Barrel cleaning on the pellet gun

[earlmck]

FatJackDurham was asking about gun cleaning on another thread, which got me to thinking about pellet-gun cleaning and rather than hijack his thread I thought I'd open a separate one.

So how often do you clean your pellet gun? I am one of those innocents who thought you never had to clean the barrel of the pellet gun. I have a Feinwerkbau target model I bought in early 70's and I've never cleaned the barrel. Far as I know it shoots the same as always.

The past couple of months I've been shooting a little Crossman AR look-alike I bought for the grandkids and then got real impressed with how well it shot (I posted something about this last month). And I had been noticing a seeming increase in the number of flyers I didn't call, or else a deterioration in my shooting ability (highly unlikely though that may be ) Then about 3 days ago I had maybe a third of my shots be these flyers -- looked like I'd been shooting with the smooth-bore BB gun. This little shooter probably had about 1000 shots through it at the time.

So I picked up a 17 cal. cleaning rod at the local Bi-Mart store and proceeded to clean this thing. First adventure happened when I poked a patch through with the jag tip -- there is something down there at the chamber end that captures patches with jags and absolutely locks them up. Thought I was going to have to abandon the rifle! Finally just pounded it through/ pulled back/pounded through about 3 times and it relented and let me withdraw the patch. So from now on I'll just use the brush and the mop tips.

Straightened this little Crossman right out and I'm back to shooting as good as ever as of yesterday and today.

Now thinking it wouldn't hurt to run something through the barrel on the old Feinwerkbau. But I'd hate to get plumb carried away with this cleaning thing!

What have you other pellet-gun shooters experienced with barrel cleaning?

[FLINT]

I don't clean the barrels on my airguns very frequently at all. One reason is my benjamins/sheridans have bronze barrels and i'm very careful not to damage the rifling. I'll occasionally shoot some cleaning pellets through - though you should NOT do that with your springer. I do oil pivot points on my pumpers frequently.

the thing that your cleaning patch got caught on was probably the air hole (don't know technical name) in the breech area? the hole should be in the bottom of the breech area about where your bolt probe sites when its closed. i can see that a loose patch could get half stuck in that hole. when you pull the trigger you release a sear that allows the compressed air to come up through that hole and push the pellet out the barrel. i'm betting you could have just pumped it once and closed to bolt and shot the patch out.

[EdinCT]

I bought some cleaning pellets(made by Beeman I think) and load two into the breach of my Gamo and shoot them out every 500 or so seems to keep it shooting straight.

[Mescalero]

Never heard of cleaning pellets, learn something new every day.

[stew71]

I've never cleaned the barrel of any pellet gun Ive ever owned. No need to.

[stretch]

I don't usually use a cleaning rod on the airguns, but I do
use those cleaning pellets every 500 or 1,000 rounds. Load
two or three at a time. There are LOTS lighter than
lead pellets, so particularly on a springer you need to use
more than one at a time to avoid damage to the gun.

Some oil residue, and some lead residue is about all the bore collects.
The lead doesn't seem to get melted/stripped into the bore
like it does with a firearm.

It takes mine a few shots to settle down after a cleaning.

-Stretch

[rjohns94]

Yep, cleaning pellets every 2 cans of pellets. Very little lead accumulates. Keep e gun oiled to factory specs.

[Forrest Halley]

Hi,
I used to shoot air rifle competitively in college. We had the cleaning pellets but I can't ever remember using them. I'd go with them over a rod. If bore snake makes a .17 model I'd use that. Perhaps you'd be well served to get a pellet sizer if you are seeking the best accuracy out of your setup. We shot RWS match pellets. Loved my feinwerkbau, it was a better rifle than I was a shooter.

[jnyork]

Never heard of cleaning pellets, learn something new every day.

.22 Air gun cleaning pellets: http://www.amazon.com/RWS-Quick-Cleanin ... ng+pellets

Absolutely NEVER use regular gun cleaning solvents or oil in the bore of your airgun, residue will cause dieseling and can seriously damage/destroy your gun in one shot!!

[AJMD429]

I liked the video on YouTube of the guy 'dieseling' his pellet rifle to get more velocity. Maybe that cleans it at the same time...

[blackhawk44]

The cleaning pellets are felt wads cut to size.

[El Chivo]

I haven't cleaned mine yet as I've had relatively few rounds through it. Last shot dropped a starling at 35 yards. Got to get out more!

[Nath]

I will do mine occasionaly.

The 1377 dropped accuracy but returned to good after carefull application of No9.

Pumpers leave water vapour in a cold barrel and dirty oil, I use olive oil for my seals, not hinges. I always reasoned why alot of pumpers used brass barrels was to do with water vapour issues!

Usually just lead comes out of the springers barrels.

Nath.

[earlmck]

That looks like a good tip about the cleaning pellets -- I see old Pyramid Air sells them at $6/100. A can of those should last the life of my little pump-up Crossman if I would run a couple through every 500 or 1000 shots. My Feinwerkbaus must have smooth enough bores that they don't get a build-up of -- whatever built up to bother my Crossman.

I looked for a "pellet sizer" like Forrest Halley suggested. The Pyramid Air site has a blog where they say "those were popular back in the 70's but not any more" and they don't sell them. Looking at my bargain-basement pellets it seems to me what would improve them would be a "skirt uniformer" and Paco would probably have built one of those if he got into pellet guns. But I'm not a good enough shot to detect perfection in a pellet anyway: all I use my pelleters for is to keep the eye/trigger-finger tuned up when the weather isn't conducive to getting out to the gravel pit regularly with the bigger guns.

My one complaint about those danged Feinwerkbaus is their trigger. The nastiest I am able to adjust it makes it about a 6 oz very crisp pull, which is so much better than anything else I have I don't know how much practice with them helps with shooting my bigger guns. The Crossman answers that complaint wonderfully! It has about a 5# trigger you pull about a mile and a half before it goes off, at which point it still has another mile of pull left that will throw your shot off if you don't keep really good follow-through.

[Mescalero]

I have one of those Gamo 1000 FPS ones.
I don't think I will ever get real good with it, the trigger is just as you desribe on the second one.

[Nath]

If that Crosman has the same generic trigger the pumpers seem to have it will vastly improve from subtle stoning and a lighter spring. Don't change the hammer spring but polish the circumfrence the sear engages. Disreguard the above if completly different from their pistol guts on the basis I don't know!!

N.

[Rusty]

Being somewhat a cheapskate by nature I didn't want to spend the money on a cleaning rod for the .177 Chinese springer I have and didn't want to run a metal rod down the brass bore of my Benjamin so I made a cleaner out of a long piece of weed eater string. After you cut it to the needed length use a flame to burn a little blob on the end. A very small patch threaded onto the string will stop on the blob of melted string and clean thing out quite nicely.

[Mescalero]

Nice
The Appalachin Institute of Technology?

[earlmck]

Man, the things you learn when you ask a question on this forum -- ain't it great? Thanks, guys.

And Nath, I wasn't complaining about the lousy trigger, though if I were using it to hunt like you do I would be thinking different. What I use my pellet rifle for is to keep in practice for levergun shooting later on. So I figure if I can deal with the semi-crappy trigger on the Crossman I will be able to deal with any trigger I come across. And it is working: I took one of my pump rifles to the range the other day and was thinking "wow, that's a pretty nice trigger". And it is not really a nice trigger, but it is quite a lot better than the Crossman trigger. Yep, objective being attained!

[Nath]

N.