Most 'cheap' 22 ammo currently is lead, although I have managed to find some jhp.

I normally finish off a range session after shooting lead with a few jacketed bullets to clean out the rifling.

I have read in some places that people never clean their 22s as it degrades the accuracy of the barrel, and other places that people clean as normal.

So, do I need to clean my 22 or can I just go on as I am? if I do need to clean it, do I need to do anything additionally because of the lead?

I treat them like any other rifle. When it becomes overly dirty or there are function/accuracy issues, I'll clean it.

The only time cleaning a barrel will degrade accuracy is if they are not using the proper technique/equipment and are damaging the barrel. Otherwise, you may see some change in accuaracy on a freshly cleaned barrel for a few rounds.

I don't like to use a cleaning rod for .22 caliber. I prefer a bore snake, with CLP on it.

IMO there are many unknowns with 22lr:
- Why is a given round accurate in one barrel, but not another?
- There can be substantial differences in accuracy from one manufacturing lot to another, especially with match-grade ammo.
- A variety of cleaning methods are used by shooters, with many of the methods producing good results.

Some folks like to clean a rifle after each shooting session -- I'm one of those. Others let the fouling build up for awhile. Both methods can result in high accuracy and reliable round cycling.

It's important that cleaning -- however frequent or infrequent -- doesn't harm the barrel. A guide system helps to prevent chamber damage from the rod. Minimizing harsh chemicals and heavy abrasives helps to keep the barrel in good shape. Keep the crown in good shape by making only forward passes with jags/patches/brushes.

Some bore fouling is required for 22lr bullets to shoot their best. After cleaning the bore and/or after changing ammo types, expect fouling of 5 to 15 rounds before ammo accuracy settles down. This is especially important if one is analyzing different ammo.

Semi-auto rifles often require more attention to cleaning than bolt action rifles.

Rifles with tight chambers meant for match ammo often require more attention to cleaning than rifles intended for casual use with lower grade ammo.

In the summer of 1930, my dad bought a Walther Sport Model 2 - that's the one with the odd semi-auto/bolt-action copied by Beretta post WW2.

I started shooting it around 1953-54, and was actually shooting it again yesterday - along with its original no-name x2 scope.

I recall that it was happy with anything I put through it, and that at 50m it shot ten rounds into about 3/4" or so - all the live-long day.

Yesterday was no exception - same deal.

Apart from cleaning the crud out of the breech area - it IS a semi-auto after all - I dismantle it, give it a thorough sort-out and push the crap out of the barrel about once a year.

At first, after all that attention, it shoots like a garden sprinkler, but after around 20 or 30 shots it settles back to the usual grouping.

I have six other .22cal rifles, and they are all the same with regard to a thorough barrel clean - get the crap out of that tube and they shoot like shit.

Dirty 'em up and they are back to their old performance - in the case of the Mauser ES350B, that's five shots into half an inch at 50m, and the 1967 Anschutz 1409, about half that. Same for two BSA Martini Internationals. A Walther DSM has never been more than about an inch for ten shots at 50m, but all those little nazi-kins probably had a great time shooting it at their weekly hate-ups back in the heady days of the Reich. A 1910 BSA Model 1/2 just does its own thing, depending on the weather, but I'm happy with that.

All .22 ammo (short, long, long rifle that is) is lead, some of it is just copper washed.

As for firing jacket ammo to clean out the lead, there's three schools of thought on that.

1. It works.

2. It doesn't work, it just laps in the lead deeper, adding copped fouling over top of it.

3. I dunno.

I'm firmly in camp three.

I clean my 22s like Tac does...when the action becomes gummed up...punch the bore twice and next time I use it, I fire five or so into the berm before it settles down..

I have a Savage MKII bolt action 22 that I have never run a rod down the bore...it shoots better than me....

I usually clean my .22s after every range session, and religiously after hunting.

A rod, possibly some powder blaster, bronze brush, patches, Hoppes 9 and some oil. With some ammo, the cleaning job is very quick, like with CCI Mini Mags. Some cheap range ammo, like Remington Thunderbolt, requires more diligent cleaning. Thunderbolt is some dirty ammo.

https://www.boretech.com/products/rimfire-blend

Use this stuff for my 40X bolt rifle. Follow the instructions on the bottle!! Clean every 400-500 rounds. If shooting a 250 round steel match, clean before regardless of round count. Just takes a few shots for me and the barrel to settle. Also scrub the bolt/extractor every time I clean.

