.22LR ammo -- Ya don't need to often clean the bore.

[PT7]

I must admit I got unexpected good results with cleaning my SGC after being at the range today. I shot 90 rounds, mostly Federal 38gr CP-HP and American Eagle 38gr CP-HP. So I was going to post a Q to the Forum to see if others thought these ammo brands shoot clean.

First however, I did an internet search with this question: "What is clean .22 ammo?" Found an interesting TheHighRoad.org discussion back in 2011: https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?t ... mo.575970/ Many similar responses to this thread's Q, "Clean burning .22 LR ammo?" surprised me. These Folk said quit cleaning your .22 bore so often; it's not needed.

This representative post really piqued my interest:

"Don't clean that barrel unless you need to. Twenty-two ammo is lubed, the barrel is well protected against rust and leading in normal conditions, and the fouling doesn't hurt a thing. I read that Eley, the maker of the finest target ammo in the world, shoots tens of thousands of rounds through their test barrels for accuracy testing without cleaning.

I have some highly accurate .22s and rarely clean the barrels. They are fine. I wipe off the outside of the barrel and action. I also occassionally clean reachable parts of the inside of the action with Q-tips. When doing so I pay particular attention to the bolt face and extractor."

I know there are many opinions about cleaning a rifle. Just wondering what you Henry Folk think of the approach to clean less; not very often?

Thanks...PT7

[Mags]

Never occurred to me me that .22 ammo is/was lubed. Doesn't feel lubed. I would also think that any lube present or shed as the bullet goes down the barrel would be incinerated or scorched by the hot corrosive spent powder gases pushing the bullet out.

[bandit1250]

I have never agreed with the non-cleaning crowd. I guess it come from my Dad being a guy that believed in keeping his fire arms cleaned after using them. My bench rest shooter friends all clean there 22's after every match then shoot their fouling shots and start all over again using the same routine that they have had success with. I have kept a pretty good account of how my most accurate 22's act with clean vs. dirty bores. First thing is your rifle needs to be at least accurate enough to show your groups are better or worse as the bore gets more fouled or accurate up to a certain amount of shots. My real good shooting CZ 452's and my old Remington rifles most have a point from being clean they shoot their best from about 5 or so fouling shots to about two boxes or less of ammo before they start to open up on group size. I have a few that start to open up groups at around eighty shots. I doubt my lever rifles would show me the accuracy loss when dirty like my bolt rifles will. I have a few 39A's that might and my Henry Frontier. I am not talking about not being able to hit tin cans and large targets because that won't show any thing about your groups getting bigger when really dirty or shooting off hand. Unless off hand you can shoot like NCG. If the groups get bad enough to miss cans and such you may have other problems. Did you ever pay attention when looking through a dirty 22 LR bore that most of the fouling is at 6 o'clock in the bore? That heavy fouling at the bottom is mostly the powdered glass in the priming mix dropping to the bottom from gravity. The powdered glass is used to make the friction needed to light the powder off with the firing pin strike. It falls to the bottom of the bore and every round after it gets built up you are shooting across some pretty abrasive stuff. I had a Precision Shooting magazine that got into the barrel cleaning argument and it had examples of high round target rifles(Winchester 52's I think) that they bore scoped and the bore was egg shaped at the throat and guess where it was at. 6 o'clock on all of the ones with wear they could see. It was determined by some very experienced rim fire accuracy shooters that the abrasive powdered glass was causing this.
When shooting a variety of brands of ammo the loss in accuracy seems to come sooner than when staying with one brand. Could be the different lube they use. Some claim the lube mixture from ammo companies is like a top secret big deal. If you want to feel highly lubed ammo shoot the European brands. Keep a rag handy or don't be afraid to use your shirt tail or pants leg. My wife hates the shirt or the pants way.
Also shooting puts some heat in the barrel even with a 22 and can cause the bore to get some sweating in side from the cold to warm and back to cold. I don't want that left in my bore whether there is bullet lube in there or not. Bringing a rifle in the warm after shooting out in the cold I clean the barrel as soon as my rifle is room temp.
I have stayed with the clean is better idea since Dad started me shooting and it is still working for me so I will continue doing it the same way the rest of my shooting days. I actually get a good feeling when looking at how filthy 22 rim fires can get and how well they look inside the action and the bore when I get finished with my cleaning procedure.

[PT7]

Your simple description of the folk on one side of this debate is perfect, Bandit. Like you and your Dad, I've always been a cleaning nut, too.

I have never agreed with the non-cleaning crowd. I guess it come from my Dad being a guy that believed in keeping his fire arms cleaned after using them.

Your experience-skill-shooting rimfire rifles, as well as NCG's and others, have vastly surpassed my tiny amount of plinking during the six years I've been into firearms. Easy to total how few rimfire rounds I've shot:
1. First time shooting a Henry H001 one summer, which was my son's-in-law = 110 rounds
2. My H001M = 510 rounds
3. My current H001TLP - 2400 rounds.

A "grand" total of 3020 rounds. Just enough to get those so-so off hand groups I post in my range reports. So I haven't even shot enough to have the accounting you've kept on the accuracy of "22s with clean vs. dirty bores."

But your post gave me some new info, which I appreciate. I did not know about the powdered glass I've seen when cleaning my SGC, and what caused it. But even so, I had thought it has got to be abrasive in the bore, as you noted it is.

