Thread: cleaning a 22lr my thoughts

seen a lot on this lately so I thought id share my thoughts on the subject
then you are more then welcome to comment what you do and we will make a bit of info for people who might be having issues

personally I have a fair amount of experience with 22lr probably more than any other firearm i started shooting sporting rifle (basically small bore with a scoped rifle) competitively in the junior ranks at 14 years of age and was shooting in the club team until 23years when life took me in a deferent direction
in that time i estimate i have shot 85,000 rounds or so of match grade 22 ammo probably a lot less than some out there and even on this forum

so the old wifes tale is that you never clean a 22 barrel and while most hunters farmers and average shooters may for the most part be ok using this theory and never notice an issue for the most part if you shoot a lot and suddenly find yourself missing shots that you normally wouldn't its probably time to clean your barrel

what happens is eventually after 1000's rounds you get a carbon build up in the bore and this starts to affect accuracy
hunters wont notice till it gets really bad

target shooters will notice a lot sooner simply because they are looking to be more precise and will notice even the slightest change in the rifles performance

so when do i clean? i wait till i see a deuteration of accuracy not one bad target but several in a row.. one bad target can be coursed by a lot of things
when that is depends on the barrel could be 1000 rounds but could also be 10'000 rounds+

how do i clean my 22 barrel? i use a mild solvent such as hopes number 9 any of the 1000's of similar products a couple of wet patches wait 10 mins and a couple of dry ones do it again if required i refrain from using brushes unless i have to and even then only nylon
NEVER clean from the muzzle

I've been told it takes 1000's of rounds to get your accuracy back after cleaning is this true? absolutely not... it is 100% true that you need to refoul your barrel
but depending on your barrel this only takes between 5 and 20 rounds (normally around 10)

the other time i clean a 22 barrel is if i am switching ammo its important to start off with a clean barrel when trying new ammo because of oils or waxes on the bullets

anyway thats me and how i go about a 22lr
cheers
rambo

I clean mine after every use as I do with all my rifles . Accuracy doesn't seem to be overly affected - I still hit what I am aiming at being it minute of drinks can or minute of small animal vital parts .
I don't target shoot though so not trying to shoot the wings off a fly at 50 paces ....

Originally Posted by Ftx325

I clean mine after every use as I do with all my rifles .

Ditto, but I guess there's degrees of cleaning. If I'm feeling particularly serious about bagging a rabbit, I might put a couple of rounds in to the dirt before starting the "hunt". I think the phrase "never clean a 22" is used to justify putting wet/dirty rifles back in the safe. That's gun abuse in my book!

I VERY seldom clean barrel,but would be lucky if fire 50 rounds a year through my 22lr...the outside however gets the oily rag treatment every outing... my old Remington singleshot taught me not to clean barrel...that was half a box before it settled back down again.

@Ftx325 and @MB

if that's what you prefer do it that way im not gonna try and stop you certainly better than a rifle that hasn't been cleaned 50years bet be known that you will have flyers from the 1st few rounds 99% chance that wont affect hunting accuracy though

and you put them away fouled with the wax and oils from the bullets which will stop the bore from corroding aswell as anything you could put in there not dirty and wet

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

I VERY seldom clean barrel,but would be lucky if fire 50 rounds a year through my 22lr...the outside however gets the oily rag treatment every outing... my old Remington singleshot taught me not to clean barrel...that was half a box before it settled back down again.

yep exactly what i do
oily rag on the outside every use

I never clean till the action ( 10 / 22) starts to become unreliable , accuracy at this point is still highly acceptable to over 100mtrs on rabbits for me.
I run sub sonic which as we all know are dirty little buggers . Maybe every third action clean ( around 1200 - 1500 rounds ) I will drag a pull through down the barrel 2-3 times and that's it.
As Rambo mentioned a few shots are required for it to settle back down after a clean but by the time I run half a mag through it's business as normal.

The cleaning rates can vary from make to make and rifle to rifle. I have a French Unique that will flawlessly cycle a thousand rounds but the action isn't as tight as the Ruger.
Son's CZ 452 bolt starts to fail to extract after 200 - 300 rounds.
Like Rambo I am not a big fan of over cleaning and also there's a big difference between a target rifle at club level and a working rifle in rabbit infested Central Otago.

Originally Posted by rambo-6mmrem

@Ftx325 and @MB

if that's what you prefer do it that way im not gonna try and stop you certainly better than a rifle that hasn't been cleaned 50years bet be known that you will have flyers from the 1st few rounds 99% chance that wont affect hunting accuracy though

and you put them away fouled with the wax and oils from the bullets which will stop the bore from corroding aswell as anything you could put in there not dirty and wet

The 22 of mine that gets used 99 % of the time is a stainless Marlin pappose so simple to just run a rod with an oily patch down the removed barrel a couple of times when home . Just a force of habit I think more than anything . And I find cleaning my rifles relaxing and something I enjoy doing (yep , definitely a fruit loop!)
I don't get carried away though with brushes scrubbing it out so 'clean' is used loosely for that rifle . I wouldn't want to use it as a drinking straw .....

