I use 0000 steel wool now in all my cleaning.

 

I never stopped using bronze brushes. If you spend anytime shooting hard cast lead in 38, 44, 45 you know its the only way to get the lead out. I even use a Lewis lead remover which is a stiff bronze wire screen over a rubber plug that digs the lead out of the rifling and I have never seen any evidence that it wears the bore. I am more careful with 22's made before WW2 because I have heard some used a softer steel, but I cant prove that, have just always heard it so I use caution.

 

I also wrap chore boy around my brass brush to remove lead deposits.

 

Nobody told me to stop using those.

 

In my range days, we cleaned the rental handguns when either they quit working or had (literally) a tube of lead growing out of the muzzle!
I'd take my pocket knife, trim off the tube, and then use the range approved method of ridding things of lead. That method was a cleaning rod with a stainless brush chucked into a cordless Makita drill. The solvent was mineral spirits in a cleaning tank. I remember one Ruger Red hawk it was the first run of 357 Magnum Redhawks. It probably had 100,000 rounds through it. Was in service at least 5 years if not more. We decided we wanted to sell it and I was told to make it look nice again. The outside was all scuffed up but there were no gouges, so I just gave it a pass on the really fine stainless wire wheel we had. Got it to look pretty good after that. Barrel's bore anf rifling was in great shape still, no evidence that we abused it so badly while cleaning it.

I seriously doubt a bronze brush would do damage to anything. It's much much softer than any barrel steel, cylinder steel, etc.

 

I have always used bronze brushes. Never had a barrel issue because of it.

 

I have even used the coiled style, stainless brushes, when needed, with nary a problem.

 

Soon there will be a post with the "More rifles are ruined by cleaning than anything else. I clean my rifles after the accuracy goes south. So far I can go 10000 rounds using a patch worm every now and then and hold 1/2" groups at 100 yards all day" crowd.

 

"Barrel's bore anf rifling was in great shape still, no evidence that we abused it so badly while cleaning it ". Of course it was, nothing touching the rifling for years with all that lead cover. should have been pristine after cleaning.

 

When we cast bullets it was from pigs that came from the melted lead reclaimed from the range. I have always wondered how much of that was the same old lead just going around in circles from ammo to backstop to furnace to ammo again. The vast majority of shooters shot the range reloads because they were so inexpensive. But, there must have been a pretty good influx of out side sources of lead. I'm saying that because we continually added what we had to to harden up the lead with wheel weights. It was pretty soft stuff though.

 

This new generation of shooters and their dumb ideas of cleaning guns without a brush….sheesh. Back in my day, I walked 3 miles to school uphill both ways while scrubbing the barrel of my 1911 with sandpaper.

 

All kidding aside, I cant see how bronze being a softer metal would damage a harder steel barrel. Aside from the possibility that some vintage barrels and air rifle barrels may not be the hardest steel around…

 

I mean... I inherited my dad's 10/22.

The same one, almost 40 years ago, I used to jam a segmented cleaning rod and bronze brush down the muzzle and saw back and forth without a care in the world.

Not saying that is the proper way to do things, but considering the amount of abuse that crown took from yours truly back in the day, it doesn't look TOO bad.

I will still treat the crowns of my rifles like a newborn baby going fwd, particularly on stainless, but I think you have to be pretty ham fisted to jack one up.

 

Try a Tornado brush,they work

 

My first carrier was the Ticonderoga CVA-14. The old canvas racks.

 

Now remember, water carved the Grand Canyon.

 

So.... you're saying I should, or should NOT, clean my guns while water skiing?

 

i think he was suggesting keeping water away ,,,,have no idea how that relates to a bronze brush and only issue i can see is the dissimilar metals , or maybe copper and bronze are too similar ? but them if what your shooting are lead cast .............

 

. Oh my. It's simply called erosion. Water on rock, bronze on steel. At some point it will happen. Grand Canyon only 250 million years, steel barrel who knows? I'll keep using my bronze brushes and not worry about it. I'm too old to worry about stuff like that. And IF I ever wear a barrel out over it I'll go buy another one. 🤣

 

I think as far as erosion goes, I think the brass brush will erode before the steel barrel.

 

Your barrels...use what you want, but using proper chemicals I have no problem only using nylon brushes.

 

It's not the brushes that screw things up, it's them dang square patches!

 

Square patches WILL screw up your barrel, no doubt. Get those scissors going.

 

I have even used the coiled style, stainless brushes, when needed, with nary a problem.

I have used the tornado brushes in the past on shotguns and 9mm. The bronze ones work great. The stainless ones scratched my 9mm barrel. Several passes with JB bore paste got them out, but I'll never use the stainless tornado brushes again..

Soon there will be a post with the "More rifles are ruined by cleaning than anything else. I clean my rifles after the accuracy goes south. So far I can go 10000 rounds using a patch worm every now and then and hold 1/2" groups at 100 yards all day" crowd.

I have to a patchworm with very good luck.

 

I have used the tornado brushes in the past on shotguns and 9mm. The bronze ones work great. The stainless ones scratched my 9mm barrel. Several passes with JB bore paste got them out, but I'll never use the stainless tornado brushes again..



I have to a patchworm with very good luck.

Everyone's experiences are different. The brush steel is not nearly as hard as the barrel steel, (at least not in any that I know of) and is coiled as well, so it puzzles me how a brush could damage a barrel. However, it is your experience, and I wasn't there, so you know better than me what happened in your case.
I have used stainless tornado type brushes for years on S&W, Ruger, Colt and SIG handguns with no evidence of damage. I also use them on my shotguns. I don't see how the companies that sell/manufacture the brushes could stay in business if customers could prove it was the brush that damaged the barrel.

 

These cleaning threads offer an interesting insight to the inter workings of an individual’s mind and phobias .

 

Guilty

 

I think as far as erosion goes, I think the brass brush will erode before the steel barrel.

That's the kind of closed minded thinking that was going on in the online forums during the formation of the Grand Canyon:

Should Thag worry about stream running through campsite? Gronk say may cause problem.

Gronk full of crap, water softer than stone. Stone win. Thag no worry.

And now here we are with the Grand Canyon. Maybe I should go back to nylon.

 

That's the kind of closed minded thinking that was going on in the online forums during the formation of the Grand Canyon:





And now here we are with the Grand Canyon. Maybe I should go back to nylon.

Oh, come on now Nedsled. Look at what all those glaciers did. and that was just ice. Now I'm thinking about using feathers. This whole discussion is a no win topic. But it's fun.

 

Is it too late to make popcorn?

 

No, we are only on the second page of a thread that promises to reach 100 or so

 

Idaknow... so far it's like 99% agreement.

 

I think some people might possibly be conflating RIMFIRE barrel cleaning with centerfire cleaning; and then also conflating what is required after shooting plated or coated, vs lead bullets.

If you are leading your GLOCK pistol barrel....it's pretty obvious that nylon isn't going to get the job done.

I don't think I ever heard anyone suggest cleaning ANY centerfire pistol barrel with nylon...but maybe I wasn't listening, because I usually ignore silly people.

 

Unless you changed barrels, you are not supposed to shoot lead bullets in a Glock.

 

There are two kinds of barrel damage; those who own borescopes, and those who don't.

 

Yeah, I ain't ever getting a borescope.

 

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