Bronze Brushes on a .22

Several reasons.

1. You can get the brush stuck in the bore.
2. You "can" damage the bore.
3. Reversing the brush "springs" the bristles and ruins the brush.
 
I don't recall ever using a bristle brush in a .22 rimfire, but I fail to see how the bore could be damaged.

I'm not sure that a brush gets all excited and worried about which way its bristles are pointed, for that matter. :D
 
No advantage to changing in Mid-Stream

It's rare for me to use a bronze brush in a .22LR bore and when I do, it's usually at the breech end to address a leading problem. This is mostly on used guns that I work on, that have seen little or no cleaning. ..... ;)

I try to run my jags in one continuous direction. Usually from breech to muzzle. Changing directions in mid-stream, on a brush, can damage the brissles or even get stuck. Basically, there is no advantage to changing in mid-stream and it could lead to other problems. ..... ;)


Be Safe !!!
 
Brush reversal hsurB...

Bullethole 1--I' too have heard the "wisdom" about the bristles hurting the bore if you reverse the brush within the bore. Having considered the relative hardness of bronze and steel, well, um...

Anyhow, the bristles get bent to the rear when you push the brush into the bore, the brush being slightly larger in diameter than the bore. When you pull on the brush, the bristles will be bent in the other direction, and since the brush is larger than the bore, the bristles will also acquire a bit of a bend to shorten them so they can make it past top dead center, as it were, and the brush be pulled out.

When this happens is when the bronze bristles are supposed to hurt the steel bore. I can't see this happening, but can't prove it doesn't, either. But the result will be a brush that is now the same diameter as the bore, not slightly larger. So it won't have nearly as much "brushing effect" on the bore in subsequent uses. Thus, even if the bore is not hurt by the reversal, the brush is. Can't imagine the brush actually getting stuck in there, but I suppose it could happen.

It also takes a bit of a yank to get those bristles reversed. Much easier for lazy ol' me to push the brush out in the direction it was started. Good cleaning should always go from the breech to the muzzle, anyhow, my HS rifle coach always said.
 
Having considered the relative hardness of bronze and steel, well, um...
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Steel is a pretty generic term and rimfire barrels are often quite soft as far as steel goes. While a high-quality steel knife blade might be RC60, the typical rimfire barrel is probably around RC22 or maybe even a little softer.

Brass and bronze are similarly generic terms, and although some alloys can be very hard--certainly hard enough to be similar in hardness to a soft steel--it's generally safe to say that they're softer than rimfire barrel steel. That said, the difference in hardness between a brass/bronze brush and a rimfire bore isn't as huge as it might initially seem.
I'm not sure that a brush gets all excited and worried about which way its bristles are pointed, for that matter.
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I agree with Smokey Joe's assessment. When a brush is pushed through a bore, the bristles are angled away from the direction of travel because the bore diameter is a tiny bit smaller than the bristle diameter.

If it is reversed while in the bore, all those bristles now try to "dig in" and prevent the brush from moving backwards. it can be forced by pulling hard enough to flex the bristles and get them aimed the right way again (away from the direction of travel) but it can take a good bit of force since there are a lot of bristles. And it's possible to get the brush into a bind where some of the bristles are pointed each way and the brush doesn't want to go either direction.

I can't say that something like that WILL damage the bore but a few things are certain. It's hard on the brush. It's a pain. IF it's possible to damage a bore with a brush, this is probably the most likely way to do it.

Anyway, I agree that it's not usually necessary to use a brush in a rimfire. In fact, I find that it's rarely necessary to do much at all in the way of cleaning to my rimfire bores.
 
bullethole, it seems to be the consensus that cleaning the barrel of a .22 is far less important than for centerfires. Many don't do much of anything beyond maybe an lightly-oiled patch through the bore before putting the gun away. Most .22 ammo is slightly lubed, so rust isn't a particular problem. It seems to take a heckuva lot of shooting before leading is a problem.

