TargetTalk

I have a anschutz air rile that has never been cleaned. I have otice shots I would call tens were eights. I wanted to know if on cleaning could cause these effects.

Also any information about rorking a air rifle barrel and traveling with one.

All the manufacturers will tell you that for tight groups the barrel should be spotless. It should be so clean that you can see your face in it if that were possible.

Shoot several felt cleaning pellets through untill they come out clean. It may take many shots untill this happens but you must try to restore the rifling to a clean and un contaminated state.

Always clean your barrel after every competition.

Peepsight

You do need to clean your air rifle occasionally to maintain top operations (groups). Our best shooters would notice slightly off call shot after 250-300 rounds.

We have our shooters pull a couple patches of TSI301/TSI321 through the barrle followed by a dry patch every time they open a new tin of pellets. Takes only a few moments, and keeps everything in good shape.

Felt pellets take longer, and you have to be real careful using them with any spring piston rfles.

Cleaning could help indeed. Too much lead buildup is bad for accuracy. However, airrifles dó need a little lead to shoot properly, so excessive cleaning isn't good either imo.
If it's a pcp or co2 rifle, less accuracy could also be caused by flyrust in yr barrel. It's easily seen; if you clean out yr barrel and after the black felts (lead) brown felts come out, there's rust. Easily solved though.
I'd recommand shooting with lubed pellets when using pcp and co2: it prevents rust, yr barrel stays cleaner and in many times: better accuracy.

The next obvious question is how one lubricates pellets. This is a very common practice for Field Target shooters (Http://www.aafta.org) who have been lubing pellets for many years.

There are two generally used lubricants: 1Lube and Krytech.

The technique used is to:

1) dump a tin of (say) 500 pellets into a container so that it is no more than 1/2 filled (I use a 500 pellet .22 tin for .177 pellets).

2) Put a few drops of lube onto the lid of this larger container. ("less is more" -- it really only takes a few drops and too much can be worse than no lube).

3) Put lid on and tumble for a minute or so.

4) Pour pellets back into the original container.

5) Shoot (drying is optional but you could leave the lid off for a day or so)

Best,

Joe McDaniel
DIFTA Match Director (and an avid 10M AP shooter)

I did some pellet testing in my daughters rifle a couple of years ago using a machine rest.

Her Anschutz 2002CA would shoot a 10 shot group no larger than a single pellet with the brand and size it liked.

We had some work done on her rifle last year and I just realized I hadn't tested pellets in it since then.

Ran some of the rifles favorite pellets through it on the machine rest again.

Same 10 shot groups no larger than a single pellet.

She's got at least 3,000-4,000 pellets through it since the last time the bore was cleaned.

I don't think her rifle needs a spotless bore to shoot accurately.

I think you need to test your rifle in a machine rest to determine what the rifles accuracy potential is. Try a bunch of brands and sizes of pellets to see what the gun likes. Then clean the barrel and test again to see what, if any effect cleaning has on accuracy.