Rifle Cleaning

Y

_YoYo_

New member
I was wondering what kind of accuracy change you can expect after 40 or 50 shots through a heavy barreled .308 without cleaning.
 
I'd guess the group size will increase. By how much is anyone's guess. I've seen groups open up after 10 shots,then again I have shot over a brick out of my 10-22 on a good day of gopher shooting and the last mag was as accurate as the first. the only cleaning we did was to shoot some choke&carb cleaner followed by some clp into the action to get the unburnt powder out so the action would cycle:eek:
 
As the copper builds up the accuracy will decrease but it will stabilize at some point. If your rifle shoots 3/4 inch groups it may stabilize at maybe 1 1/2 inch or something like this. A 22 barrel is not prone to fouling at all. Some unburned powder and maybe a little lube but thats about it. I have run sometimes as many as 2 or 3 thousand rounds through some .22 target rifles and pistols without cleaning and they are just as accurate at the end of this as at the beginning. The same is not true with centerfire rounds with copper jackets. I always try to fire 20 then clean.
 
Depends on variables

Yo_Yo......
What KIND of barrel?
If, a factory tube, in warm to hot weather.......you will be wasting ammo after 20 rounds or LESS.
If it's a custom SS tube, and you wait for SOME cool down, you may can go 50 rounds before significant accuracy declines.
In cold weather, you may get a 100..........
Factory tubes usually will not shoot up to snuff after 20 rounds...especially if the .308 load is a warm one.
 
I have a factory heavy stainless steel Savage in .308. I have it in a Choate stock. The gun has shot very good groups every since I got it. But until I get the money for better optics, I just have a Tasco Target scope mounted. I shot some groups and various ranges so I could come home and calculate the drop for my rifle at different ranges. Then I went out yesterday after making my adjustments and I couldnt seem to shoot a group under 1MOA at any range. Just the day before I was making 3.5 inch at 600 and .3 inch at 100. I thought something was wrong with my scope or mount. But when I got home I realized that I had forgot to clean it when I got home the day before because I had to leave, so it had about 30 rounds through it before I even went out to test my new adjustments. I didn't know wether or not it would decrease accuracy or not because all these years I have been cleaning my guns after 20 rds. I hope that a dirty bore was the cause of my inconsistent shooting, it seems to be that way.

Thanks for the help!
 
I clean my .308 every 41 rounds. This is a standard procedure in my neck of the woods, and it stays around 1 MOA. A couple times I have gone as far in the 80 round catagory, and the gun still shoots about 1 MOA.
A while back my barrel was cryo'd. The downside is that I cannot tell how the rifle shoots before it was done, but now it only takes about 25 patches or so to clean it. And it cleans up pretty quickly, too.
All that is shot is match ammo, nothing hot. The guys I shoot with use Hart barrels, and their accuracy is not noticably decreased.
 
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