How often to clean the barrel?

[Littlelebowski]

This is my brother whose advice I am following. 8541 and 8542, 2 combat tours in Iraq as a Marine Scout Sniper and one of the very first Marine Scout Snipers to use the SR25 in battle (Fallujah, video of him using at at above link).

Also Caylen Wojcik, news about him below:

INTRODUCING MAGPUL DYNAMICS PRECISION RIFLE INSTRUCTION
Magpul Dynamics is pleased to announce the addition of precision rifle courses through the instruction of former U.S. Marine Corps Scout/Sniper instructor, Caylen Wojcik.

In addition to his role as an instructor at the Scout/Sniper Basic Course at Camp Pendleton, California, Caylen has real world operational experience in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. During his 2004 deployment, Caylen's platoon executed hundreds of scout/sniper missions, and participated in Operation Phantom Fury; a full-scale assault on the insurgent-held city of Fallujah. Caylan sustained severe injuries as a result of enemy rocket fire during the assault on Fallujah, prematurely ending his career as a United States Marine.

With his combat experience and knowledge as both a military and civilian instructor, Caylen is a welcome addition to the Magpul Dynamics team. Whether you're an expert or a novice, our instructors are uniquely qualified to increase students' efficiency in mindset, fundamentals, and stress conditioning in our core areas of instruction. With courses ranging from basic weapon manipulation, to advanced dynamic assault, and airborne operations, Magpul Dynamics pushes every student to find their failure point, and develop the skills needed to excel.

[ALCOAR]

........

[VaniB]

Again this comes back to the fact that most people are not interested in evaluating true precision/accuracy in an AR platform and thereby cannot even discern differences of 1/4"-1/2" in their groups or targets to know when their accuracy is tailing off.

A MK12's practical accuracy down range as measured in torso or man sized target hit's and misses is not really being affected at all by running a barrel w. 1-2k rds. already through the tube.... now if you take that same MK12 to the range and start trying to either shoot tiny groups @ 100yds or ring smaller pieces of steel out at 600yds your gonna see the accuracy tail off faster than you would in the first example.

THIS MAN HAS IT RIGHT .......This is the precision forum, is it not? I can understand why a few posts later he got disgusted and sarcastically stated that evidently he must know nothin!

If you want to shoot your rifle through the tightest groups possible. (ie; "precision") then do what the competition shooters do at competition; Clean your rifle! Bolt action competition shooters will clean their barrels as frequently as every 20 or so shots. When I'm seeking precision 1/2" groups, I clean my A15 every 30-40 rounds. I have seen accuracy drop off in less then 60 rounds and don't wait that long. It doesn't take a genious to uderstand that making a bullet pass through the carbon and crap build-up in a tiny .224 bore that was left by the previous 56 rounds is going to affect its ccuracy.

Competition or no competition, I don't know why anybody would let their rifle go for hundreds of rounds without a cleaning unless they're lazy.....or they are our brave infantry men in the midst of battle. If a guy keeps his home, yard, and car clean, I'll bet you a dollar to a donut hole that he's not going to treat his AR any different.....the same for the reverse.

Ok....time to pile on me!

EDIT: By coincidence, TRIDENT82 was posting at the same time I was posting this: What we both been saying; CLEAN FREQUENTLY...if it's precision you seek.

[Littlelebowski]

Trident82, I thought you were going to think about what was posted? Instead you're cherry picking stuff from a benchrest site to support your position.

Clean when accuracy drops off.

[carbinero]

Yeah, that is a lot of cherry picking, and the same can be done on both sid. Lots of dancing around the topic due to not having all the constants on the table. As I think I said above, BR aren't trying to get all the copper out, since then they'd have to re-break-in the barrel (one shot, clean. One shot, clean)! All those tiny pores get filled in with something. By suggesting to clean without saying how and to what extent is likely counter-productive.

[Packman73]

I know this is the 'precision' rifle forum but this argument (for and against cleaning often) can also be applied to any rifle, no?

[Littlelebowski]

VaniB, do you know anything about Rifles Only? They host bolt action competitions quite a bit.

[Thomas M-4]

Please Trident read more into 6mmbr.com
Your quoting barrel manufactures if you read reports from the competitors you will find that a-lot of them don't clean as often as you would think.
F-class shooter

During the first few years I owned the MCRT, I was crazy about cleaning. My log shows that I cleaned the barrel 80 times in the first 998 rounds. That works out to cleaning every dozen rounds! No wonder it took me so long to find the right load! Boy, have I changed my habits. I still clean the barrel, but I run a much higher round count between cleanings than before. Now, I shoot 100-200 rounds before I give the barrel a thorough cleaning.

http://www.6mmbr.com/gunweek031.html

On some calibers that they shoot 6.5-284 that has only 1000 round barrel life maybe going crazy with the cleaning is beneficial.
If you read through the competitors interviews you will see that there are few who say clean when accuracy drops off.

[Littlelebowski]

6mmbr is such an extreme case - threads on proper bag technique and proper barrel brushing technique. However, you see more and more of those guys cleaning less and when they do clean, using chemicals only, not brushes.

[Belmont31R]

I would just as soon stop shooting than clean every 20 rounds.