TargetTalk

Should you clean your powder-burning target pistol barrel? If so how, and how much?

My competition experience is air rifle benchrest, which is a different beast and barrel cleaning protocols are important. Groups shot in benchrest are orders of magnitude smaller than freehand pistol (at least for us mortals) however, and with pistol barrel accuracy is much less important than technique.

I shoot CCI SV in my SW 41. As mentioned in another thread, some bullets are caked in wax and *could* explain some of the misfires (FTF, FTE, stovepipes). Smith and Wesson suggests keeping the gun clean, so I have been cleaning after every session. However searching Dr Internet there are conflicting opinions. Some never clean, some always. Some say to just clean the chamber but not the barrel as it will wear. Some say to avoid brass brushes, but what about the barrel grooves.

Advice? Has anyone here damaged a barrel by cleaning? As demonstrated by borescope or bench shooting inaccuracy?

Thanks in advance

Biggest problem with semi-auto pistols is not barrel fouling in lands but lead build up in the chamber.
A lot of shooting will form a lead ring at the front of chamber and then lead to poor seating , failure to
extract and light strike malfunctions.
Lightly brush the barrel and scrub the chamber every 300-500 rounds. Also clean the excess wax out of
slide and frame.

Have you ever seen a race pilot start a race with a dirty car?
Have you ever seen an athlete start a race with dirty cloths?
Have you ever seen a player start a match with a dirty uniform?
Why would you want to start a match with a dirty gun?

Clean guns are more accurate, have less jams, have less wear on the parts, etc.
You see the benefits of cleaning in benchrest. Pistol is the same, only it's masked by your natural wobble...

Hope this helps
rmca

RMCA I agree, I have about 3 alibi's every league night from the same shooters ( FTE,FTL, FTE,and light hits). I explain why this happens to them, and all 3 of them tell me it wears the barrel out faster if they clean them. These guys have nice pistols, but would rather quote this, "more 22 barrels have been ruined by cleaning than by simply shooting them". One guy, thinks the model 41 has a flawed design because he has to oil the 1st round of every magazine. I said to him that is just a temporary fix until he can get home and brush the chamber clean and pull a cleaning patch through the barrel.
Stan

porkchop wrote: ↑Thu Oct 13, 2022 9:34 am "more 22 barrels have been ruined by cleaning than by simply shooting them"

I've heard that a thousand times. I call it fudd lore...

Every time I hear someone saying that, I respond that cleaning is not sterilizing.
Take the crap out, and lightly oil. That's it.
Bronze bore brushes are your best friends. Use them, don't abuse them... and even if you do, I don't think you can ruin a barrel...

Hope this helps
rmca

Hmmm

I have several .22s
10/22
MKIII
TC Barrels

I have never cleaned them.

Thanks guys

These responses are similar to others one reads. One question is whether there is benefit to cleaning, but the other question is there a risk? Seems unlikely that patches could do any harm but what about brass brushes, patchworm, etc? Has anyone seen objective barrel damage as a result of (over)cleaning?

KDZ to answer your questions, (1) yes: less failure to extract, eject, and feed or seat the cartridge fully causing light fire pin strikes. (2) No not personally, but have read and heard where improper use and technique has damaged the crowns so one should clean from the breach end of the barrel.
KDZ I see your question addresses target pistols and my observations are for those and not rifles. I would always keep my barrel and chamber clean going to a competition, otherwise I usually clean about 200-300 shots. I also believe in keeping the moving parts lubed like the slide mainly.
Ultimately it's your choice.
Stan

Greetings,

Recently, I did see cleaning rod damage to a 22lr Conversion Unit. Careless use of tools will damage the barrel.

I was able to crown the barrel and return it to Match Shooting condition.

Like any Precision Tool, take care when handling/cleaning.

Cheers,

Dave

I spent the entire summer getting the fossilized carbon fouling out of twenty six .22 target pistols used by the college team I help coach, and I have hundreds of borescope photos to prove it... The students are responsible for cleaning their pistols, but there is no way we can trust most of them with a cleaning rod. For the most part, the bore is OK just using patches with a pull-through tool (homemade "PatchWorm"). On rare occasions (like every 15K rounds), there can be signs of keyholing, although it has to be pretty bad before accuracy degrades noticeably. At that point, I will clean them with a bronze brush & a rod (with a rod guide). I've found that Bore-Tech Rimfire Blend is very effective, but it's a fairly lengthy process, and not one we can trust most students to do.

As has been stated, the critical issue is the carbon that builds up in the chamber. For that, we use a .25 caliber rifle brush bent at 90 degrees:
You stick this into the chamber, and twist it back & forth with the "handle", and then pull patches through the bore. I have lost count of the number of matches I have salvaged for students using this approach when they haven't cleaned their pistols recently enough. Using the .25 caliber chamber brush is an essential part of our normal cleaning process.