Yup, I shoot a variety of ammos. But I don't shoot enough to notice accuracy change, nor are my POIs that accurate. Like I said, my groups are very so-so ones.

Another thing is that I had not before heard of bore "sweating." Seems like the bore is abused in a variety of ways, not only with every bullet that goes down it!

Not having to clean a bore after shooting is appealing only that it draws on my laziness. But since I'm such a long-term cleaning nut (with many things), I'll continue to enjoy the shiny SGC bore each time I get home from the range. I agree with you that it is a quite pretty sight.

Thanks for your most interesting commentary.
PT7

[North Country Gal]

I'm one of those in the non-cleaning camp or, at least, clean only when there is an issue affecting function or accuracy. In the 60s, when I started shooting in Junior Rifle Club, we were told by our NRA instructors that there is no need to constantly be cleaning rimfires, for the reasons stated, originally. The club rifles, even the ones used in match competition by the college team, rarely had the bores cleaned.

"Don't clean that barrel unless you need to. Twenty-two ammo is lubed, the barrel is well protected against rust and leading in normal conditions, and the fouling doesn't hurt a thing. I read that Eley, the maker of the finest target ammo in the world, shoots tens of thousands of rounds through their test barrels for accuracy testing without cleaning.

I have some highly accurate .22s and rarely clean the barrels. They are fine. I wipe off the outside of the barrel and action. I also occassionally clean reachable parts of the inside of the action with Q-tips. When doing so I pay particular attention to the bolt face and extractor."

It all boils down to this: in my 50 plus years of shooting rimfire guns of every type and description, I have never ruined a rimfire bore for lack of cleaning, nor have I ever gained any accuracy improvement from cleaning a rimfire bore before shooting. Fact, not opinion, is that most rimfire bores are damaged from aggressive and unnecessary cleaning than any other reason.

When do I clean a rimfire bore? When it is necessary for proper function of the rimfire, as in revolvers and semi-autos or when a gun has been exposed to moisture. I have had barrels that were rough and poorly cut and they would lead up after many thousands of shots. These barrels, though, have been the rare exception. A properly cut and finished bore should NEVER be a lead magnet.

For those of you who can't stand the idea of a dirty bore, I get it. I understand. I can only share my 50 plus years of shooting rimfires. Each to their own, as always.

[Sir Henry]

I’m in the no clean camp with rimfire. I think a lot of the cleaning talk originated with centerfire corrosive ammo. If I shot one round in my Enfields I had to take an hour and use boiling water and ammonia to neutralize anywhere power might have blown. It gets on your hands and everywhere on the firearm AND on any tools you might have used.

If not cleaned within a few hours the bore turns dark, almost black, and pits will start to form. In the Army if you were issued a dark and pitted barrel they would be stamped so or you would be court-marshaled.

[Les]

I clean my bore after every use. It's very rare for me to use a brush, but I do use wet/dry patches on a pull-through made from nylon cord. Does it help? I've no idea, but it makes me think that it helps!

[bandit1250]

These rim fire barrel cleaning threads will probably not change any ones mind on how they take care of barrels whether you leave them dirty or clean them. We are all still going to do it the way it seems to work for us. I shoot from 7-10,000 rounds /year and have many 22's but there is my certain ones that are my go to rifles and others hardly get fired. The ones I shoot the most get a barrel cleaning when I am done for that shooting session and if going to shoot the next day and the round count was not excessive I may not clean it. But I can just walk back in my room and clean it if it looks like it is not shooting well. If you prefer not to clean barrels and shoot a lot you should at least clean the leade to keep from getting the much dreaded carbon ring. Have fun getting that out if left go to long and accuracy will suffer really bad. I have the same feelings with my barrels as my vehicles. The biggest destroyer of engines and transmissions is HEAT and DIRT. So i don't get center fire barrels hot and I don't let rim fire or center fire barrels get excessively dirty. YMMV and that is fine as everyone has to do what they feel is right for them. These barrel cleaning opinions is like "my 30-06 is a better deer rifle than a 280 Rem. or a 270 Win." They all have been killing deer for years so why change.

[Steve51]

A few months back I made a comment in a post on the subject of cleaning .22 rifles that I bought my H001 classic in 1999 and my H004 golden boy in 2001 and had shot many rounds through them and had never disassembled them for cleaning. I did clean the barrels, chambers, and bolt faces but never had taken them apart to clean.

Some of the responses made me a little ashamed that I had never done a thorough cleaning on them. A few months ago, I disassembled both rifles to clean them properly. I was truly surprised - I was expecting to find great gobs of crud from 16+ years of shooting but what I found was very little crud. Federal bulk LR ammo was used for the majority of the range outings. I did use one box of bulk Remington golden bullets (never again) and a few boxes of Winchester bulk ammo (no problems).

I will continue to run a bore-snake through the barrels & clean chambers and bolt faces as was my custom after each outing but it will probably be a few years (or never) before I do another disassembly on my Henry lever action .22's.

[BigAl52]

Im not one to clean every time I shoot either. Depends on the amount of rounds I shoot even in centerfire. If I only shoot 50 to 100 rounds I usually wait until the next time or two especially if I am just plinking clays on the bank.