you get the idea.
 
So after I purchased my 1st REAL airgun and actually got into it as a hobby I only wanted the best for my rifle and had heard so many different opinions as how to do this I took the safest approach I thought and took no action in cleaning my barrel. I was afraid from reading all the stories of how if you clean your gun wrong it will forever RUIN it!
 
That is until a few days ago, when I had noticed my 37 yard zero was no longer able to keep shots with in my 1" circle, and I have noticed it getting progressively worse over the last 2 months. Not to mention my confidence was going down the pooper. In fact I couldn't even hit the circle anymore and this was my zero! It looked like my shots out at 80 yards rather. So I said what the heck and decided to take some kite string, a small finishing nail tied to the end and an old cotton shirt for my patches. The first patch I ran was completely black! This was accumulation from over 2000+ shots and never being cleaned (other then from when I first got it out of the box). I proceeded to run about 10 more patches through and they were coming out clean.

After cleaning the barrel I went and checked my zero groups because I have heard you need to put a few shots down the barrel to get some lead in there before it starts to get accurate again. This was not the case, first shot bulls-eye! second shot, drilled er right on top of the first one, third, fourth, fifth, and so on all piled into one nice clean hole! I said to myself I need to clean my barrel more often, haven't seen my disco preform like this since I got her out of the box!

So, I thought I would share my lesson with some of those new airgunners out their who hear all this rable about cleaning the guns because I know I was frustrated with all the back and forth talk about how to ACTUALLY clean your gun. All you need to do is run a patch of old t shirt cotton down the barrel and it is that simple, no additives/solevents, just good ol' fashion cotton.

[pyroboy33]

Yea I couldn't agree more, as soon as I start sensing the accuracy starting to drop off be it at 750,500 or only 150 shots I just grab the ole crown saver kit from AOA and mop the barrel. Most always right after the cleaning my disco will start drillin pellets in the same hole at 45 yards. But at the same time I think it really depends on the gun and pellet choice for example cphp's are just filthy while jsb's are mildly dirty and for me require cleaning at around 400 shots. But like I said it depends on pellet choice/shooter.   

[Finchlake]

Thanks for the info, I gave my Disco a good cleaning when it was new. It is still shooting great. I was wandering if I should clean the barrel ever so often.

[Shoot Straight]

     Good story. I use CPHPs out of my Disco. and I clean the pellets before I use them. I still have to clean the barrel after about every 200 or so shots. What I'll do about every third or so cleaning is take some JB bore paste and run two patches of that through the barrel ten times each. Then I just run patches through until they come out dry and clean, but I don't do that for every cleaning. Most of the time I run a few dry patches through the barrel just to get the excess lead out.