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When I was cleaning the rifle (L85A2) or machine gun (L7A2 GPMG) HM the Queen loaned me to conduct Her business, the approved method of cleaning was simply a rigorous brushing with a bronze brush, followed by a pull through with an oily patch for the barrel and a light coating of oil for the working parts. However, now I am building up my own collection of historic rifles and shooting many of them with military surplus ammunition - corrosive primers and all - I can't help but feel that a better cleaning regime might be in order to preserve the bores. Unfortunately, there being so many products on the market that all claim to be the acme of cleaning, I'm at a loss as to know which are actually any good.

Does anyone have any recommendations? I'm currently washing out the barrels with boiling water after getting back from the range, followed by a good brushing and then a pull through with an oiled patch. Should I be using one of the many proprietary cleaners? If so, which ?

I think it was Dromia who used the term 'seasoned' when referring to a service rifle barrel, they become well seasoned with time. My regime used to be bore foam, rigorous brushing and patching, and repeat many times then move onto Hoppes and repeat again, possibly even resorting to JB bore paste. The odd thing is if I shot a dozen rounds and then checked again it was badly coppered again. This does make me wonder if the copper was filling the imperfections again. These days I use an oily patch, and maybe an occasional PB brush and then wipe out with oily patches. It seems to work for me.

Hi MM.

My cleaning method for historic rifles is:

If using surplus/corrosive ammo, firstly - ignore all the BS that is out there. There is a LOT of it. Ignore it all. The only thing you need to worry about when using the surplus ammo/corrosive is the sodium deposits the primers leave behind in the barrel.

The only thing you need to use to get rid of this stuff is boiled water - that's it.

I run about a litre of boiling water through the barrel of mine, from breech to muzzle. Now the barrel is hot I run two patches soaked in cleaning agent through the barrel - Hoppes, Napier, whatever, doesn't matter.

I let the rifle sit for an hour or two, then I run dry patches through until they come out clean-ish (with 90+ year old military rifle you will NEVER get a 100% clean patch)

I then run a cleaning agent-soaked patch through again, but this time I only leave it for about 20 minutes - then I run dry patches through again until I'm happy the patches are clean-ish.

To finish I run an oil-soaked patch through the barrel - and that's it.

When I shoot non-corrosive ammo, I do all of the above, but I don't use the boiling water.

Hope that helps

Regards
T

What i do if i've been shooting corrosive ammo is pour two kettles of boiling water down the barrel and by then it will be too hot to touch,but also means any remaining water rapidly dries.Once dry rod it with a patch soaked in 009 cleaner and then with dry patches until im happy and oil.

Simples!

Hmmm, it looks like I'm doing almost the right thing then. I just need to add a patch soaked in something like Hoppes after the boiling water stage and continue with plenty of brushing ?

To be honest if its really old you'll be hard pushed to get it thoroughly clean.For example you could spend hours rodding my 1934 Nagant (ooo'er!) and the patches never stay clean! You can only do your best.