Quote: I also will throw that brush away after 80-100 strokes.
I clean my brushes under hot running water and then use them again after each time running them up and down the inside of the barrel. I also wipe off the cleaning rods with a paper towel to remove any crude that the brushes got out of the inside of the barrel.
Steel is so much harder than the brass or bronze bristles on the cleaning brushes that I don't believe that the brushes will do much hard to the grooves or lands or the barrel. My barrel is made of 4150 steel and it's treated with a nitrate salt bath to protect it from rusting.
As for cleaning my barrel I'm using Mpro7 and or Hoppe's Elite Cleaner. A few times I used some Shooter's Choice. I have NOT used any copper cleaners on the barrel yet. I've not shot that many rounds though my barrel as the ammo is expensive and I don't like to waste ammo by firing the rifle hundreds of times at the range. I shoot a few rounds and then talk a while and then shoot a couple more rounds. The more rounds I shoot the more brass I have to bend over and pick up. I get my exercise by packing the truck up with all my gear and then unpacking it when I get back home along with walking to setup my targets. The other part of my shooting experience is socializing at the range with other shooters.
But I do clean my AR15 right after I use it every time. I get a lot of carbon out of the barrel each time. I understand that copper and carbon can build up inside the barrel in layers.
I don't have a bore scope or access to one. If I did, I would use it often to check out the inside of my barrel. The last time I went to the range I was only able to shoot three shots before I had to pack things up and come back home. But I found out that my EOTECH HHS1 system and my Ambush Firearms AR15 was still zeroed properly at 200 yards which made me very happy. I didn't not clean the barrel or chamber after that trip and am going to clean it today if I don't forget.
I had some other things to attend to this week before I could clean the guns.
I'd like to try the Wipe Out stuff one time but I can't find any of it locally at the gun stores or the walmart. I guess I'll have to order that online if I'm ever going to get some to try. I heard good things about how well it cleans the inside of the barrel.
I've been using the Parker-Hale type jags from Dewey and love how they clean the barrel and get much more of the patch in contact with the inside of my barrels. I brush about 20 times with some MPro7 on the brush and catch the excess in a baby jar filled with clean patches. This keep the patches in the baby jar ready to use later. I keep the baby jar lid on tight to prevent the MPro7 from evaporating. That way I have a clean wet patch of MPro7 ready to go after I brush out the barrel. I'll run a brush up and down the barrel about 20 times and then clean the rod and brush and put on a jag and then a wet patch of MPro7 and clean the barrel with the wet patch and then follow it up with a few dry patches and repeat this over and over again a few times until the dry patches come out clean. Then I call it good. I'm probably leaving some copper and lead inside the lands and grooves but the accuracy is still good on the AR15. If the accuracy goes south or I get a bore scope and see copper and lead and carbon in the lands and grooves in excess I'll try the Wipe out stuff and see how that works. The MPro7 seems to work OK but I'll never know for sure if it's really getting the barrel clean as possible unless I use a bore scope on the barrel someday.