I base my cleaning frequency and how not only by what my target tells me, also from the experience of a local gunsmith who has chambered 22's for our Olympic team. As well as talking with the tech, very accomplished 22 competitor, at the Lapua 22 testing center who has tested 10's of thousands of rounds at their facility in all kinds of rifles.

sigfreund,

Ya, I've learned to clean between different ammo brands when testing for accuracy. Target has shown me some ammo shoots well at first with the previous ammo's lube, then fall apart and other ammo not shoot well at all with previous ammo. When testing match ammo for accuracy, only at a 100yd indoor range, never outside

Now I'm just shooting two different flavors, SK Standard Plus for practice and Midas+ for matches. I don't see a difference on target switching between these two. I still clean my barrel before a match. fritz has done quite a bit of testing to see what different ammo brands will shoot after each other w/o cleaning. I believe he came to the same conclusion with SK and Lapua as I did.

Practice. Shoot a couple 10 shot groups at 100yds to establish a MOA. Most lots of SK will do a honest 1 1/2" shooting outside. That 1 1/2" is my 1 MOA now. With center-fire rifle usually shoot at 2-3 MOA for positional stuff. To practice that with the 22 at 100yds, 2 MOA is a 3" target/3 MOA 4 1/2" target. When I miss can't blame the ammo! Hope that makes sense. Do the same for shooting dot drills at 50yds.

Use a nylon brush, bought a bunch years ago. I've used bronze brushes on my center-fire rifles w/o issue. Only problem is the cleaner will pull bronze off the brush showing me blue on the patch, false copper info.

Who's barrel on the 77/22?

Most prs shooters and other high accuracy demand shooters only clean the bore after they see a hint of diminishing accuracy and not before. The round count will vary from rifle to rifle of course, but religiously cleaning a rifle after every range Trip is an antiquated relic of the time when ammo was corrosive primed. There is a reason in the old days they allowed fouling shots prior to a match ( these days they are called sighting shots) to settle a bore down after cleaning to restore maximal accuracy.

quote:

Originally posted by captain127:
Most prs shooters and other high accuracy demand shooters only clean the bore after they see a hint of diminishing accuracy and not before. The round count will vary from rifle to rifle of course, but religiously cleaning a rifle after every range Trip is an antiquated relic of the time when ammo was corrosive primed. There is a reason in the old days they allowed fouling shots prior to a match ( these days they are called sighting shots) to settle a bore down after cleaning to restore maximal accuracy.

Practices vary from shooter to shooter, and from caliber to caliber.

I just returned from training at Rifles Only. RO is owned by Jacob Bynum. Jacob has an AIAW in 308 Win which he loans to students either who can't transport/own rifles to the USA or whose rifles crap out during a course. I put a few rounds down the tube when the AIAW was approaching 100,000 rounds. It shot really well. According to Jacob, the rifle is now on its 28th or 29th barrel, and is approaching 200,000 rounds. Jacob still cleans it infrequently with a few passes of a bore snake -- maybe every 500 rounds, but could go to 1,000 rounds. IMO 308 Win is pretty amicable to shooting with clean, with somewhat fouled, and with really fouled barrels.

Jacob seems to have joined the current century, and now really likes to shoot his 6mm Creedmoor rifle. With a grin, I asked if he ever cleans the barrel -- prior to shooting out a barrel. Jacob said yes, he cleans it regularly. And that the smaller bore calibers require more frequent cleaning to maintain accuracy. In a previous course with Jacob, he agreed that 6.5mm bores need regular cleaning, too.

I've shot out only 4 barrels to date -- 6.5CM and 223 Remy. I lightly clean my bores with wet patches after almost every session. It's not so much to clean the entire bore, but to remove the almost inevitable carbon ring buildup in the throat. My reasons:
- My shot out barrels developed really bad carbon rings in the final portions of their useful lives. The buildup noticeably decreased accuracy.
- I've seen very good shooters in steel/precision/tactical matches experience serious accuracy problems in short order in the middle of matches. At the next day or the next match, sometimes they stated that a thorough evaluation revealed a pretty substantial carbon ring buildup in the throat. Once the carbon was gone, the shooters did well again with that rifle. And they stated they'd be cleaning that rifle more frequently.
- My 308 Win, 6.5CM, and 223 barrels need one round or two rounds at most to return to optimal accuracy after my cleaning practices. I've had cold clean bore shots be very accurate and on the intended POA. I don't remove all of the bore's fouling, which almost certainly contributes to my minimal accuracy degradation after cleaning. Honestly, I see more accuracy challenges with my being a "cold shooter" at the beginning of the day, rather than the bores being "cold and clean".