When group size begins to degrade, that's the time to do a more thorough cleaning.

IMO it's always best to clean from the breech end if at all possible. Protecting the crown of the muzzle is highly important. My preference is a rod which is plenty long enough for a patch or brush to clear the muzzle.

Looking at my wild-animal box of "gun stuff", I sometimes wonder whether or not gun cleaning brushes are like mice: They breed in the dark, much like coat hangers.
 
Most .22 ammo is slightly lubed, so rust isn't a particular problem. It seems to take a heckuva lot of shooting before leading is a problem
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I believe all .22LR ammunition is externally lubricated. The stuff is dipped in ceresin wax or equivalent and if it was not for that you would have leading within the bore.

Just this weekend I was talking to a gentleman who witnessed an out of battery firing of a .22LR. The person who had it was shooting one of those .22LR conversion kits in a AR15. The shooter had fired at least 500 rounds and had built a massive amount of wax in the chamber or throat. One round did not fully seat but the firing mechanism allowed the rim to be hit. Cartridge cases cannot take the full combustion pressure and must be supported. With exposed sidewalls the cartridge blew. The 30 round magazine was blown out, the shooter was unhurt, but he had to send the whole gun to the kit maker for repair and replacement.

I don’t know if reversing the brush does any damage to the bore, I try not to reverse the brush but I have, many times.
 
Ruins the brush! I quit cleaning .22 barrels very much several years ago according to the knowledge of people much more experienced than me. No problems. When I do I usually am very liberal with bore solvents letting plenty of soak time pass, using patches usually made out of old t-shirts. Only abused guns that live on tractors and 4 wheelers see brushes, (rarely)
 
I use a very worn brass brush to hold a small patch. The patch holds the solvent. If the bristles poke through the patch when it's wrapped around the brush it's okay, I'm not scrubbing, just pushing patches through the bore to get the crud out.

It's easy, I'm lazy and I've been doing it since the '50s. It works on a 12 ga. too.
 
I do what JohnBT does, but only rarely. Usually a patch saturated with Breakfree on the end of a wooden dowel is the only thing I use after a day's shooting.
 
I use foaming bore cleaner and a boresnake on my .22 -- works great. I noticed that after my last session of around 250 rounds that the bore cleaner got quite a bit of copper out. The goo that drained out after a 15 minute soak was pretty blue. Must be the thin copper plating which I am glad I was able to get out.
 
It's funny, I used to shoot the copper-plated rounds in my .22LR firearms to keep the bores from leading and to cut down on cleaning. When I started running into trouble finding copper-plated .22LR in my area that shot to my accuracy standards, I reluctantly switched to the plain lead stuff.

I found that I didn't need to clean nearly as often. Now I'm not saying that applies across the board since I haven't done any sort extensive testing with a wide range of both copper-plated and unplated .22LR ammo. But since I've been using unplated bullets I've gradually increased the time between cleanings because I'm not getting anything out of the bores. I'm almost to the point that I don't really clean my rimfire bores at all and I'm not seeing any issues as a result.
 
I do not use copper ammo in my .22s and no .22 target ammo is made with copper bullets. They are not copper-plated, they are copper-washed, which is different; the copper is not bonded to the bullet and will come off in your barrel.
 
The only time my 22's get a bronze brush all the way through is after copper washed ammo, and only one pull at that. I use CCI minimag to test a new gun and season the barrel a little. After that they see nothing but lead.
My cleaning process after a range session is some Hoppes in the chamber and the brush(only the chamber) to remove carbon fouling, then a dry patch all the way through then an oiled patch, then another dry patch and I'm done.
This works for me, but everybody has their own method. Good luck and be careful of that barrel crown.;)
 
They are not copper-plated, they are copper-washed...
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Haven't done a survey of currently available ammo, but I have a box left over from the Federal Classic that I used to shoot before I started having trouble finding it around here. It is, indeed, copper-plated.
 
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