How often do you clean your barrel?
Updated: How many shots do you take between barrel cleanings? At around 3000 now and getting some seemingly random inaccuracy, hoping cleaning the barrel will fix things.
*Original message: A few days ago I upgraded my scope from a UTG 3-12x Accushot Compact to a Hawke Sidewinder TAC 30 8-32×56. For a few days I was shooting super-tight groups, but then noticed my tank had come loose, so I had to remove my Maddog stock to tighten up the tank.
After reattaching my scope, I was again shooting tight groups for a while, but slowly a problem has developed where the gun will be shooting perfectly, then all of a sudden one or two shots will be like an inch off, sometimes right, sometimes left, sometimes up or down some as well. Then a few shots later, back to center like nothing ever happened. The issue doesn’t seem to be with the scope, as everything is tightened down and it’s not like the zero is slowly inching away – I’m getting significant random inaccuracy.
How often do Airforce rifles need their barrels cleaned? I could swear I had read that because of the power of the guns simply shooting the gun would remove excess lead buildup from the barrel. However, something is causing my gun to be off, so could the barrel need cleaning? I’ve got around 3000 rounds through the gun now, so it wouldn’t surprise me. I do have a .22 brush and patch kit, but before I clean the barrel are there any other suggestions of what might cause this inaccuracy?*
Thanks,
TB
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Ahhhhh…….
The age old question of barrel cleaning. I’ve had accuracy issues with about every gun I’ve owned but it was never because of a “dirty” barrel. It was because the shroud became misaligned or some other mechanical issue. But I’ve never tried cleaning the barrel to resolve an accuracy issue. That’s not to say you can’t foul an air rifle barrel, I just don’t think accuracy issues related to barrel fouling is an issue with air guns.
Like Oakley said look here.
http://talonairgun.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=3143
I’ve seen 4, 9, 10, 13, 14, 15, 16 cause inaccuracy but never 7.
I remember helping a guy that claimed his issues were barrel related. He would clean the barrel and reinstalled the shroud. Sometimes accuracy came back and sometimes it didn’t. He’d clean the barrel again and again until accuracy came back. What was happening was when he’d reinstall the shroud he would sometimes get the shroud misaligned with the barrel and it would clip the pellets. After I showed him how to look down the bore of the barrel to see if the shroud was peeking over the bore, he marked the shroud to the frame so that the shroud went back on the same every time it was removed and reinstalled. 😯
I know there are airgunners found over on the yellow that clean their barrels more often than they clean their teeth. 😯 They also put all kinds of mojo lube on their pellets that would foul a 24” storm sewer. 😆 I’ve got well over 10K pellets through EACH of my Condors and Talons. Never cleaned them and they shoot better than I can. I guess I’m just lucky.
i would think you need a good scrubbing after 3000 rounds, the more rounds down the barrel the less it will foul as you go.
run a dry patch down your bore and look at it.
that will be whats in your bore.
IT will probably be black . and it might have slivers of lead, if your leading.
I have a polished bore on my condor, so i really only run a patch with a dab of hop’s on the patch, run this back and forth several times, then a clean patch several times until they come out mostly clean, them a nice oiled patch.
i only clean the bore when i am accuracy testing , or the accuracy is less than it should be.
The felt pellets made for cleaning with a touch of rem-oil or FP-10 on them and placed BEHIND a regular pellet, will do just fine to quickly clean the bbl. of light fouling, and you can keep right on shooting! 😉
Felt Cleaning Pellets sold by pyrymid air.
You can shoot the cleaning pellets without a pellet in front of them but they will go super-sonic in some guns an get the attention or the neighbors. 😯 😆
NEVER Put the felt pellet in front of the real pellet, This could dammage your barrel.
KnifeMaker
I had one barrrel my 20 cal never had anything down the barrel except pellets, when I wanted to clean it, I took 5 pellets, and spayed them down with rimoil, and shot them through, a few more shots and it was back on target again and good for another 300 shots or so. It would blast the crud out and not because it was powerful, but maybe powerful like snake piss!!
Don’t use a brush on a L-W Barrel!
And the faster a pellet gun shoots, the more it can lead. It’s called friction. I don’t know where you got that info, but it sounds like pure newbi info, made up to sound impressive on an Air Gun Forum. Nothing could be futher from the truth!
Look at this link.
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*Update* – So it seemed like the barrel cleaning worked… *Update*
Before cleaning the gun I removed the baffles and tried shooting it naked; having never heard the gun shoot without baffles before, I was actually surprised it wasn’t louder (granted I’m only shooting on power level 4). Anyway, without the baffles I was still getting this random inaccuracy, so last night I cleaned my barrel, using the Otis patch tool to pull a few dry patches through the barrel from breech to crown. There’s definitely no burr on the crown, and I didn’t get nearly as much crud out of the barrel as I expected – very little blackness, but each pull brought some lead slivers out with it around the head of the patch (the tight spot where it wraps around the knot and wire). I used a total of 6 patches, running each through 3 times (one for each pre-cut hole) with the last one coming out perfectly clean.
Took the gun out shooting today, and was greeted by the tight groups I have come to expect from this gun. I have to attribute this fix to cleaning the barrel, as I have the baffles back in the gun and the Condor SS doesn’t really have any place where the “shroud” could affect accuracy other than the baffles. It’s nice to have the gun shooting tight again, so if you’re getting unexplained fliers, consider cleaning your barrel!
*Update*… but a day after I posted this I did some more shooting, and guess what problem was back? Took the Hawke Sidewinder 8-32x off and put my UTG 3-12x back on and you know what? No more random fliers. Can’t even imagine what was going on inside that scope to get shifting like that, but as the problem came back it was drifting from left to right instead of seemingly random, which made me try the scope. Now to get the gun cocking properly (leaving that up to AirForce).*Update*
-TreeburnerCT