Center Fire Cleaning

[MarkA]

Center Fire Cleaning

I come from a rimfire background and just recently got myself an AR-15. In the rimfire world if you can see light through the bore is good to go. That does not appear to be the case with center fires. I have just finished two weeks of barrel break in (Please no Flames read all I could and figured it could not hurt, I know it probably won’t help either so there) and am ready to shoot. How often and how deep to clean. I am addicted to the weed wacker cleaners. I have been using a bristled felt button with Blue Wonder Gun Cleaner and letting set for 15+ minutes. The running a smooth felt button with Break Free. Then running dry patches until clean and storing this way. Is this OK? Do this how often or not at all or something in between and this at some interval. Thanks for you HELP!

[Qaz]

Here is the poop, or at least what I found. I tried the break-free, I cleaned and cleaned, when I got the barrel as clean as I could I put it back in the rack. I wanted to see if it would get any cleaner, put some Hopps Copper solvent on a patch and pulled through. It came out dirty, I cleaned some more and finally got it clean. Break-free is good for some things but is not real good as a bore cleaner. It does a great job on the outside of the barrel and the action though. Just what I have found.

PS. Clean it before you put it away.

Qaz

[snakeriverrufus]

Properly breaking in abarrel NEVER hurts and almost always helps( if only by making the bore easier to clean from now on). I'm not familiar with Blue wonder, but if it's working for you - what more can you ask for?

[doorgunner]

Break Free CLP is a mediocre bore cleaner, to be used on chrome lined M16A2 and M4 Carbine barrels. I would not recommend it on stainless or non-chrome lined rifle barrels. If you own a Bushmaster or Colt AR15, you can use it as a bore cleaner if you want, since the Bushy is chrome lined, and most (not all) of the Colts are. The problem is that there is no copper solvent in the "C" portion of CLP. It will remove most of the powder (carbon) fouling, but will not remove the copper from the chromoly bore. A much better bet would be Hoppe's, either the yellow label, or the black label Benchrest solvent. Both are very effective copper solvents. Buy a good one piece cleaning rod, and a bottle of Hoppe's and you will be good to go!