Thread: .22lr Barrel Cleaning

I’ve always had a proper barrel cleaning regime on my Centerfire Rifles but when it comes to my .22lr Rifles I just put them away with a bit of a wipe down externally.
My Tikka T1x has had at a guess maybe 3500 - 4000 rounds down the tube and hasn’t been cleaned once.
I honestly have never considered the condition of the barrel until a Mate mentioned that he had gone through a real drama with his CZ rifle recently when its accuracy just dropped off suddenly.
Anyway he invested in a barrel scope camera and found that there was a serious buildup of Carbon and other stuff particularly in or near the chamber area .
A serious clean and it reverted back to its old normal accuracy.
So I took my Tikka around to his place this morning and yes my old faithful has a big buildup in the same area .
About an hour of huffing and puffing and much scrubbing of my barrel and it’s now back to factory specs

I have no idea if it will improve things , but at least I know it’s clean and will be good for numerous more Bricks of ammo .

What is everyone’s .22lr barrel cleaning regime ?

I have cleaned one of mine just once, made no difference so never bothered again

I dont unless I have been in rain was always told that lead bullets the barrel should not need extensive cleaning efforts - but what you found with a bore scope will have a lot on here thinking what about mine ???? semi autos of course known for dirty breech

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MTYAQxMEvcA

There used to be a good video from Vudoo about barrel/chamber cleaning buy its now gone from YouTube. The one above is very similar though.

You may not get obvious problems from a carbon ring but once it builds up it will start effecting accuracy, and can effect reliability.

I clean my 22 barrels every 500 rounds. I soak the chamber with C4 same way as in the video and then run a few wet patches through the bore, then dry patches. Doesn't take long if you do regularly.

You can see when you have a carbon ring by looking at fired cases, they'll have a grey ring around the case mouth.

Stainless barrels, maybe every 6 months or so with a boresnake.
Carbon barrels, I use a boresnake to make sure theres no gunk left that might rust everytime i use it.

After shooting I run a dry patch thru. If it comes out with dirt, then a oil patch and two dry patches. If I'm putting it away then Hoppes #9 real good, then oil. My 3 are semi auto so I clean the actions good, then light oil or teflon spray. Wipe the outside with light oil and the wood with Pledge wood furniture polish.

About once a year I run the camera down the bore of the Tikka T1x, and check the state of the carbon ring, and overall fouling of the rest of the barrel.
As a result I have only cleaned it once, and that was to remove the carbon ring. The rest of the barrel has been generally clean.
If I'm storing the rifle for a few weeks I'll put a boresnake through it to remove any gunk that might hold moisture.
So on average it's getting a clean every 3000 rounds.

After an outing, take suppressor off and wipe off carbon deposit off end of barrel, pretty much it really.

I don't want to figure out how many tens of thousands of round my ruger competition is at now. Haven't cleaned the barrel once.
Cleaning involves dry brushing the chamber, and if it's really bad taking the bolt out to scrape under the extractor clean if it stops working nicely.