Cleaning a .22

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bullethole1

Moderator
I have a .22 Magnum Marlin with a Stainless Steel barrel and I bought a cleaning kit with the wire brushes for the barrel.It was a universal kit from Winchester,and it had a brush for the .22 caliber,well i had a hard time getting the thing in and I could only just get it in 3 inches into the barrel and I had a hard time to pull the thing out :eek: so therefore im not going to use it anymore but my question is would that have hurt the rifling in the barrel to make the gun less accurate? It has on the side of the gun,micro grooved rifled whatever on it so Im kind of concerned. I was using rem oil,Im a welder but I dont mess much with stainless,but isnt stainless softer than regular steel like they use when you buy a gun with a blued barrel thats made out of mild steel? Id appreciate any feedback,Ive always been the type to worry about things that has to do with alot of money being invested into it.:D
 
I use a bore snake on all of my rimfire rifles. They get a brush and patch if I am experiencing problems from them in accuracy. Only had it happen once with an old singleshot that had not had more than a spray of W-D40, and boot lace pulled through it for cleaning in over 20 years. (belonged to a family friend, and was gifted to me). The brush and patch in it took it from 4 inch groups at 50 yards to minute of pop can at 150 yards.
 
I haven't used a brush on a rifle in a long time. Haven't found the need. Patches and cleaner do the work for me without the abrasion of the brush.
 
What material is the brush made out of? I wont buy anything but nylon bristle brushes for any of my guns. The cores are usually brass or aluminum, both much softer than metals barrels are made of.
 
It looks like a brass color,copper color,but im assuming its brass!I didnt get it all the way through the barrel just about 2 inches,it wouldnt go anymore :eek:
 
I doubt any noticeable damage was done unless you really put a ding on the crown with a steel rod.

I know some folks feel real particular about how and how often they clean their rimfire bbls. Me? I really like the group that says "clean it when accuracy falls off". At most, I might feel compelled to clean once a year with a snake. Now the receiver area- I clean as needed. You might be somewhere north of shocked and south of astonished at how long a rimfire can run between cleanings with no harm at all. They really dont foul that fast in the bbl area.

I'm guessing you have a bolt action? Clean only from the chamber/breech end, one pass at a time, and never change directions in mid-stroke. I'm suprised you got the brush out once started. Not sure why it would stop only 2" in, but if there is something really funky in there (snough to stop a brush and rod) it needs to go. For something this serious I would invest in a one piece stainless steel or carbon fiber rod, Ed's Red, or just Kroil, and lots of elbow grease.
 
nothing is obstructing the barrel but i just wasnt really pressing hard enough,i dont think they would make the brushes and include them in their product they are selling if it would hurt the rifle barrel if it was either stainless or regular steel.Im gonna play safe and not use em anymore since I dont want a drop in accuracy since I mainly use my guns for target shooting and thats why that was my main concern.I heard thats all the military uses is brass and cleaning pads. By the way the material on the brush is phosphur brass
 
Sounds like you ought to be OK. Those bore snakes really are pretty handy, but if you hang around here long enough, you'll see posts come up from time to time where the general concensus is that more rimfires are ruined from overcleaning or improper cleaning than anything else. But, it's also understandable that a feller wants a clean rifle.
 
I wonder why the kit i bought which was a winchester comes with a bunch of those brushes for different calibers? This doesnt make sense!
 
The wise and mysterious Dfariswheel answered your last question in another post, but I shall attempt to answer the other question. My uneducated guess is that the makers of the Winchester cleaning kits developed a suspicion that folks might have different firearms of varying calibers and as a result of such find themselves in such a predicament that they might choose to employ specific calibers of brushes in their variously calibered firearms. But that's just a guess.
 
.22 WMR and .17 HMR barrels should be treated like centerfires because most people use center-fire type bullets in them. Centerfire bullets do not have wax coating, like .22LR bullets, so there's little protection left in the bore after shooting. Corrosion is the worst killer of barrels. If you're not going to clean a barrel fully, at least run a patch with Break-Free CLP through it to protect against corrosion.
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When clean, bronze brushes won't normally hurt your bore. It's best to run a patch with solvent down the bore first, so most of the loose grit is out of there. Then, put a few drops of solvent on the brush tip before using it.

If there's any way to do it, clean from the breech end instead of the muzzle. Run the brush through, then remove it after it emerges from the muzzle. Never pull the brush back across the crown, since that's the most important part of your barrel and is most easily damaged by any grit picked up by the brush. Just unscrew it and re-install it before another stroke. Some of us grind most of the threads off the brush shank, to make it quicker to remove the brush.

Brushes should be cleaned after each use. I squirt it with brake cleaner or Gun Scrubber to remove grit, then put it away in it's sleeve or other clean place.

The more humid the conditions, the more chances of corrosion damage. Coastal areas are usually worse for guns than arid regions. The worst place for a gun used for hunting during wet weather is in a gun case in your trunk. If the sun comes out, the case becomes a steam bath that can create surface rust in a few hours, pitting in a couple of days.

Picher
 
I haven't used a brush on a rifle in a long time. Haven't found the need. Patches and cleaner do the work for me without the abrasion of the brush.
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+1.

That being said, I'd get rid of the crappy cleaning rod before you do damage the crown with it and I'd get a Tipton. I've used several cleaning rods including the cheap ones like you have, a Dewey, and the Tipton, and the Tipton is by far the best cleaning rod I've ever laid my hands on. I won't buy anything else now.

As for a cleaner, I really like using just Wipe Out brushless bore cleaner and patches to clean my rifles. It takes a while to get all of the copper out, but it seems to do a great job of cleaning them.
 
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