This my be a stupid question but

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padavid12	This my be a stupid question but	Lead	[-]
Posts: 38 (10/24/09 02:17 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Tags : None This may be a stupid question but I don't know the answer. How does one use a 12 inch cleaning rod to clean a 23 inch barrel? I have thought about this for a long time and these military cleaning rods just don't make since. David
WVchuck		#1	[-]
Posts: 12559 (10/24/09 02:28 PM) Forum Site Moderator Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Are we talking Mausers? If so, supposedly, they were supposed to share the rods in a communal cleaning, connecting one end of a rod to another ( Three of them).
padavid12		#2	[-]
Posts: 39 (10/24/09 05:02 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I was talking about Mausers but I notice that MN's and SKS's are in the same fit. Thanks for the info. David
WVchuck		#3	[-]
Posts: 12563 (10/24/09 06:04 PM) Forum Site Moderator Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I think with the Mosins and SKS's you clean from both ends using the supplied rod. Thank goodness for pull-through cleaning kits!
RLMbassist		#4	[-]
Posts: 208 (10/26/09 08:03 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Was thinking about this and went down and pulled the rod from my 98/22. To short to clean all of the barrel, even working from both ends. The rod is threaded on one end and has a patch loop on the other, so you can't hook 2 together. Wonder how these rods were used?
high speed cruise		#5	[-]
Posts: 3200 (10/26/09 09:19 AM) Veteran member Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	If it's threaded on one end then something could be screwed onto that end: a rod from another rifle or even an extension rod carried in a pack. Just don't use your rods for anything other than looks.......that's where all that muzzle damage comes from, wear from cleaning rods. I (finally) bought a Tipton one piece carbon fiber rod, I also have pull throughs from Bore Snake in each caliber I shoot. hsc
JTB1967		#6	[-]
Posts: 783 (10/26/09 10:33 AM) Veteran member Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Actually some of the true accuracy nuts will tell you never use a bore snake. It won't make much difference in our 60+ year old rifles, but it can can cause uneven wear at the crown in a precession barrel. Most benchrest shooters feel a highly polished (and expense) stainless steel rod is best. Coated rods such as the Dewey run a distant second with everything else not even considered. They all insist that you should never use any rod without a correct bore guide. I don't worry too much about my surplus rifles, but I wouldn't touch one of my Anschutz rifes without a correct fitting bore guide and a quality rod. Last Edited By: JTB1967 10/26/09 09:16 PM. Edited 1 times.
RLMbassist		#7	[-]
Posts: 209 (10/26/09 01:00 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I would agree with not using bore snakes. I use a Pro-Shot polished stainless one piece on everything. The mil cleaning rods are a curiosity for me. Most systems I've seen are pretty crude, I can see how muzzles end up without rifling.
Mountain Doctor		#8	[-]
Posts: 3880 (10/26/09 01:10 PM) Forum Site Moderator Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	This might be why you are supposed to pull the bore snake from the muzzle through the breach. To be honest I doubt you could hurt the gun with this method in a lifetime of Sundays. I use a carbon fiber cleaning rod. In my .22's and 5.56's I do use a bore snake, including a Galil and a high dollar bull barrel SS sniper AR.
Jeremy2171		#9	[-]
Posts: 2198 (10/26/09 01:47 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Mountain Doctor wrote: This might be why you are supposed to pull the bore snake from the muzzle through the breach. To be honest I doubt you could hurt the gun with this method in a lifetime of Sundays. I use a carbon fiber cleaning rod. In my .22's and 5.56's I do use a bore snake, including a Galil and a high dollar bull barrel SS sniper AR. Bore snakes are bad because retards in the military clean their M16/M4s with them and never replace them..so "pop" and the snake breaks part way down the bore and no way to fish it out.....new barrel time. I've yelled at more than a "few" guys using a worthless bore snake... JMHO
JTB1967		#10	[-]
Posts: 784 (10/26/09 01:54 PM) Veteran member Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	When the accuracy crowd talks about damage, they are talking changes in accuracy in the thousandths of an inch at 100 yards. Not what most folks would ever notice. I'm not that picky with most of my rifles, but I have gotten rid of varmint rifles because they were shooting 100 yard groups 1/4" larger than they did in their prime. Go over to one of the benchrest forums and talk about using a boresnake or carbon rods and they'll treat you like people here would someone talking about "cutting down that ol Mauser and adding a scope." Last Edited By: JTB1967 10/26/09 02:51 PM. Edited 1 times.
