How To Clean A .22 Rimfire Rifle

22 Rimfire Maintenance

Cleaning Rimfire Barrels

Rimfire rifle barrels are unlike from centerfire barrels in that they require very little cleaning and substantially no break-in procedure. We accept asked several of the top rimfire shooters and gunsmiths that use our barrels about their procedures and based on our own feel, have come upwardly with our recommendation for cleaning.

In a match-grade stainless steel hand-lapped barrel, leading is an almost nonexistent problem. Powder fouling is minimal too. It is possible nonetheless to take an accumulation of fouling in the leade area in front of the chamber. A build up hither is detrimental to meridian accuracy.

Nosotros propose cleaning in the following manner. Afterward approximately 100 rounds push a dry loose patch through the barrel from the breach terminate. This pushes out loose fouling. And so take a tighter dry patch and work it back and along about x times in the leade surface area, pushing it out of the barrel at the muzzle cease when finished.

Every 200-300 rounds a loose (worn out) 22 caliber bronze castor, wet with solvent, should be worked back and along in the leade area with short strokes and withdrawn from the sleeping accommodation end. If there is any evidence of lead in the butt then brushing the full length of the barrel with solvent is suggested.

Match quality bullets take a wax coating on them that aids accuracy. It may take ten-50 shots to "lay" a good blanket of it downward in the barrel and using solvents will only remove this desirable wax coating.

Users of the ten/22-type semi-auto barrels may accept to remove the accumulated powder fouling buildup that forms on the breech terminate of the barrel. Extraction problems may result eventually unless solvent is used on this type of fouling.

The 22 WMR and 17 HMR cartridges are rimfires but they fire a jacketed bullet and therefore centerfire cleaning and burglary instructions use.

The solvent nosotros use and recommend for our barrels is Butch's Bore Shine.