Our assumption has been that using the .25 caliber brushes would keep the chamber fouling under control. We have 21 Benellis, which are all at least ~ 15 years old, and 5 Pardini SP's. I don't know the cleaning history of the Benellis from before I came on-board ~ 12 years ago. The Pardinis were bought new five years ago, and we've used the same cleaning protocol on them. We've never had any persistent issues with the Pardinis that might suggest chamber fouling, but the borescope found some crud accumulation.

I tried at least a half dozen cleaning solvents/compounds on various pistols over the summer; everything from week long soaks with acetone to abrasive cleaners like JB Bore Paste, Bore Tech Chameleon Gel, etc. They all work (sort of), but they are all time consuming, and only remove a little carbon with each treatment. If you used them weekly, they are probably OK, but again, it's not something we can expect the students to deal with given their very limited range time.

The good news is that I accidentally stumbled across an easy, effective fix. Use a chamber brush in good condition (they wear out FAST), and clean the chamber with a good scrubbing & patches. When you think you are done, run a patch soaked with Break-Free CLP through the bore and let it sit for at least several hours, overnight if possible. Come back, re-brush the chamber and pull a few patches through. You will be AMAZED at how black they come out. If you get in the habit of brushing and wet patching any time you store your pistol, and then dry patching it before you shoot, I'm convinced you can keep the carbon from building up.

At some point I will put together a full report on all of this, with borescope photos. A few notes:

1) The brushes don't last long. I can feel that they are less aggressive after only 5 uses.

2) There's a considerable variation in the quality & size of different brands of brushes. Many .25 caliber brushes are too fat to work well. I have been using the Brownells "Special Line" rifle brushes, but the recent ones don't have as many bristles as the older ones. I get them by the dozen, but they also recently almost doubled in price.

3) Especially fat .22 brushes might work, and I'm investigating those. Pro-Shot brushes can be bought by the dozen on Amazon at a good price. I haven't decided if I prefer their .22 centerfire brushes over their .25 caliber brushes.

4) The solvent isn't critical. You don't want to use something super thin & watery (like Rim-Fire Blend) that will evaporate quickly. I compared Break-Free, RemOil and Benelli Oil, and the results were similar, but Break-Free seemed to have a slight edge. It's relatively inexpensive, and we already have it on hand as our standard cleaning product, so I'm sticking with that.

If you think you already have an adequate cleaning protocol in place, try the overnight soak and see how clean the patches come out after you've brushed the chamber. You may be surprised...

Gwhite wrote: ↑Sun Oct 16, 2022 9:51 am 1) The brushes don't last long. I can feel that they are less aggressive after only 5 uses.

I'm going to guess this has to do with the back-and-forth twisting that the chamber brushing does. The bristles normally lay over in the same circular direction as they're pulled through the rifled barrel, but in the chamber, they're folding and tucking every scrub. Also, the chambers are relatively rough, especially at the front in the forcing cone area.

It's a good tip to replace them often. I actually keep a nylon one in my bag, which I find works quite well dry for at-the-line tuneups when needed. I clean more aggressively with a bronze chamber brush on a ~1000 round cycle.

I did a comparison of the amount of crud I got out with a nylon brush vs bronze. I did the wet-patch & soak routine, and started with a new nylon brush. I pulled 4 dry patches through the bore and got some carbon out. I then brushed it with a new bronze brush, and dry-patched it again. I got a LOT more carbon out after it had "already been cleaned" with the nylon brush. I'm not going to bother with nylon again...

One reason I'm considering .22 caliber brushes is that the bristles won't get bent as much. If they can spring back instead of bending, they might last longer. There is a quite a variation in the diameter of the bristles from brand to brand, and I want to find the fattest ones I can. Otherwise, I think they will get too small very quickly. The students aren't very careful about how they use them. I caught one who just rammed it in, and then wiggled it up & down, as opposed to rotating it along the bore axis. Unclear on the concept...

Thanks GW! When you say "salvage the match", were the dirty chambers causing malfunctions (FTE etc) or inaccuracy?

Gwhite wrote: ↑Sun Oct 16, 2022 9:32 pm I got a LOT more carbon out after it had "already been cleaned" with the nylon brush. I'm not going to bother with nylon again...

Me too, but at the line if the gun starts to hiccup to tell me the brass isn't extracting smoothly, I actually don't want to do a deep clean. I just want to knock off a little crud and finish the match without an alibi. I have found that it works more reliably - a deep clean frequently takes a shot or two to get back to equilibrium cycling-wise. Works for me, anyway.

