I have read that chrome lining is extremely tough and that is why bores and chambers are chrome lined. It is supposed to significantly increase barrel life.
On the other hand, you hear warnings to not be overly aggressive with cleaning rods as you can damage the chrome lining on a chamber and/or bore.
I just wonder, when common sense kicks in, how can a steel cleaning rod cause damage to the chrome lining when steel cased ammo continually rubs the chamber, and metal clad bullets are going down the barrel at great velocity.
Also, if chrome lining on a chamber is damaged (scratched), what would be the effect?
Also, if chrome lining on bore is damaged (scratched), what would be the effect?
Comments on these these questions I have would be greatly appreciated.
Edit: before you respond to this thread, please read post #8 below for clarification of the theme.
You are worrying too much about nothing. Pulling a bore snake through it after every shooting session is all the cleaning a chrome lined barrel needs and more than most of us do.
ABNAK you are 100% right. To those who see no need to clean a barrel, as was said…its your dime, not mine.
Those steel, issue cleaning rods are, in my mind…an emergency/field remedy. They flex, and over time from extended use can & do cause wear on a barrel. Good one piece rods that are coated are the answer, along with bore snakes too. Ive seen people run rods thru a bore back & forth like they were sawing wood. Slow & steady, using a patch to check when bore is clean. Use quality gear and all will be well.
I appreciate the resposnes so far. However, I guess my questions in the original post were a little vague. I was giving the chamber and bore cleaning as more of an example of all the stuff you read on the internet about damaging your bore or chamber while cleaning with a steel rod (although I could not find anything where one’s chrome lining on the bore or chamber was damaged). I do use a one piece steel rod and sometimes a bore snake.
My main concerns were with regard to how tough chrome lining really is if you can actually damage it with a steel cleaning rod (or a coat hanger on one thread I read), and if it is the chamber chrome or bore chrome is damaged what what would result. Again, I’m not even sure you can damage the chrome lining on the chamber or bore. Many of the internet comments were that damage could occur; however, I could not find any threads showing that the chrome lining was damaged while cleaning.
My common sense (for whatever that is worth) tells me that you would have to very aggressively try to damage the chrome lining of the chamber or bore in order to suceed.
I hope that helps clarify the purpose of this thread.
There isn’t a reason unless you are a paper puncher and a paper puncher isn’t using a chrome lined barrel. The guy that builds with a chrome barrel (Like me) is shooting cheap ammo and content with 1 1/2" groups. All of the cleaning in the world isn’t going to make it shoot 1/2 MOA! Carbon rods, bore guides and magic solvents aren’t going to do anything for me other than waste $$$ I could have bought ammunition with. It has nothing to do with being lazy.
So punching your barrel with some solvent every couple hundred rounds is over cleaning?
Never cleaning your barrel is tantamount to abusive treatment. Allowing abrasive carbon residue and debris to stay in your bore WILL decrease barrel life.
Testing a barrel at 50 yards does not mean it will perform the same way at 100 and beyond, the article even mentions this. Ask anyone who shots a lot of long range. A shot out barrel may perform just fine close up then falls apart at longer distances.
If you just want a 50 yard smoothbore musket then do what you will, its your dime. I expect my barrels to perform from point blank out to 500m consistently thus Ill will continue to do proper maintenance on my barrels.
An already burnished chrome lined barrel is better served with a chamber brush to remove some fouling related to function. Most users wouldn’t noticeably see the difference, unless the precision requirement exceeded it’s threshold. For most CL users, I would say a few cranks with a tight chamber brush and a quick push of barrel fouling with a good CLP would be all that is needed for most of us. A precision barrel is another animal altogether. What do you attempt to gain for most by over cleaning?
I didn’t think you would have a believable answer. I guess if you thoroughly clean a barrel after every round it will last forever. I am pretty good at math. If it takes $6,000 to wear out a neglected $200 barrel I am good to go with it. I am done. Find someone else to convince your opinion is founded.
At least for the M1 Garand rifle this is a myth that persists, but has been tested and found to be a false rumor.
The hypothesis that “steel cleaning rods cause barrel wear” was tested by the Garand Collectors Association building a test machine that rubbed a steel cleaning rod down the muzzle end of a M1 Garand barrel. Purposely allowing it to rub up against the sides. The results are that there is no noticeable wear on the muzzle even after thousands and thousands of cleaning cycles.
Firing ammo though the barrel does cause the muzzle to erode (show an increase in muzzle wear measurement). Not the cleaning rod.
(On a Garand they use “muzzle wear” and “throat erosion” gauges to measure barrel life. USGI Garand barrels are not chrome lined).
Ref:
GCA Journal, Volume 21,Issue 3 Summer 2007
GCA journal again in Fall 2010
