Dr.Rob,
No "expert" here sir.
300 yard doggie shots with a sling is pretty darn impressive. I've been curious about the 116 series, that seems to have answered my questions.
Long shots, well, I'll use a sling when I need an excuse to miss....LOL!
I shoot primarily with a Harris S model bipod, pretty darn stable rig for us overweight old farts.
Cleaning;
If you clean without a bore guide you're going to ruin the throat of the barrel.Period. If the bullet won't start in the rifling straight then it really won't matter about the rest of the barrel. Then you have to address the damage done at the
crown, when the cleaning rod leaves the barrel and is dragged back inside. Quite a few benchrest shooters will remove about 3/4 inch of the barrel and recut the crown every 800 rounds or so to remove this damaged area.
They also report seeing the rifling eroded from gas as the bullet leaves the barrel in that same distance, sort of a blunderbuss effect one fellow called it.
When you have a discussion on accuracy, there's accuracy, then there's accuracy, then there's accuracy. Hunting, long range, and for the anal retentive........benchrest; may God have mercy on them. LOL!