I guess I've never placed much importance on how to really clean a modern rifle, having been taught to simply run a patch with oil through after a day of shooting, mostly 22LR. My shooting buddy seems to have been taught the same, using WD40 to clean his collection of center fire rifles. But my new Savage BVSS seems to require more frequent cleaning and attention to detail and so I've been reading a lot on various forums on how and when to clean.

My .223 exhibits copper fouling after only a few rounds and groups tend to open up after about 80 rounds without a good clean. So how and when to clean?

Some say a cold clean barrel is very unpredictable, and a warm, fouled barrel is much more predictable. I've noticed that my first two shots after a good cleaning tend to go wild before things settle down to a predictable pattern, only to open up again as the barrel get very warm.

Some say never use a bronze brush in a barrel, some say give it 40 strokes with one, and repeat 3 or 4 times as necessary until completely clean.

Some say use an expensive borescope and make it clean down to bare metal after every outing. So you can see my confusion.

For what it's worth, I have a Snap-On video borescope I use to peer into the muzzle end and the chamber. I can see a lot with it, but it won't fit down the barrel. Still, I can see copper build up quite easily. I had a look down my buddy's .308 Rem barrel he'd sent back to the factory for accuracy issues, and to the naked eye looked only mildly fouled, no copper visible. But after a few wet mops with Hopps #9 copper cleaner and let it sit for 20 minutes, his barrel was visibly and completely copper fouled. Needless to say, he is rethinking his cleaning procedures.

What do you guys have to say? Especially you bug-hole shooters, how and when do you clean?

Any help is greatly appreciated!