“How often do you clean your barrel ??????

I was reading an interview with one of the record holders that shoot for Savage Arms,
He states that he only cleans his barrel every 200 rounds. I clean mine far more often, so my question to you is “How often do you clean your barrel ??????

200-300 rounds.

When accuracy falls off or when I shoot in the rain, drag the gun through some nasty stuff on a hunting trip, or shoot corrosive ammo (or BP).

Some guns this equals "never", some it equals about 20 rounds, some it equals every trip to the range...

Now dealing with barrel cleaning, it depends on caliber, bullet coating, make of barrel, level of accuracy, and a few other factors on need.

On a Savage factory barrel I found they shoot better dirty. I had a 204 Ruger I would only clean it when it started key holing around 200 rounds. I usually clean when accuracy falls off.

Now with aftermarket barrels it is different I find they shoot better clean, My Krieger's I clean after every 10 to 15 shots. I find that there is an advantage in this. Jackie Schmidt just shot a world record 100 yard 5 shot group 5 target aggregate, and he claimed he never cleaned his gun when doing it.

With moly bullet coating I find that I can got 100 to 200 rounds between cleanings.

Most importantly don't worry what works for one guy find out what YOUR barrel likes and do that.

It depends on the barrel. On the stainless barreled guns I will clean them when I notice a drop off in accuracy. My 6.5x284 has 244 rounds through it since it's last cleaning and my 7 Mag has 302 rounds through it. My carbon steel barrels, I clean much more often as I don't trust them not to rust. My 10/22 get cleaned when it stops cycling.

I've found about the same thing. About 300 rounds or once a year.

its like chevy vs ford what works for you

I was running gunslick foaming bore cleaner thru mine after every 50 rounds and started to notice that it took 10-20 rounds to get the consistency back. Now, I just put some hopped 9 on a bore snake and pull it through a few times after every outing.

you mean we're supposed to clean these things... blah, cleaning is women's work ;)

my savages ad stevens shoot better with a fouled barrel.

My rifles usually get cleaned after every range trip/match. My range pistols get cleaned every 2-3 outings. If I shoot my carry gun, it gets cleaned as soon as I get home. My Glock 17 that I shoot in USPSA matches gets cleaned every 2-3 months, so about every 1000 rounds depending on how many matches I make it to.

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Back in the days of yore when dinosaurs roamed the earth…

And I hung around benchrest competition, the shooters at the benchrest nationals cleaned their barrels between every relay which was either five or ten shots plus spotters.

We were taught to clean the same during prairie dog shoots.



Years ago read an article by the late Bob Milek where he used four sporter rifles and shot in each 100 rounds in twenty 5-shot groups without cleaning during the whole exercise. I plotted his reported groups on graph paper and did a few statistics on them. There was no change in group size due to shooting without cleaning through his four rifles’ journey of 100 shots each.

Understand High Power shooters go nearly 100 rounds in competition without cleaning.

Recently read another article where the writer kept records over 2,000 rounds fired through a single barrel and showed no change in accuracy.

Rumor has it that one of the bullet makers only cleans their test barrels every 200 rounds. When asked about the 200 round cleaning procedure, they responded that it was just habit and they thought they could actually go much further between cleanings.



If you can see daylight through the barrel, it is probably still good to go.

When you cannot see daylight…
Northlander, Sharp Shooter, Pac-Nor, Shilen, etc are just a phone call away.

The main problem of not cleaning barrels is it lowers the frequency of getting to smell Hoppes. So I leave an open bottle on the bench as I reload.




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Have some handguns -- 44 Mags in particular -- that have not had the barrel cleaned in over thirty years.

Have shown no reduction in accuracy yet.

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God I miss Bob Milek !!!! Very personable and negligible man, he was the one that got me interested in long rang handgun, shooting