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

I VERY seldom clean barrel,but would be lucky if fire 50 rounds a year through my 22lr...the outside however gets the oily rag treatment every outing... my old Remington singleshot taught me not to clean barrel...that was half a box before it settled back down again.

Same as me @mickey Duck

Originally Posted by Ftx325

The 22 of mine that gets used 99 % of the time is a stainless Marlin pappose so simple to just run a rod with an oily patch down the removed barrel a couple of times when home . Just a force of habit I think more than anything . And I find cleaning my rifles relaxing and something I enjoy doing (yep , definitely a fruit loop!)
I don't get carried away though with brushes scrubbing it out so 'clean' is used loosely for that rifle . I wouldn't want to use it as a drinking straw .....

Same, just patches.

Watching with interest. I haven't settled into a routine yet and have read heaps of different opinions online. I think you're onto it with the differing opinions between hunters and target shooters. I think with target shooters - not only are they monitoring accuracy more closely, but they go through a lot of rounds. I'm only shooting 2 or 3 weekends a month but going through at least 500 rounds in that space of time. Only two dead rabbits since I got my FAL but 100s of dead A4s.

There is a thing called Carbon Ring. It is a ring shaped carbon build up just around the throat of the barrel.

https://www.rimfirecentral.com/forum...d.php?t=747449
https://www.rimfirecentral.com/forum...d.php?t=418652
https://www.rimfirecentral.com/forum....php?t=1118746
https://forum.accurateshooter.com/th...is-it.3912845/
https://forum.accurateshooter.com/th...-ring.3929225/
https://forum.accurateshooter.com/th...-ring.3849274/
https://forum.accurateshooter.com/th...hroat.3820581/

All 22LR guns will suffer from this and it will affect accuracy. Different grades of ammo would build up this carbon ring at different pace. Match chamber will experience this a lot faster than sporting chamber. But plenty of CZs can get it quickly too. Once you have it, cleaning with a patch or snake will not do. you really need to use solvent or scrub it.

Some ammo also leaves a lot of wax residue. When I use CCI STANDARD VELOCITY on my Kidd 10/22, after 150~200 rounds or so there would be so much wax build up that the rounds will not be loaded properly into the chamber, resulting in FTF. This can be cleaned with a snake, but the wax is sticky and can makes the snake very hard to pull. I have snapped a snake doing this. Imagine my headache at the time having a bore snake stuck in the barrel.

But after I switched to SK Magazine, which is a much cleaner ammo, I do not get this problem for 1000 rounds or more.

When I worked on pest board my Ruger 10/22 were cleaned about every 5000 rounds which worked well. That was when the rifle would start to jam or misdeed, a clean and she was way again, shot many thousands of rounds during my 30 years of pest control. My JW 15 after a fair few rounds will start to leave the shells in the chamber sometimes , after a clean using Hoppes and a bit of a scrub she's all good again.

I do a deep clean of any new rimfire I buy.
But I usually just oil the barrel and then before I leave I do 3 pull throughs. Still kills and hits what i aim at but I'm not an anal target person.

Originally Posted by Ultimitsu

There is a thing called Carbon Ring. It is a ring shaped carbon build up just around the throat of the barrel.

https://www.rimfirecentral.com/forum...d.php?t=747449
https://www.rimfirecentral.com/forum...d.php?t=418652
https://www.rimfirecentral.com/forum....php?t=1118746
https://forum.accurateshooter.com/th...is-it.3912845/
https://forum.accurateshooter.com/th...-ring.3929225/
https://forum.accurateshooter.com/th...-ring.3849274/
https://forum.accurateshooter.com/th...hroat.3820581/

All 22LR guns will suffer from this and it will affect accuracy. Different grades of ammo would build up this carbon ring at different pace. Match chamber will experience this a lot faster than sporting chamber. But plenty of CZs can get it quickly too. Once you have it, cleaning with a patch or snake will not do. you really need to use solvent or scrub it.

Some ammo also leaves a lot of wax residue. When I use CCI STANDARD VELOCITY on my Kidd 10/22, after 150~200 rounds or so there would be so much wax build up that the rounds will not be loaded properly into the chamber, resulting in FTF. This can be cleaned with a snake, but the wax is sticky and can makes the snake very hard to pull. I have snapped a snake doing this. Imagine my headache at the time having a bore snake stuck in the barrel.

But after I switched to SK Magazine, which is a much cleaner ammo, I do not get this problem for 1000 rounds or more.

you got it