Mountain Doctor		#11	[-]
Posts: 3882 (10/26/09 02:46 PM) Forum Site Moderator Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I must be a Bubba in some circles! Thanks for the perspective, JTB. No way my skills, weapons, or reloads could make a group small enough 1/4 inch would be noticable. Maybe 4 inches.
WVchuck		#12	[-]
Posts: 12576 (10/26/09 07:40 PM) Forum Site Moderator Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I did lose 1/10000th of an inch of accuracy from my counter bored Balkan M91 when I exhaled too slowly when pulling the patch through on a jag. I think that the crosswind at the range also had an effect on my elbow as I was pulling the rod through the chamber end and caused the rod to come into contact with the freebore just before the rifling. I will set up an remotely actuated and fully automated rod pusher after the rifle is secured tightly down onto it's vise next time, to eliminate any human error when cleaning. I just hate having to plug in the different data settings on the computer program to cover the various barrel lengths and bore diameters on the machine. That is to be used with a cryogenicly treated rod and bore guide! Seriously, how do you know when a bore snake is past it's prime and should be replaced before it snaps off in the bore? Makes you wonder about the steel and aluminum chain pull throughs that have been issued out to all of those Mausers and G-3's. So, are the OTIS kits bad too? What about the South African plastic coated steel flex cables issued out for their FAL's and G-3's? And then there's the nylon string Australian L1A1 pull throughs. But wait!! There are the trult horrible MAS, CETME and Springfield type pull throughs that are just a little thicker than dental floss in diameter. Those truly are a bore stopper waiting to happen. IMO, get a generic cleaning rod that is longer than any barrel that you have, that way you can clean from the chamber end and not worry about it. If you use a stock milsurp cleaning rod (or rods) and go in from the muzzle end, USE THE MUZZLE COVER that came with the cleaning kit. Mosins were issued with them, SKS's too, it's the end cap of the tool kit, it snaps right over the sight and holds the rod guide in place. Also those flip-top Mauser muzzle covers, Finn M-39 muzzle covers also have a hole in them the diameter of the cleaning rod and also the Yugo Mausers have them too. That will keep the rod from dinging the muzzle and prevent you from scraping the rifling away with the steel rod. RLM, If you look on top of the patch end, it should be threaded to take another rod. Sometimes they are clogged with years of crud & cosmo and don't look like there's an opening, but trust me, there should be one there. Even the early Yugo SKS cleaning rods are threaded at the patch end to mate up with another rod to get the lenght of the bore. SAMCO used to sell Swede cleaning rod extensions and also a "barracks" grade heavy duty brass rod with a muzzle protector. The threaded end takes standard European Mauser brushes and jags as well as having a slot cut into it for a patch. It is top-shelf quality!
mauserand9mm		#13	[-]
Posts: 1314 (10/27/09 06:40 AM) Veteran member Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	The two biggest accuracy killing aspects of bore snakes is: if pulled through from the muzzle end it can be pulled against the sides of the bore at the muzzle exit; and being a soft material, carbon can embed itself into the material and it turns into sandpaper. I've seen milsurps with worn muzzles (rounded at the exit) and it is a significant accuracy killer - 4 out of 20 shots would hit a plate sized target at 50 yards! I don't kow how long it would take to do this but I've seen enough evidence to know it can happen. Metal rods are supposed to be less susceptable to having the carbon embedded in them. I used pull thrus on my M14 (pulling to the muzzle end) that I had once and tried to keep it centred but at least the flash suppressor would give some protection against pulling to the side.
