Wide Eyes

i have heard that u are NOT supposed to do this because the crown of the barrel can get damaged.

My question is, how exactly does this damage occurr? You have a plastic peace with a cloth through it, whats there to hurt it? the pul sliding back and forth?

Quilly

i never do it cause it pushes debri and unwanted stuff inside the action/reciever.

halcon

Its kind of hard not to rod from the muzzle if your cleaning a auto loading or lever action rifle ,thats why I have taken to using a boresnakes for that kind of gun . Quilly is right you don't want to push the debris into the action . As far as I know I have never damaged a barrel cleaning it yet,but everyone has thier own ideas .

Wide Eyes

well i was told the other day that never clean your rifle from the muzzle with a rod.

They say that it can ruin the crown of your rifle and your accuracy will be thrown of big time.

Well right before i heard that i had cleaned my brand new gun from the muzzle.

I was very worried i damaged something but i shot yesterday and no apparent damage had happened.

model722

I've never heard of it causing damage, but Quilly hit the nail on the head. If you clean from muzzle to chamber all your doing is knocking all the crap into the action.

Goodguy

Pushing a cleaning rod into a barrel from the muzzle will most definitely damage the crown. This then will affect the accuracy. The more the damage the more accuracy is adversely affected. The rod rubbing the inside of the crown is the culprit. Always clean from the breach and use a bore guide to guide the rod into the chamber & barrel and also prevent solvent and other crap from dripping into the action. Pulling the rod back though the barrel/muzzle/crown does not have the same damaging affect on the crown as pushing the rod into the muzzle/crown. Three piece aluminum rods are by far the worst because the soft aluminum scrapes off into the rifling etc. Use a high quality one piece steel rod. If there is no choice but to clean from the muzzle as in an auto loader then get a muzzle bore guide to prevent damaging the crown. A bore snake is great for a quick field cleaning but I'd never rely on one for ongoing maintenance. A rifle is a beautiful thing, proper cleaning will keep it beautiful. gg.

"When I was born I was so surprised I couldn't talk for a year and a half"

Wide Eyes

Well i'm confused. i cleaned my new .22 through the muzzle and can still put 10 shots in a dime sized group at 25 yards. why didn't i damage my crown when i cleaned it. I only cleaned it once though, maybe it takes a longer time?

DaNewf

Repeated cleaning from the muzzle with a bad cleaning rod and no bore guide has a cummaltive negative effect on accuracy over time.

If you are real careful you can avoid doing any damage but a good one peice cleaning rod and a bore guide are your best bet.

And sometimes no matter how badly you treat a rifle it will continue to shoot accuratley. Usually not the case.

Wide Eyes

I had a 3 piece aluminum rod.

How bad do you think i could have damaged it just one time cleaning? i probably put 10 different patches through and wasn't exactly super carfule. I was gentle ofcourse but wasn't paying a whole lot of attention to me touching the crown or anything. I moved the rod in and out on some the patches.

I'm guessing that wasn't really enough to effect it to much? i can still shoot dime sized groups like i said at 25

bigcountry

You can get away with once, twice or maybe twenty times. But sooner than later, your going to scape the inside of the barrel or put little dent on the corner where the inside of the barrle and crown meets. Also it depends alot on what kinda crown you got. On my remington 7400 it has a rounded crown and these are tougher to hurt than say a 11degree target crown. You just want to make sure you do everything you can to keep that bullet from kicking out to one side when it comes spinning out of the muzzle. So when it comes out, the pressure will be equal on all sides. If you did damage the crown, it will most likely be visible with an eye loop or mag. glass.

You want to chuck those 3 peice rods. More sooner than later, you will create crown damage with them at the joints hitting that corner in your barrel. On my semis and 22, I use a rod and clean out the muzzle, but use that plastic cone that comes with most rods to protect the crown. Never had a problem in 15 years. It is more desirable to clean from the breech however.