Thread: cleaning air rifle barrels

I see AHG (Anschutz) sell felt pellets to shoot through and clean target 177 cal airguns.
Can anyone tell us if this is worthwhile for sub olympic level shooters ?

If so, do you use oil, teflon or what on them ?

How about a patch on a pull through or rod ?

I very gently put some with hoppes down my springer barrel the other day and quite a lot of black deposit came out. Presumably it was old oil / grease out of the cylinder.

When I was younger I used to clean my air rifle barrel and oil it regularly...till I clicked that it was the reason I was getting dieseling. While it sounded cool, it also contributed to a broken the main spring.

I would guess it really depends on how far you are shooting it, as to whether a dirty Vs clean barrel has any effect.

i used to wash mine out with mercury, it dissolves all the lead out of the rifling grooves very well then run a dry patch thru afterwards

The doubles ended ear cleaner things work good. A little oil on the first one then dry after that

Have had the felt pellets for years well before Anschutz marketed them. In my 177 I just used to fire 2 at time with Hoppes 9 followed up with a few to dry out. Having said that my 177 hardly ever gets cleaned.
Don't let oil get back into cylinder as already pointed out.

I actually have a 177 cleaning rod somewhere but no jag for it.

As kids we used to think it cool to put drops of 3 in 1 oil into the cylinder and fire the rifle. Nice bit of smoke and we thought it made the gun more powerful.
Somewhere I have a small bottle of, IIRC, silicon oil for lubricating, sparingly, air rifle cylinders.

More recently I have bought the VGF (Anschutz) felt pellets in 22 cal but also have the special cleaning rod tip for them. A lot of the smallbore guys use this system. The felt pellets come in 2 styles - standard felt and a more aggressive felt that appears to have minute copper strands in it.
I use this system to clean my 22 PCP (on the very rare occasions I clean it) and for cleaning some of my 22 rf rifles.

Originally Posted by zimmer

Have had the felt pellets for years well before Anschutz marketed them. In my 177 I just used to fire 2 at time with Hoppes 9 followed up with a few to dry out. Having said that my 177 hardly ever gets cleaned.
Don't let oil get back into cylinder as already pointed out.

I actually have a 177 cleaning rod somewhere but no jag for it.

As kids we used to think it cool to put drops of 3 in 1 oil into the cylinder and fire the rifle. Nice bit of smoke and we thought it made the gun more powerful.
Somewhere I have a small bottle of, IIRC, silicon oil for lubricating, sparingly, air rifle cylinders.

More recently I have bought the VGF (Anschutz) felt pellets in 22 cal but also have the special cleaning rod tip for them. A lot of the smallbore guys use this system. The felt pellets come in 2 styles - standard felt and a more aggressive felt that appears to have minute copper strands in it.
I use this system to clean my 22 PCP (on the very rare occasions I clean it) and for cleaning some of my 22 rf rifles.

3 drops of either worked well and provided a nice blue muzzle flash. at the time i was gluing small rifle primers onto the 22cal pellets.

p.s rats smell awful when they explode

Originally Posted by mimms2

Hey we've all done it.
I'm of the vintage where we had aerosol CRC though... 2 second squirt after you've cocked it was optimal (and accurate). 3 seconds was too much.


Didn't help that the uncle had a german(?) air rifle that was actually designed to diesel, you put esther (?) or isopropyl (?) in it. (VHS head cleaner worked)
Rattling a few lonely braincells there...

Depends on the airgun.Modern rubber seal silicon probably fine. CRC sell it in some quantity (for refilling viscous fan hubs) =cheap.
The old seals were leather buckets. Tallow, neatsfoot, dubbin. I'm sure there's something official, but I'm also sure most people gave up airguns before they shot them out.

it would have been a walther, they came with an either injection add on.