Ed Novak		#14	[-]
Posts: 2161 (10/27/09 03:03 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	"Rifleman" Nov 2009, pg 66, John Barsness; "A Clean Barrel". Also, cannot cite the original source but it was said that more .22 rifle barrels were ruined by cleaning than by shooting." Corrosively primed ammo excepted. NRA Endowment member LECS #2
stantheman1986	Cleaning	#15	[-]
Posts: 5516 (10/27/09 06:41 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I use a Tipton carbon rod in all my rifles, and when I think of it I will order a pistol length one for my auto's and revolvers. 99.9% of my mil surp rifles have been issued so I'm sure already came to me with some kind of muzzle wear that can't be seen with the naked eye, so I don't break out the white gloves and an adamantium rod and laser guided bore centering device to micro-clean the bore of my Yugo M48's. I also must agree that uber-OCD shooters do more damage to bores than any shooting, by scrubbing bores with bronze brushes until they reach muscle failure trying to get every atomic spec of copper or lead from the rifling. My milsurp rifles are not Olympic match rifles and never were capable of .001" groups at 300 yards so I am satisfied with killing the corrosive salts and getting the bulk of the carbon out of there with a few patches, and then a coat of Eezox and it's good. I have rifles I have shot and cleaned 3 or 4 years ago and still no trace of rust in the bore, which is always my #1 concern. A little carbon or copper in there isn't going to hurt anything, most of them have had some in there for 50+ years, 100+ in some cases. As long as they shoot as accurately as a soldier back in their issue era could have expected then I am more than satisfied. For my army issue M4 I have always used an Otis pull through kit, and baby wipes. Those cheap red pack dollar store ones are awesome for cleaning an M4 bolt and inside the receiver. My M4 dates from 2001 and the bore looks half shot out but I can still nail a pop up at 300 yards, well within the "service standard".
RLMbassist		#16	[-]
Posts: 210 (10/28/09 07:58 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	WVchuck: I went and rechecked my 98/22, Swede, SKS & M/N cleaning rods. None of them are female threaded on the patch end. The 98/22's rod does seem to be ground down on the loop end but there is definitely no threaded hole. Who knows. The though of using any sort of pull thru on a fine rifle makes me want to cringe. A lot of junk cleaning kits were issued to various rifles, but they seem to me to me designed more for easy portabilty in the field than doing a good job of cleaning, and not harming the rifle at the hands of a know nothing troop. Using a pull thru is kinda like washing a classic car with an old rag. Yeah you might not hurt the paint, but with better things available why do it?
WVchuck		#17	[-]
Posts: 12586 (10/28/09 07:15 PM) Forum Site Moderator Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	RLM, The Swedes had an "extension" to give that extra length needed to clear the bore from the muzzle or chamber end. Actually, they had a few different types. I got lucky and managed to find a few oilers that had that part included in with the brush in one of the tubes. The 98/22's I've got here are threaded on the ends, I've failed in making the assumption that they all had them. Only the early Yugo SKS's had the threaded section at the patch end. I've got two with and three without. The South African cleaning kit I picked up from DSA 3-4 years ago at Knob Creek is a really nice rig for cleaning. It has a brass threaded end for the brush and patch jag and the steel cable is coated. I'm sure it wouldn't last under repeated and constant use, but as a field kit, it would get the job done.
RLMbassist		#18	[-]
Posts: 215 (10/28/09 08:38 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Chuck, my Swede rod does look long enough to clean everything with a little patience. So the M59 Yugo's have the threaded end then? Mine is a 59/66 I guess that explains it. I guess I never got into the collecting side of issued cleaning kits. When I got a rifle that had a complete kit I just kind of looked at it and put them away in storage. The brass oilers are kind of nifty though, but I've never had the patience to clean one up really nice. My 98/22 has been through Turkey, maybe the Czechs saved all the good rods for themselves.
WVchuck		#19	[-]
Posts: 12589 (10/29/09 05:46 AM) Forum Site Moderator Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	The Yugo SKS's are a little different, I haven't been able to fully grasp the differences in all of the models aside from there was a 59 and then a 59/66, some have phosporous night sights and others have tritium, some have holes in the launcher ends, others don't. Some have threads in the patch end others don't. I can't get to the Yugo's easily this morning to check to see which ones are threaded, I think one of the 59/66's and the 59 I've got here are. With the little brass extension on the Swedes, The rod will run from the chamber end through the muzzle with room to spare. There's also a longer one that is more commonly available (Samco and a few other places advertise them). I've got a pile of cleaning kits from several countries and variations abound for even the same models/types of rifles from the same country. Just the differences in AK and SKS kits from the different countries that used them are interesting to me. Both 98/22's here have the threaded patch end. Both have been Turk'ed. Yet the Turk 38 rods only have the patch slot, no threads.