Question on cleaning your rifle barrel

[NDAR15MAN]

I have a Freind that shoots a lot of rifles plus muzzle loaders. What he does is go to Walmart and buy a $5.00 cleaning rod takes it home and cuts handle off of it. Then puts it in his battery Black / Decker drill chuck and cleans the bore out of his guns with Hopps bore cleaner. Runs brush through only about 3 times and he is good. Then swaps out 1 trip through barrel. He has done this for 30 plus years , every since battery operated drills. Appears no ill effects on the barrel ..... you guys see any issue doing this for me ? I know , I know don't say I need a gun cleaning vice etc. He has one , I have one.
I watch him clean a muzzleloader last weekend. Man it's slick. Takes less time , less mess for location we have that we clean guns. Thanks. MD

 

[BallisticsGuy]

Sigh. Your friend hates his barrels and he's being an exceptionally poor example by doing something and having no idea why he's doing it. He certainly thinks it's helping and you almost certainly won't be able to tell him any different.

There is nothing that a brush and Hoppe's is going to remove which requires any more motion than a few swipes back and forth. I don't even use brushes except on black powder guns and then, sparingly. A patch and decent solvents is usually entirely sufficient for modern smokeless cartridges.

If he pushes the brush through the crown then he's almost certainly wearing the muzzle which will show itself eventually. I doubt he shoots well enough with enough volume of shots or at far enough of a target that he'll ever notice. Tell him for me that I called him a spiteful rifle abusing evil heretic but that I did it playfully in a ribbing sort of way.

 

[NDAR15MAN]

Hmm.... Will I have received some PM's from others this am that clean all their gun barrels in this way.
They did not want to stir pot by posting their response. Ha ha ha.
I will let him know there is different views on the subject. Ha ha ha. Thanks. MD

 

[Orange Dust]

We clean expensive competition shotguns this way. Only way to get the plastic out of the barrel. I would NEVER do it to a rifle barrel. That being said, we also do this to tube sets. They are aluminum subgage barrels in skeet guns. Does not hurt them. I would be super afraid of the rod ruining a rifle barrel. Even if you used a nylon brush, i think the rod would ruin it.

 

[birdiemc]

Thinking out loud here and not from actual experience or testing, but I think the what BG is saying is likely true if you take a few steps back and think it through.
In barrel break in threads the consensus is typically that the copper bullet going through the bore polishes the rough edges.
Most cleaning threads end up talking about the abrasiveness of the carbon that is sent down the barrel, obviously abrasive enough to eventually cause throat erosion and require replacing a barrel. All that to say, it seems the crap we are removing from the bore is in fact abrasive. Scrape some of that off the inside of the bore, mix that with a nice solvent, then saturate a bore brush with that mixture and you seemingly end up with a very fine grit lapping compound on a stuff bristled bronze brush.
Then rotating that brush inside the barrel roughly perpendicular to the lands, (beating against the sharp corner of the lands) could potentially round it off.

The barrel lapping threads contain a lot of information from very knowledgable and experienced gunsmiths discussing the detriment of improperly lapping a barrel. They also discuss the fact that manufacturers lap a barrel then cut off both ends because the lap reversing directions causes a larger inside diameter at that location. This is much the same as running a rotating brush covered with abrasive out the end of the muzzle and destroying the crown like BG said. Its possible that the damage is not enough to make a difference in shooting under certain conditions, but I think I considered from this point of view it would be hard to argue that damage is not done.

 

[Orange Dust]

This is an accepted practice for shotguns that costs $50K. I am assuming someone thought that if ok for this it would be ok for rifles. The correct answer is NO. Do not do this to any rifle!!! That is, unless it belongs to someone you do not like.

 

[NDAR15MAN]

Ha ha ha. I understand guys.
I Know when I see him clean a Ruger M77 last weekend I was not sure if it was a steel or copper brush or nylon material brush. It look dark so when I talked to him I will ask him if it was a nylon material brush.
I guess does not matter from your guys point of view it's a no no with rifles. When he cleaned his shotgun deer slug barrel you would not believe the black plastic sabot material that came out of his deer slug rifled barrel. He said he shot his deer slug barrel a lot more this year because he used a New scope with a BDC reticle and wanted to confirm yardages out to 200 yards. Not sure what lots of rounds would be but I could not believe the stuff that came out of that deer slug barrel ! I have not cleaned my deer slug barrel In 5 years so I need to do it this weekend.
Will probably just do it all fashion way but I am sure it will not be a easy job after seeing what came out of his deer slug barrel. MD

 

[blackbrush1]

He'll get quicker results with stainless brushes.

 

[Orange Dust]

Do not do it to a rifled shotgun barrel either. Smoothbore only!!!

 

[Mram10us]

I spin a wooden dowel with Emory when I'm done chambering so why not spin a much less abrasive brush in the chamber to clean it out??? I don't do it, but would only see a problem if he's hitting the throat or dragging sand around

Am i misunderstanding here? Is this the chamber he's spinning a brush in or the entire bore?

 

[birdiemc]

I spin a wooden dowel with Emory when I'm done chambering so why not spin a much less abrasive brush in the chamber to clean it out??? I don't do it, but would only see a problem if he's hitting the throat or dragging sand around

Am i misunderstanding here? Is this the chamber he's spinning a brush in or the entire bore?

I read bore...

 

[BallisticsGuy]

Yeah, I got whole bore too.

I do know that when I was very young & poorly educated & totally untrained that I did exactly what OP is talking about thinking I was being helpful. The rifle I did it to was printing 1.5" groups before the brush-in-a-drill trick. Afterward it was printing 4" and it never came back. Dad and I had a nice long discussion about the nature of being helpful and of being hurtful and of being stupid after that and we did come to a consensus.

 

[birdiemc]

Yeah, I got whole bore too.

I do know that when I was very young & poorly educated & totally untrained that I did exactly what OP is talking about thinking I was being helpful. The rifle I did it to was printing 1.5" groups before the brush-in-a-drill trick. Afterward it was printing 4" and it never came back. Dad and I had a nice long discussion about the nature of being helpful and of being hurtful and of being stupid after that and we did come to a consensus.

Wow...looks like I was wrong about not damaging enough to notice when shooting lol

 

[BallisticsGuy]

Sample size of 1 though and I had no understanding of things like "gentle" or "a little bit".