Cleaning methods for airgun barrels (video)

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Tominco

Tominco

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Apr 1, 2015
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Colorado, United States
Hey guys!
I put together a quick intro video showing many different methods of cleaning our airgun barrels. I'll be putting out a new video on each one every 3-4 days, over the next few weeks. I plan on covering how-to use them, any tips & tricks that I've found, and my thoughts about the pro's and cons to each style. 
As I've mentioned before, one of the most important steps you can take with any new or used rifle is to clean the barrel right away before you shoot it. I know this can be a very hard thing to get yourself to do but, it will set you up for success and accuracy throughout the life of the rifle.
Happy Shooting!
Tom
 
Barrel cleaning is in my opinion one of the most ignored things in shooting. Most people only clean when it's too late and find that cleaning takes a lot of effort in that case. And when they clean they make the barrel so clean that it requires somewhere up to 50 shots to get back at it again.

Cleaning is also like a bathtub curve:

1528231204_1216270945b16f52447fb76.04875808_bathtub curve cleaning.jpg


If you start cleaning when accuracy is going way off it generally takes quite some time to clean it properly.
What I do is find my required cleaning interval. This interval is finding the point that accuracy is suffering from the fouling ( do this a couple of times to find a usable average ). After that I define a cleaning interval in which the accuracy doesn't degrade and keep it in that interval. I clean with pull through cords because it's easy and if you don't clean it too far you only need 1 or 2 shots to get the barrel fouled up again to the right amount.
 
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The cleaning interval I use only works for airguns since we don't use gunpowder and have use low muzzle velocities. Copper, burnt gunpowder and high temperatures have different effects on the barrel than the little bit of lead that we use.

some other tips:
  • If you don't want to take the barrel out of the gun to clean it and you want to use oil it's smart to lay the gun upside down (so scope down). In this way the oil can't drip into the TP. If cleaning oil drips into the TP it can flow into places it shouldn't be since cleaning oils have a low viscosity in most cases which gives it the ability to penetrate.
  • Do a couple of shots after cleaning to take out any residues of oil that might have been left behind or that are left in the TP.
  • Clean pellets before shooting and give them a slight coating of anti-oxidant (most gun oil suffice for this) and let it cure for a couple of days until they don't feel oily anymore, it'll decrease the need for cleaning and extend the cleaning interval. It also makes cleaning easier in most cases.
  • I use pull-through cords for regular cleaning and a cleaning rod (dewey) for the intens cleaning (I only do this once a year in the summer break of our competition or when the accuracy is way off for some reason).
Good luck with this series Tom! Your previous series were put together in a very clear and understandable way so I think this one will be right there too ;)

Regards,
Tom
 
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