MossyOak02

Hey all. I got a question on when i should clean my gun. I always cleaned my old .22 after every time i shot it. Also, what parts do you guys clean? I used to take every single thing apart, and clean all of them, then put it together and wipe it down with a gun wipe. What do you guys use to clean your guns?

Vapodog

Unless you had your gun out in the rain or somehow it got some water/mud etc. there' s no need to totally disasemble and clean everything. It don' t hurt anything...it' s just not necessary.

A .22 usually has powder residue and maybe some lead fowling.....centerfire rifles are mostly fouled by copper.

I' m assuming you' re talking about centerfire rifles...

There' s no hard and fast rule to cleaning their barrels. Every barrel has it' s own needs and we all run different bullets through them. If you shoot a lot of Barnes, Failsafes, etc. you might want to clean after ten shots. If you have a Shilen barrel compared to a Shaw barrel there will be a difference in cleaning frequency.

I have a M-70 in .223 that has fired at least 300 rounds at prairie dogs without a rod in the barrel....and it keeps on killing them varmints. Other rifles want to be cleaned at least every fifty rounds. In the evening while the potatos are baking all the guns get the works with coppersolvent regardless of how much they are shot during the day.

If you notice accuracy falling off, it needs to be cleaned. If you look through the barrel and it' s the same color as the bullets you' re shooting, it needs to be cleaned.

A general rule of thumb might be to clean your hunting rifle after every box of ammo has been fired in it. You might want to clean it more often but there' s nothing that says to do so.

In short, there' s no answer to your question. It' s totally up to you.

Briman

If you shoot lead bullets only through your rimfire .22, there' s really no reason at all to ever clean it, unless you get it wet.

I' m not really a gun cleaning fanatic, so I' m probably way on the far end of the spectrum of some people here. For centerfire rifles I clean when:

1. I shoot corrosive ammo -clean right away, and clean often.
2. The rifle gets wet.
3. the barrel gets heavily fouled with copper and accuracy drops off- usually between 20-50 rounds.
4. At the end of a season if I used it for hunting and won' t be shooting for several months.


Clean the bore, the chamber, and the bolt face any you should be ok. A little bit of rem oil put down the barrel followed by a dry patch to remove everything but the fine residues afterward.

fphunter

Here' s my basic plan:

Black powder rifle -- I clean it every time I shoot it. The residue from even one shot can cause problems.

Centerfire rifles -- I clean them at the end of the season before I store them for the summer.

Shotguns -- I clean them at the end of the season, maybe once during the season depending on how much shooting I do.

I don' t think I' ve ever cleaned my .22, of course I don' t really use it that much either.

And if any of my guns get wet, those guidelines are out the window. I clean them ASAP.

ktscontender

When testing a new contender bbl. I clean every 5 rounds all other contender bbls after each session.

22s and 9mm when ever they start losing accurracy or if I start getting a lot of misfires I' ll clean the bolt(s)

hunting rifle at the end of the season. If I shoot it in the off season I' ll clean it after the shooting session.

All I use for cleaning is MPro-7, most of my bbls are conditioned now and cleaning them only takes a few minutes so it ain' t no big chore.