Briman

The damage is caused by grit imbedding into the cleaning rod and acting like a file cutting away at the rifling at the muzzle end. Using aluminum rods is especially bad because the metal is soft and any hard grit will stick to the metal. Over time the rifling at the crown will be rounded off and worn away, widening the muzzle end of the barrel causing poor accuracy. Its a pretty common sight, one I've seen many times with old military rifles, to have the muzzles so badly worn that they will nearly swallow up a bullet of the correct caliber with little resistance at the muzzle. These are military rifles with very deep, wide lands, not the thin shallow lands you find in most modern rifles. A modern rifle will wear alot faster if abused as such. If you need to clean from the muzzle, buy yourself a muzzle protector and a steel one piece cleaning rod- the muzzle protecter will set you back a buck or two and the cleaning rod about $20.

Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms... who's bringing the chips?

Quilly

now this makes me kind of leary..how would you clean guns that has to be down from the muzzle? like a browning BAR?

Country Boy

Aluminium rods, due to the "softness", will over time get harder pieces of grit embedded in their surface. This acts like a low quality sand paper and will over time erode the quality of the rifling. this WILL effect accuracy over a period of time. Most people will not notice this accuracy loss except in extreme cases of serious abuse.

Three piece aluminium rods tend to be worse due to the greater flexibility that they have. These rods tend to scrape even harder on the walls of the barrel.

The preferred method is to clean from the chamber to the action using a one piece SS rod. Using a bore guide that is properly fitted keeps any solvents from dripping back into the action. If you need to clean from the muzzle, use a one piece SS rod with a muzzle guide (also called crown protector).

Many people will buy a $600.00 rifle and then buy the cheapest quality cleaning kit to run through it... Hmmmmm... do the math.

Wide eyes,
If you can shoot 1/2" 5-shot groups @ 40yards it would not appear as if you gun had been adversely effected. My .22 does not seem to be effected from my numerous cleanings... I can still cover all five rounds with a dime at 60 yards... I'm REALLY careful with this gun. LOL!!

DREAM BIG, LIVE LARGE, DIE HAPPY ~Country Boy

halcon

Quilly if you never do it as you stated in your first post why worry about it . <img src=icon_smile_wink.gif border=0 align=middle><img src=icon_smile_wink.gif border=0 align=middle><img src=icon_smile_big.gif border=0 align=middle>