.223 boresnake down a .22LR barrel?

P

Pond James Pond

New member
Clean my .22 is a bit of a pain. Getting patches down there is tricky and its a tight fit for the ones I can get hold of.

Bore-snakes have always intrigued me as possibly a great hassle avoidance tool.

A local outlet has a sale on .223 cal boresnakes and I may well get one for me .308 too, but despite the good discount, I'm not buying if they won't fit my needs.

So does it work on a .22 or is too tight?

Whilst I hope to buy another .223 at some stage, right now I don't have one...
 
That's why you attach a length of paracord to the loo end - so if the cord breaks and the entire snake is in the barrel, you can pull it back out and save a trip to the gunsmith.
 
No, that's why I use something else. Standing on the cord and hauling on the gun with both hands is not my idea of simplified cleaning.
 
The patchworm works great on .22 rimfires; I use it all the time for my target pistol, as well as rifles. For centerfire rigs, I wouldn't waste the time on a Boresnake, other than maybe to clean out the loose powder ash/residue. If in doubt, stick a borescope in the barrel after a thorough Boresnake cleaning; it will still be full of copper fouling.
 
A couple guys I shoot with saw that Patchworm and made their own out of weedeater line. They just took a lighter and melted the end so that the melted plastic formed a ball which keeps the patch from sliding off. They seem to work fine.

This is a variation on what I used to use when I was too young and poor to afford real cleaning stuff: in an old fishing tackle box there was what I can only assume was weight for fishing line. It was very thin lead "sheets" that you wrap around the fishing line. I took a piece of string and wrapped this lead around one end as the weight. Then I tied a loop in the other end like you would time on a yo-yo string to put around your finger. I then fed the string back through the loop (again, like you would do with a yo-yo) and put the patch in the loop and pulled it tight. Drop the weight through the barrel and pull the patch through.

I own and use bore snakes but IMO they don't get the barrel really clean. I don't clean my .22s every time I shoot them. I generally only really clean them when they start to malfunction or become difficult to operate in some way. But, in between good cleanings I sometimes run a bore snake through the bore just as a half-baked cleaning. When I actually do clean them, I use a rod and a brush.
 
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