NZ HUNTER MAGAZINE How To
The process of properly cleaning your rifle, and especially bore, can be a bit overwhelming with often contradictory information thrown about. I asked Greg to run me through a complete demonstration while I took notes - and here's the results.
If you’re a bit daunted by the outlay of all of these tools and products, band together between your group of mates and chip in. For the volumes we use as recreational hunters these products will last a long time.
RIFLE BORE CLEANING TO BEGIN
There are two compounds present in bore fouling. Carbon and copper. The first to clean is always the carbon, and on quality barrels that’s likely all you’ll ever have to worry about.
Use a bore guide – the ones with a solvent application window such as the Pro Shot are the best. Always have a scope cover on to protect your scope lenses, solvents can flick up and land on them when the brush comes out of the muzzle.
Use a carbon fibre or plastic coated steel or stainless steel cleaning rod – the main thing is to avoid an aluminium rod, they pick up bits of grit and act like a lapping rod. Carbon fibre is nice and stiff and you can’t bend it – it’s either straight or broken. We prefer a Parker Hale style wrap around jag as opposed to the spear point jag type. With a Parker Hale you get more patch in contact with the bore, and as with all jags, they are calibre specific.
We use a 4×2 patch roll and cut our own to the specific size required. They usually come on a roll with lines at that dimension but you can cut them to suit. For a 7mm bore we