Do you pull a patch through afterward? If not, the settling in probably from all the crud you've loosened up. The advantage of the pull-throughs is that you can get the loose fouling out without any disassembly. Our standard emergency match procedure is to brush with the .25 cal bronze brush, pull a patch through, and add a few drops of oil to the sliding bits.

I considered nylon brushes because I was concerned that the oversized bronze brushes might be causing long term scratching of the chambers. After hundreds of borescope photos this summer, I've seen no sign of anything to worry about.

No patch, no pull through, just a quick insert-twist-remove. It works to finish the match every time.

Of course, I keep up on my maintenance schedule for the most part. Your students' pistols may need the extra attention.

I find that asking people how often, and how, to clean, yields even more answers than people asked. So I don't sweat it much.

I always tell people if you ask two shooters how to clean a .22 target pistol, you will get at least three opinions. What works best for the college team is also not necessarily what is optimum for an individual shooters.

Proper cleaning should cause no real wear, some .22 barrels are fairly soft and will wear out.

Ed's Red works pretty well for me
- Scrub with well soaked bronze brush and use well coated patch to swab out.
- Run soaked patch through
- Leave for a few days
- Repeat

When finished push one loose fitting dry patch through and follow with a lightly oiled patch.

Gets most muck out. Doesn't get carbon out of revolver cylinders, much scrubbing or a brass rod used as a scraper does that.

I'm sure people pushing tight dry patches through causes a lot of premature wear.

One thing I have found is some commercial cleaners which are supposedly 'ammonia free' and 'safe to leave in the bore' do in fact contain ammonia according to the MSDS and are not safe to leave in the bore.
This reacts with copper in bore brushes creating a salt which then corrodes the barrel, and why you should always swab through with a plain patch after brushing.

KDZ wrote: ↑Mon Oct 17, 2022 12:06 pm Thanks GW! When you say "salvage the match", were the dirty chambers causing malfunctions (FTE etc) or inaccuracy?

I was re-visiting this thread to copy what I wrote for the full report on my research, and realized I never responded to this query.

There are three primary symptoms you see when the chamber gets badly fouled:

1) Failure to chamber fully: If there is too much drag when the round goes into the chamber, the slide won't close all the way. Depending on the pistol's disconnector system and how far open the slide is, you will get a couple different failure modes. If the disconnector prevents the hammer from falling, you will pull the trigger, and nothing will happen. Quite often, before it gets that bad, the slide will be open just a little bit, and the hammer will fall, but it wastes its energy closing the slide. The result is a mis-fire from a light primer strike.

2) Failure to extract/eject: If too much of the recoil energy gets wasted trying to pry the case loose form the fouling in the chamber, the slide won't open far enough to extract the case, or it may not hit the ejector hard enough to toss the case out of the pistol. If the extractor doesn't have a tight grip on the rim, the slide may comes back, and then lose its grip before the case clears the chamber. That will leave the case ether hanging out of the chamber, or rattling around in the action. In extreme situations, the drag is so bad that the slide won't come back far enough to cock the hammer.

3) Failure to load the next round: The added drag from the fouling may slow the recoil of the slide down just a little. In that scenario, the slide will come back, cock the hammer, eject the fired case, but not make it back quite far enough to get behind the next round. The slide will close on an empty chamber.

Most of these problems will be worse after firing the first round. In a conventional pistol, with the magazine pushing rounds up against the bottom of the slide, the drag/friction is maximum when there are 4 rounds left compressing the magazine spring. After firing subsequent rounds, the upward force drops with every shot, and the slide will experience less friction and will cycle better. This doesn't apply to MatchGun MG2's, which use a tubular magazine, and the force on the slide doesn't vary from shot to shot.

The fix for all of this nonsense is to keep your chamber clean! Larry Carter (target shooter, gunsmith & importer of Hammerli & Benelli pistols, RIP) had a set of notes on how to keep Benelli .22's running smoothly. The first question after almost every problem category was: Have you cleaned your chamber?

Gwhite wrote: ↑Sat Nov 19, 2022 4:42 pm The fix for all of this nonsense is to keep your chamber clean! Larry Carter (target shooter, gunsmith & importer of Hammerli & Benelli pistols, RIP) had a set of notes on how to keep Benelli .22's running smoothly. The first question after almost every problem category was: Have you cleaned your chamber?

Here's the document: http://www.targettalk.org/viewtopic.php?p=302577

I can add a 4th behavior to the Benelli dirty chamber indication:

4) rechambering the empty brass. Match ammo can have a softer recoil, and a dirty chamber can cause the recoil to be short enough that the brass does not hit the ejector tab at the top of the magazine, and the bolt will not pick up the next round. If your extractor is tuned well, it will continue to hang on to the rim, and the Benelli will dutifully put the brass right back in the chamber, giving you a nice ball-and-dummy drill on your next shot. :)