Polished SS cleaning rods, good or bad?

[Pops1085]

Ended up with a few stainless cleaning rods over the holidays and haven't had an excuse to use them yet. I always thought you were supposed to use brass or aluminum rods, but these proshot ones seem like quality.

School me, please.

 

[LineStretcher]

They are great. If you use them with stainless jags and nylon brushes. You will never get false copper positives. Use a bore guide with them which you should do anyway and wrap your patch around the jag instead of poking it in the center. When you run a patch through stop just as it shows up at the muzzle and then draw it back.

 

[Dfariswheel]

Virtually all top shooters use either hardened stainless steel or carbon fiber rods.
Virtually no top shooter will use a brass or especially aluminum rod.

This is counterintuitive.
You'd think that a softer rod would potentially do less damage to a muzzle or bore.
However, soft metals allow grit to embed into the metal and that can turn a cleaning rod into an abrasive lapping rod.

The hard stainless will not embed grit and just wipes clean.

Even worse are the screw-together rods. They never mate up perfectly and the sharp edge where the rods join can really ruin a muzzle or even chamber.

One trick to limit potentially damaging a barrel is to PULL the rod.
This prevents the rod from flexing and bumping the bore.
Even with rifles I can clean from the chamber end I still pull the rod through by putting it through, screwing the brush or patch and patch holder on and pulling it out the chamber end.