Thread: Cleaning rods vs bore snakes

I use a snake to clean any residual oil from barrel before I leave the house. That's the only thing I do with it. Everything else is rod.

Originally Posted by Ryan_Songhurst

Every single rifle I have had has shot better when its had a few rounds through it than straight after a proper clean with a rod and patches etc. So I just use a bore snake after a hunt and might go all out with a rod every once in a while if I really really dont have anything else to do.

that's what sighters are for in (string style) target shooting

they foul the barrel to a level where you get optimum consistency. super clean barrels have more friction (and corresponding lower MV), so on my Lilja I can tell you with good certainty that the 1st sighter will be 1 moa low, the 2nd sighter will be 0,5 moa low, and then it goes point of aim for the rest of the string

Originally Posted by YosemiteSam

I use a snake to clean any residual oil from barrel before I leave the house. That's the only thing I do with it. Everything else is rod.

I'm pretty much the same, except I did run the boresnake thru the rifles when I got home from the range late one day and wasn't going to clean them until after work the next day.

P.S. I always take one in my daypack when hunting.

I use rods, brushes, & patches.
I leave oil in the barrel when I store my guns. I use the boresnake to remove the oil before shooting. Its good to get a bit of crud out of the barrel, good to have in your pack, but it wont remove hard carbon, copper, etc.

Originally Posted by ChrisW

I use rods, brushes, & patches.
I leave oil in the barrel when I store my guns. I use the boresnake to remove the oil before shooting. Its good to get a bit of crud out of the barrel, good to have in your pack, but it wont remove hard carbon, copper, etc.

I don't use boresnakes. They get dirty and fouled quickly and unless you're chucking them in with the washing after a couple of uses they're depositing crud on the bore. I have a four piece rod for emergency use if away on an extended trip solely for the purpose of removing an obstruction. Never had to use it though as I tape the end of the barrel. I use a plastic coated steel wire with a brass loop on the end plus a very small container of light oil and patches for cleaning on trips. It's just for bore protection and doesn't remove much carbon or copper.

At home after a range session I use a bore guide, good quality single piece cleaning rod, good quality bronze brushes and carbon and copper remover. Bore protected with Corrosion-X. Rifles stored barrel down and oil removed before shooting with a rod and a couple of clean patches.

To combat first shot shooting off aim I've found a couple of patches run through with Kroil and then a couple more to clean helps. Chamber also swabbed free of oil before use using a large patch wrapped around bronze or nylon bore brush on a pistol cleaning rod. Locking lug recesses cleaned and bolt lugs re-lubed every third cleaning.

Originally Posted by johnd

I have never used a bore snake, but I have seen a pull through break at the start of a trip. If going hunting I take a length of curtain rod .... the flexible plastic coated stuff that you can poke through an obstruction if need be. It rolls up to nothing and you can add a small patch with oil to to clean a barrel during the trip.
As others have said cleaning a rifle "target shooting style " is a whole other level.
It really woke me up to how ineffective "normal" cleaning is.

That curtain stuff is great,as well as barrels, it works on unplugging fridge-drain-holes too, and unblocking sun-roof drains on vehicles

Originally Posted by johnd

I have never used a bore snake, but I have seen a pull through break at the start of a trip. If going hunting I take a length of curtain rod .... the flexible plastic coated stuff that you can poke through an obstruction if need be. It rolls up to nothing and you can add a small patch with oil to to clean a barrel during the trip.

That's a good tip.

I have had 2 bore snakes snap where the cord meets the wide bit. One was a cheap one and the other a "good" one. I will only use rods now.

Cheers for the responses team. Seems opinions are quite varied here, just like the rest of the internet. I use rods currently, and seems the consensus is best to continue to maximise the likelihood of accuracy and avoiding issues highlighted with bore snakes. It is definitely interesting that there is such a spread of opinions and (admittedly anecdotal) results with the different approaches adopted to cleaning. Some good food for thought anyway.

Used a bore snake for the first time on my Stewart Island trip. Just to run through at the end of the day to get any salt spray out.
Thought it was ok for that situation.
But home I have one peace rods that have a plastic coating and the handle turns. I change out my bronze brushes when ever they start to look worn.
That’s for my rifles.
Shot gun cleaning. Once a year I take them to my gun maker for a service. He stops them and puts some grease on the springs and hinges. As well as buffs the tubes to take and plastic residue left from the shells.
After each use I take the barrels of spray some Napier spray down them go and make a coffee (very important as it lets the spray do it’s work) then wipe the action down. I then bronze brush the barrels and the stuff some paper towel in each one and force that through.
This pushes all the spray and other crap out. Repeat until the towels come out clean.
I fire around 400 shotgun rounds a month. Not as much as a few years ago where it was over a thousand. To much work ah

Originally Posted by Boaraxa

The amount of times iv ended up with forest floor jammed in the end of me barrel that,s why I opted for the rod , remember reading storeys as a kid about the cullers & some of the ways they cleared there barrel out when plugged up like pulling out a projectile tipping out a bit of powder chambering the projectilles case & firing it !!

We have been known to do this from time to time. It does work. Remember one time at Te Iringa a guy had a plug of crap jammed in his barrel and then he broke a stick off trying to clear it. We pulled a 30 06 round ( one of his ) and tipped a little out and chambered the shell carefully so as not to spill the remaining powder and fired it, but to no avail it wouldn't go off. We then pulled a 243 round and same thing but when fired it did go off and cleared the obstruction nicely. The important thing here is that the projectile is pulled and it's only the powder gases pushing the obstruction out. Have used this method about four or five times and has always worked well. It may not be a real safe practice but I don't like ramming rods, sticks, wire etc down a rifle barrel, that's real hard on the barrel.

Originally Posted by bang

Apologies if this topic has already been done. What do people use and why? Or, if that topic is a bit too broad, consider a re-phrased question: if you regularly clean with a bore snake, do you need to ever bother with a rod again?

I mostly shoot rim fire, and I know that centre fire may do things differently...

I prefer bore snake where I can, because it does less damage to the bore and cleans the barrel with its full length worth of cotton cloth material. On the other hand carbon ring cannot be removed by just the bore snake, it has to be removed by a rod. Also with 17mhr, even tiniest amount of dirty in the barrel will make the bore snake stuck, so I always run the rod once before I run the bore snake.

Some barrel makers recommend against too much cleaning because they all say it could lead to decrease of accuracy.

KIDD says this:

"When should I clean my barrel?
Clean the chamber more often than the bore. The accuracy of a .22 barrel follows a bell curve, so if it is too clean or too dirty, it isn't as accurate. Ammos make a bore"dirty" at varying rates so we don't have a hard and fast schedule to give you. However, run two magazines through the barrel when it is new or after cleaning, to begin shooting a new type of ammo for fouling purposes. As the accuracy diminishes, clean it and then start again"

Lilja says this"
"Match quality bullets have a wax coating on them that aids accuracy. It may take 10-50 shots to “lay” a good coating of it down in the barrel and using solvents will only remove this desirable wax coating."

I use a one piece rod probably not as often as i should tho