I don't think a carbon ring in the throat is a real issue with 22lr bore. Lead buildup in the throat -- maybe. Powder, primer, and wax buildup in the bore -- you bet. Powder & wax buildup in the forward end of the chamber -- absolutely. Powder and wax buildup around the extractor --- absolutely.

I like a quality 17 cal rod to clean a 22 bore, just easier to deal with.

As to the amount & type of cleaning, it depends on round count, any wet weather involved, & approximately when it was last cleaned. I’m more likely to clean routinely than not, at least a damp patch or two.

I also have a homemade bore snake made out of weed-whipper line. It’s pointed on one end, blunted on the other, to take then hold a patch. I use this snake for casual pass-thru in 17 HMRs too.

If you shoot only standard velocity non-copper-washed .22 LR, you do not HAVE to clean the bore.

I have target .22s with more than 5,000 rounds through them without touching the bore. No problems, no noticeable degradation in accuracy.

When we've had this discussion here before, someone who is a better shooter than I am (I can't remember who exactly) noted that they cleaned their .22's bore because they noticed an eventual dropoff in consistency at 200-300 yards if they didn't.

I don't shoot my .22s past 100 yards.

quote:

Originally posted by maladat:I have target .22s with more than 5,000 rounds through them without touching the bore. No problems, no noticeable degradation in accuracy.

I doubt very much that ANY of my .22LR rifles have had less than 100,000 rounds down them. Even the newest - 1967 - was a three-times-a-week-use club gun for almost forty years.

I shoot ARA bench rest with a competition gunsmith made rifle.
I & every other BR shooter I know clean it to like new after every card of 25 bulls.
That's around 40 rounds.

I use kg1, #9, on a patch then 4 dry.
After 6 cards I'll use a brush after patching.

If you're shooting an "off the shelf" rifle then you need to let the imperfections fill up.

Fyi, primer compound is VERY corrosive. I'd suggest a wet patch and then dry after every range visit.

I've actually never really cleaned a 22lr rifle barrel. I pull a bore snale through it and then a few oiled patches to get rid of the gross debris, but I've never cleaned one like I do a centerfire barrel.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:

quote:

Originally posted by Haveme1or2:
Fyi, primer compound is VERY corrosive.

Is your ammunition from the 1920s?

If that were true of .22 rimfire ammunition today then why is it that none of the many handguns and rifles chambered for 22 Long Rifle that I’ve owned for decades and whose bores and adjacent areas for the most part have never been cleaned, or very seldom at most, have never developed any rust? Although it hardly seems necessary nearly a century later, most of my 22 LR ammunition boxes clearly state “non-corrosive.”

I appreciate your comment about cleaning, but I am confident you are mistaken about corrosive priming in the 21st century.

According to eley and lapua ...I didn't just decide it was. I was told.
The sub match stuff may not be, idk

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Pyker:
Most 'cheap' 22 ammo currently is lead, although I have managed to find some jhp.
[/QUOTE

I'm betting those rounds aren't actually jhp, but lead bullets with a copper colored wash.

Waiting til accuracy falls to clean, as a newb I was bitten by that notion several years ago. Shot a match with lots of rounds on the 6.5CM barrel, part way through the match gun started to scatter. Never again. Two months ago at a 22 match seen the exact same thing. Guys Vudoo 22 went from shooting well to about over a foot of vertical at 200yds half way through the match. How many rounds on your barrels since the last cleaning? I dunno know, heard you don't have to clean these things..... he too learned a lesson.

Carbon ring on the throat of a 22 barrel, bore scope has shown me absolutely.

With cleaning products like Boretech, Wipeout-Patchout.. the days of worrying about "over cleaning" are long gone. Not only do these non-ammonia base products cause no harm to our barrels, more effective. The days of using Sweets, Butches Boreshine, all the stinky stuff..... should be behind us!