barrel crowning and cleaning

[crsteven]

What degree barrel crown would you use or have cut on a new rifle and why? With these huge combs do you get a crown cut so you can clean from the muzzle or do you just take the gun apart to clean from the breach or use a flexible coated cleaning cable?

[Jason]

1) I'd let the gunsmith choose the crown angle if I trusted him enough to build a highpower silhouette gun for me.

2) No cleaning from the muzzle! I remove the action screws, remove the barreled action from the stock, and clean using a bore guide made for that particular brand/model of action. These rifles are way too expensive to screw up with poor cleaning technique. I use a Tipton carbon fiber cleaning rod, as I much prefer them to Dewey or Proshot for durability, flexibility and lack of things getting embedded in them. The bearings are also very smooth.

[RBriscoe]

You should be able to get a cleaning rod into the action without a problem. What stock are you using? (The comb/cheek piece is not supposed to be higher than the centerline of the bore at the bore centerline. It can be a bit higher on the "off side" (1/2 inch IIRC).

[crsteven]

I wanted to put in a chamber guide and that will not fit with the action in the stock and I don't think the rod is long enough to reach all the way through without the rod handle hitting the cheek piece. I'll just take it apart from now on and use a chamber guide versus a flexible cable. Not sure this gun is legal or not. The matches I shoot aren't NRA sanctioned anyway, Lucky we get 10 people to come to a match.

I bought this gun used and only used it last year for the 4 matches I shot. I ran a q-tip around the crown and it leaves no fibers so I'm guessing the crown is probably fine. Was the most accurate rifle I ever loaded for with 36 some grains of IMR 4064 with 162 gr A-max, until the last match I shot and it couldn't even sight it in for zero. The Leupold scope is in being fixed right now. I think that was the problem - I hope.

[RBriscoe]

If the rod guide is plastic you can always cut it to length, but if your rod is not long enough be very careful about reversing directions before the brush clears the muzzle whether you take the action out of the stock or not. The short version is that reversing the brush in the bore does no good. People have various opinions about whether it causes harm, but, personally, I avoid it.

Good luck and enjoy!

It sounds like your group is similar to our own. Bring it and shoot. We usually tell people if a rifle is "outside the rules" not because they are not welcome to shoot with us, but so they will not show up someplace where they might not be so welcome and then wonder why we did not warn them.

[kemo sabe]

I use only nylon brushes and prefer to reverse direction of the brush when the end of it is even with the muzzle. Sinclair has a cleaning rod stop that I'm probably going to buy that should make this easier. At least one of our shooters puts the muzzle against a wall to keep from dragging the brush out the muzzle. Every bristle on the brush abrades the edge of the muzzle if it's run through it. I don't believe reversing direction of a nylon brush hurts anything, but that's just my opinion.

[RBriscoe]

A simple way to stop at what ever point you wish is to take some tape and wrap some of it around the rod at the end of the bore guide to mark the stopping point. A number of people do this when patching a barrel.

I agree that a nylon brush is unlikely to damage the barrel, but I have never been entirely convinced that it gets the fouling out of a centerfire barrel.