I do bore snake and followed by some patches until the copper needs to come out. I’ll use janitorial grade ammonia to get the copper out... it’s a rare occurrence in the grand sceme of things.
The barrel needs less attention than the rest of the rifle. I clean moving parts well, but I wouldn’t use break clean on things that require lubricants... brake clean is to remove lubricant.
There is stuff intended for carbon removal.
Gotta go, my overly affectionate cat won’t let me type.
True, however a product CONTAINING ammonia, and straight ammonia are 2 very different things. I avoid the products that even contain ammonia, if for no other reason than the smell.I rarely remove copper, but many gun products contain ammonia in order to dissolve copper.
I somewhat agree. It does not NEED to be removed until it starts to effect accuracy. However I prefer to manage it. The Eliminator I use has a mild copper remover. It does not get all the copper out, but it does seems to significantly slow the buildup.It only needs to be removed at the point of noticeable accuracy degradation.
Depends on how you define "incessantly scrubbing" and the tools used. In my case it is 4 patches with eliminator. followed by 15 passes with a nylon bore brush with eliminator, followed by 4 more patches with eliminoator. let it sit 5 min, then dry patched until clean. This is just my regular cleaning routine after shooting. Gets the carbon and copper out pretty well. Does not seem overly harsh IMHO.What would damage a barrel would to be incessantly scrubbing copper out that is doing no harm.
Never understood the purpose of fouling shots. Cant stand to leave my guns dirty. After cleaning a lightly oiled patch and its good to go. "a clean gun is a happy gun, and happy guns save lives" by buddies DI.I also will not scrub a bore if I couldn’t fire a few fouling shots immediately after being cleaned of copper.
I admit I have tried fire lapping and the jb bore paste methods and cleaned down to bare metal. It did not do any damage that is visible or effect accuracy. I personally, found it made no noticeable difference for my uses. Now I just try and keep it clean and rust free.I don’t think we are too far apart, on most of this except the ammonia.
The first shot out of the barrel of is the most important. A shot out of a clean bore will have a poi different than a fouled bore.
I spent several years hunting nuisance animals for ranchers in my area. Every gun is zeroed for a fouled cold bore.
Some guns it may be the same poi, but many it’s not.
Any maintenance on the gun, I verify the zero.
If I hunt and don’t fire at an animal, I will fire that bullet at a target to verify the zero.
I’m more obsessive with my first shot zero than I am about anything else, because The intended purpose of the gun is to fire at a living creature with other living animals nearby.
Consistent bore condition means consistent accuracy. A bore is only clean for a few shots then things change.
I’m not saying leave a bunch of crud in it either, run a patch or two through and call it good.
Some people will scrub down to the bare metal each time... or attempt to polish the bore or lap it.
I doubt judicious use of a bore brush will harm anything, and I don’t have anything against someone doing that, I just find it unnecessary.
So, I’ll concede that carefully scrubbing the bore is harmless if done properly.