Anyone using bore snakes?

[Biggs300]

I only use a bore snake on my shotguns after a shooting a round of skeet or sporting clays in the field and usually do a more thorough cleaning afterwards. I do not use them on any of my rifles. I use a Dewey coated cleaning rod for my 45-70's and a Tipton Max Force carbon fiber rod on the remainder of my rifles. The Tipton works great with Dewey bore guides. For cleaning my rifles at the range, I use a Otis cleaning kit (works similar to a bore snake).

I'm sure most of you know that bore snakes can be washed. I soak mine in the sink with regular dish detergent for 30 minutes or so, rinse and air dry. I do add a couple of drops of oil around the brush section after rinsing. I do this a couple of times a year depending on how much I shoot.

 

[EdWalton]

It doesn't matter if the weapon has been fired or not. I pull a snake through the bore, and wipe it down with plenty of oil, then clean the lens before I put it in its case. If its been fired I'll clean it with the rod when I get to the house.

 

[Deleted member 46119]

From the looks of it there are some bore snake haters here.

I'll be going against the grain again.

I use bore snakes on every firearm. At the end of a shooting session I will snake the barrel. From 22lr to 50 DTC. Hand gun or long gun.

For the rimfires, this may be all I do for a thousand rounds or more.

For center fire, this is all I will do until accuracy struggles. This could be 50 rounds to 500 rounds, it depends on the rifle. Once the load is settled, each rifle will have a pattern of how many rounds. Like I said, up to 500 rounds. Then I will clean the firearm conventionally and remove all the copper which usually isn't much.

Exceptions to this cleaning regimen are matches. If I have a match, I will clean firearms for the match Tuesday before the match, then on Thursday I will function check and foul the barrel, test for accuracy, bore snake it and put it away until the match.

This is what works for me. However, there are some things that make my use of bore snakes different.

All rifle projectiles are HBN coated.
I use a snake 1 size smaller than the rifle caliber.

 

[toddc]

From the looks of it there are some bore snake haters here.

I'll be going against the grain again.

I use bore snakes on every firearm. At the end of a shooting session I will snake the barrel. From 22lr to 50 DTC. Hand gun or long gun.

For the rimfires, this may be all I do for a thousand rounds or more.

For center fire, this is all I will do until accuracy struggles. This could be 50 rounds to 500 rounds, it depends on the rifle. Once the load is settled, each rifle will have a pattern of how many rounds. Like I said, up to 500 rounds. Then I will clean the firearm conventionally and remove all the copper which usually isn't much.

Exceptions to this cleaning regimen are matches. If I have a match, I will clean firearms for the match Tuesday before the match, then on Thursday I will function check and foul the barrel, test for accuracy, bore snake it and put it away until the match.

This is what works for me. However, there are some things that make my use of bore snakes different.

All rifle projectiles are HBN coated.
I use a snake 1 size smaller than the rifle caliber.

I gave them a shot when they first came out as I had to clean a lot of guns for my business and many of them were BARs and other stuff you cant clean properly. What cured me of them for my rifles was cleaning them. I could never get them 100% clean. Even after cleaning them and spending more time cleaning the snake than the barrel I would soak them and agitate and even a "clean" one would show junk in the container I was cleaning them in.
That being said I am super anal about my barrels and probably overthink it. I also don't like running that much surface area of anything over my crowns.
One thing I thought they might excel for would be a truly fouled barrel. Soak them in copper or carbon killer and pull them in and let them sit for a while versus plugging the barrel and filling with solution. Then I started worrying about anything as nasty as copper killer reacting in the barrel with the snake. Yeah I'm probably nuts.

 

[Deleted member 46119]

... I could never get them 100% clean ...

I don't believe in using a bore snake as the sole cleaning method. Even for hard to clean rifles.

For difficult to clean rifles with awkward access to the breech, I use pull through systems like Otis.

If there is breech access, I use Dewey rods, custom Acetal bore rider jag adapters. and bore guides I make specific to the action. Delrin or Acetal machines very easily and we have Online Metal Store | Small Quantity Metal Orders | Metal Cutting, Sales & Shipping | Buy Steel, Aluminum, Copper, Brass, Stainless | Metal Product Guides at OnlineMetals.com and http://www.amazon.com/ for easy access to materials.

 

[Deleted member 46119]

Basically, bore snakes are for after shooting go wipe out the bore.

No one cleaning system is perfect for everyone or every rifle you may own.

 

[J E Custom]

Like everything else, bore snakes have there place. to clean a rifle well you need a throat saver, a good rod (as large as possible to keep it from snaking down the bore and rubbing the lands) different types of brushes, and good jags for patches and a good bore solvent.

Now to the bore snake. It is a handy tool If you don't expect to much. like some members, I carry
them in my range/hunting bag to sweep out the carbon fouling between shots to increase barrel life.
I never use solvent on them and they remain in good shape. (They can be cleaned if they get nasty)
and do a good job for what I like to use them for.

You can do the same thing (Sweep out the carbon fouling) with a cleaning rod, but you have to be careful using a dry patch on a fouled barrel not to stick the patch. also a cleaning rod is hard to use in a stand and to carry on hunts.

I would think if you used solvent on a bore snake It would be a one time use and be discarded.

So the bore snake has its place, and in my opinion it is not for "True" clean bores.

Just my opinion
J E CUSTOM

 

[N2TRKYS]

I use bore snakes for my shotguns and rifles. I love them.

 

[shooter7]

The boresnakes have their place. With my duck gun it sits in the case right next to the gun and gets used after nearly every hunt. For my rifles I use them for knocking larger debris out at the beginning of each cleaning session ( usually around 100 rounds or so). After that I switch to a carbon fiber tipton rod with with the appropriate jag to get it really clean. They're definitely not the end all solution but they serve a purpose.

 

[meatyrem]

Always use 1 piece fiberglass rod brass jags and boretech eliminator. I switch that with gunslick foaming bore cleaner too. Never boresnakes or metal jointed cleaning rods. If I use metal it's a coated rod.