Every once in awhile, somebody asks how I clean the barrels on my various airguns. Nothing particularly magic about it.
I've been using a J. Dewey, one piece nylon coated rod, with a Pro-Shot spear tip brass jag on it for many, many decades. The J. Dewey rods are superb quality. Ball bearings in the handle let the rod easily rotate as it pushes a brush or patch through the bore, and the nylon coating is first rate.
I was a Dealer of theirs for many, many years, and sold thousands of their cleaning rods. I never had a single rod returned for any reason whatsoever. Really good stuff.
For cleaning PCP barrels with shrouds, I prefer the Pro-Shot spear tip jag, to the one that Dewey supplies with their rods. When I am going through several baffles before coming to the barrel muzzle, the spear tip jag holds the patch better than the original jag, which has a tapered tip without the straight portion, that the Pro-Shot spear tip jag has. There is a short female to female adapter that is required to allow the use of the spear tip jag on a Dewey rod. The adapter is also made by Pro-Shot.
Pro-Shot spear tip jag, with adapter for use with the Dewey rod.
I clean from the muzzle, because when cleaning with a rod, that is typically the only option on most PCP's. Once I start the patch into the end of the shroud, I do not change direction. Not even a little bit. That will knock the patch off in the baffles. Once I start, I just keep the forward motion going, and I haven't found hitting the bore to be difficult at all. I haven't knocked a patch off in the baffles in years.
I use Beeman MP5 as a cleaning solution, and put a couple of drops on a proper size Pro-Shot cotton patch. I run the patch down the barrel in a short back and forth scrubbing action, until it exits at the chamber end of the barrel.
I will typically use four or five patches with MP5 on them, and then switch to clean dry patches, until one comes out clean enough that I'm satisfied.
Some barrels clean up really fast, and others take more scrubbing with MP5. I just eyeball the patches, and decide by their appearance when the bore is clean.
Pro-Shot spear tip brass jag with patch.
I always laugh when I see the internet gurus telling folks that they will ruin their airgun's barrel if they use a cleaning rod on it. Like these barrels are made from the same stuff that drinking straws are made of. I've checked all of mine with a magnet, and they are all made of some type of steel. Much harder than the pellets I shoot in them, much harder than the brass jag I clean them with, and no, the barrel won't bend if you lean the gun against it in the corner.
Use a quality one piece coated rod, with a brass jag, using quality patches, and the idea that you are somehow going to damage the barrel is total nonsense. Myself, and several friends have been cleaning our airguns this way for decades. Never an issue of any kind, and some of our guns are close to 40 years old, and shoot as good today as when they were new.
To hear the gurus tell it, these barrels are very delicate, and you have to pull the cleaning patch through from the chamber to muzzle, and you must use patches made from a 15 year old virgins belly button lint soaked in extra, extra virgin cleaning solution.
They seem to imply that just leaving your gun in the same room with a cleaning rod could do serious harm to your barrel. Where do these guys come up with this stuff?
Anyway, I've been using this method successfully for many decades, on a lot of expensive and very accurate airguns, and don't see any reason to change, and not only that, but 15 year old virgins are getting harder, and harder to find.
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