Another Rifle Cleaning Thread

[Lawnboi]

Can you define “shotgun”?

The rifle went from a 1moa gun, to a 2+ moa gun. I didn’t believe it and thought it was me, and proceeded to shoot another 50 or so rounds trying to prove it was me. Eventually I soaked it and ended up using an abrasive to get it somewhat clean.

Half way through a match, around 1100 rounds I went from hitting targets, to hitting around 70% of shots I knew I should have been making. After that I went home and shot a bunch, it wasn’t pretty, from a barrel I can’t ever remember going over 1.25moa for a 10 shot. Velocity also went up another 100fps. I had plenty of data points on that barrel to believe it was cleaning that brought the rifle back to what was normal for it.

I cleaned it and that barrel was pulled last year with a little over 2k round on it. Still shooting well.

I let a few rifles go for quite a while during that time and not all of them did what that barrel did. I just don’t want that to happen again to me.

My match rifle specifically I have gone to cleaning every match now.

 

[Formidilosus]

The rifle went from a 1moa gun, to a 2+ moa gun. I didn’t believe it and thought it was me, and proceeded to shoot another 50 or so rounds trying to prove it was me. Eventually I soaked it and ended up using an abrasive to get it somewhat clean.

Half way through a match, around 1100 rounds I went from hitting targets, to hitting around 70% of shots I knew I should have been making. After that I went home and shot a bunch, it wasn’t pretty, from a barrel I can’t ever remember going over 1.25moa for a 10 shot. Velocity also went up another 100fps. I had plenty of data points on that barrel to believe it was cleaning that brought the rifle back to what was normal for it.

I cleaned it and that barrel was pulled last year with a little over 2k round on it. Still shooting well.

I let a few rifles go for quite a while during that time and not all of them did what that barrel did. I just don’t want that to happen again to me.

My match rifle specifically I have gone to cleaning every match now.

Thank you.

 

[Formidilosus]

The Hornady guys referenced testing it and repeatedly got large increases in pressure to the extent of blowing or piercing primers after a couple hundred rounds in PRC. I don't remember which exact episode.

They made an offhand comment about it with a 300PRC and stated that with other chamberings they saw no issues for thousands of rounds. But they stated that they have not tested specifically to see.

If you do load development to find pressure with a clean barrel, and you are close to the lands- yeah, you can see pressure as it fouls. Doing load dev with the bullet away from the lands and especially with some fouling on it, I and many others haven’t seen it with extremely large magnums (including 300PRC’s). Those barrels get replaced at about 1,000 rounds, and barrel life and precision remains the same for the vast majority.

 

[West2East]

Frank Green stated that not cleaning a 338 Lapua or Norma barrel in 100 rounds caused it to blow up, with the inference that’s what will happen if you don’t clean them. That’s laughable.

Erik Cortina believes that 3 and 5 rounds groups are valid sample sizes, and that small insignificant changes will dramatically change precision- both are demonstrably false.

Just because someone legitimately tests something and provides good information on one subject, doesn’t mean that when they don’t test something else, that their information is still good. Most of the people you quote haven’t actually tried what they are stating doesn’t work.

So I watch some of Eric Cortina's stuff online and I am certainly not at that level and not near most of you in understanding this stuff. I would imagine though the law of diminishing returns applies in a unorthodox way where he has gotten everything else worked out and its the tiny things that make maybe 0.5% difference that he now has to work on. IDK
Not standing up for the guy cause I know I will never worry about most of the stuff he talks about. Other than his chasing the lands stuff kinda caused me to think about my approach to that and is a topic for another thread.

 

[wapitibob]

How do you apply your lock-ease?

patch from the blue bottle

 

[Formidilosus]

So I watch some of Eric Cortina's stuff online and I am certainly not at that level and not near most of you in understanding this stuff. I would imagine though the law of diminishing returns applies in a unorthodox way where he has gotten everything else worked out and its the tiny things that make maybe 0.5% difference that he now has to work on. IDK

Sure. Eric is winning because he has excellent equipment and in his sport knows how to use it. Very little doubt he would still win if he just grabbed a load and shot it. That is true of most. NRL Hunter has shown that dudes win because they know how to win in their sport- factory guns with factory ammo beating guys with full customs and hand loads often enough to show that it isn’t load dev that is causing the wins.

People want to focus on all the shit that doesn’t matter because they don’t want to face reality that they simply need to shoot and practice more. Worrying about “I lost .0183 moa in precision because I didn’t sacrifice a goat over the rifle” apparently feels better than “I suck”. Functional differences matter, small incremental nonsense is just a distraction.

 

[West2East]

Sure. Eric is winning because he has excellent equipment and in his sport knows how to use it. Very little doubt he would still win if he just grabbed a load and shot it. That is true of most. NRL Hunter has shown that dudes win because they know how to win in their sport- factory guns with factory ammo beating guys with full customs and hand loads often enough to show that it isn’t load dev that is causing the wins.

People want to focus on all the shit that doesn’t matter because they don’t want to face reality that they simply need to shoot and practice more. Worrying about “I lost .0183 moa in precision because I didn’t sacrifice a goat over the rifle” apparently feels better than “I suck”. Functional differences matter, small incremental nonsense is just a distraction.

That is why for the last 3 months I have been trying to get out shooting every week. So it was noticeable what happened with the group size. And based on all of my groups with the other ammo, I feel like a lot of it is just people overthinking stuff and assuming too much. IDK, like I said, I'm relatively new to "long distance" and I don't really have the experience that many(like yourself) rely on for much of this info. So that's why I'm here learning.

 

[Formidilosus]

That is why for the last 3 months I have been trying to get out shooting every week. So it was noticeable what happened with the group size. And based on all of my groups with the other ammo, I feel like a lot of it is just people overthinking stuff and assuming too much. IDK, like I said, I'm relatively new to "long distance" and I don't really have the experience that many(like yourself) rely on for much of this info. So that's why I'm here learning.

That’s good. If your rifle legitimately opens up in group size and it’s detrimental to your use, and if cleaning it brings it back- clean it.