I'd like to hear Bill Wilson's take on this.
I'd like to hear Bill Wilson's take on this.
Based on my experience and observations, I don’t think a dirty pistol barrel affects accuracy. There are barrel manufacturers who support this position. After almost 30 years of competition shooting, I agree.
Two examples. I have one Glock that is my competition/ training gun. It has a storm lake barrel with close to 300,000 rounds down the pipe. No matter the round count the accuracy remained consistent. The best it got was a wet patch followed by a dry patch on occasion.
I have a buddy who took the shooting world by surprise. He won the world shoot off with a basic limited gun vs race guns. He became a top rated shooter and won bianchi matches. He had a 1050 mounted in his RV. He wasn’t much for cleaning guns. He stopped by our 1911 smith, who is a close buddy. The smith disassembled the gun to clean and lube. He hands me the barrel. The gun was built on an STI frame. I don’t remember who’s barrel was in the gun. I looked down the barrel and it looked like a smooth bore. I thought it was shot out. The shooter said he had not had any less accuracy. The smith said the barrel was fine, it could use a cleaning. The lands and grooves were filled with lead.
I used a brush and solvent and then used an outers. I started at 3pm. At 1am I was still getting lead out with the outers. After cleaning I asked the shooter if the gun was more accurate after we cleaned the barrel. He said he didn’t notice much difference. Mind you, this was a guy I personally saw out shoot a random rest. In my shooting circle, we still talk about it and shake our heads.
Cheers, Steve
I just spray it with Deep Creep and rip a Boresnake through every thousand rounds or so. I was gonna say I'm not good enough to tell if it makes a difference...but maybe I'm so good I can't tell a difference.Originally Posted by ssc45
I don't know how to edit my post. I do need to make one correction. It was the smith who out shot the RR, not the shooter.
Cheers, Steve
One of the key differences between a semi-auto pistol and a precision rifle is that the barrel on the precision rifle doesn't move.
In a Browning-style semi auto the barrel moves as part of the cycling of the gun. That movement is dictated by a host of factors including the interaction of the muzzle of the barrel in the hole in the slide, the interaction of the area on top of the barrel where it meets the slide, and the interaction of the bottom lugs of the barrel with the locking block, and the spring pressure from the recoil spring. For a semi-auto pistol to be consistently accurate you need the barrel and slide to stay "locked" together until the bullet has left the barrel, only unlocking after the bullet is well clear. Then it needs to "lock" up again consistently.
You can get a barrel that "locks up" so well with the slide that the pistol will not function. So there is a balance to be reached in setting the system up. Manufacturers will almost always side with reliable function...and generously on that side. Meaning they will happily err on the side of a gun that patterns rather than one that doesn't work because the ratio of shooters who are skilled enough to actually notice an inaccurate pistol is likely far smaller than 1:100.
The most likely reason you are seeing improved accuracy with the aftermarket barrel is that it stays "locked" in the slide longer and "locks" up more consistently with the slide from shot to shot. Adding a bit of material in the right places can produce a significantly higher level of accuracy. Without hand-fitting it's still kind of a crap shoot because the aftermarket barrel manufacturer doesn't know the variations in clearances and tolerances that the factory accepts for the pistol in question, so they are basically reverse engineering a spec based off of what they can deduce from working with manufactured specimens.
The muzzle crown of a barrel can also significantly impact accuracy (which is why higher end barrels tend to have recessed crowns, to protect that) and if there's a defect you may or may not be able to see it with the naked eye. But if you didn't drop the gun or it hasn't experienced any significant impact to the muzzle then lockup is the most likely reason why there is an accuracy difference.
Punching the bore on a pistol is rarely necessary. Pistol projectiles move much slower than rifle projectiles which means that you generally don't have the same copper fouling potential that you see with rifles. If you are shooting an accurate 5.56 rifle with a good barrel and accurate ammunition, you will hit some point where your accuracy starts to suffer and you need to give it a thorough cleaning IF you are trying to maintain something like true sub-MOA accuracy. Then after cleaning you have to foul the gun back in with the ammunition you are using for a series of shots to get it back to the level of accuracy it is capable of.
If you are shooting a precision rifle with a really fast-moving projectile then you will have only a certain round count where that barrel is able to maintain the level of accuracy that makes it a precision rifle. (.5 MOA, etc) That doesn't tend to happen with pistols.
In fact, during his 1911 test Todd shot enough "non-toxic" ammunition through his test gun that it destroyed a section of the barrel's rifling...without any noticeable decrease in the pistol's accuracy.
My one exception to the "you don't need to clean your pistol barrel" rule is if you are using "non-toxic" ammo, in which case you should clean the barrel frequently to get the remnants of those primers out of there as they tend to really accelerate actual barrel wear that isn't really a concern with more conventional ammunition.
Last edited by TCinVA; 02-23-2023 at 11:20 PM.
3/15/2016
Soft lead projectiles can definitely "lead" a barrel impacting accuracy. Hard cast lead with higher levels of antimony and jacketed bullets cut down on this tremendously.
The same is true of shotguns. Most of what we shoot in shotguns is soft lead being shoved down the bore with plastic. Both leave deposits in the barrel that will, when sufficiently built up, eventually impact how the gun patterns. Those deposits in shotgun barrels can also give corrosive action a place to hide so it's good to clean shotgun barrels more frequently to prevent pitting from forming in the barrel.
For your typical semi-auto pistol fed a diet of jacketed ammunition, punch the bore with a brass brush maybe once a year. And even that can be seen as overkill.
3/15/2016
One instructor I respect mentioned a couple of Bennie Coolie classes where the firing schedule was such that his AR needed to be cleaned to restore accuracy. I have been to a couple of high round count classes with lots of close in burn 'em down drills and not seen that. I remember Pat Rogers having a gun he loaned out at classes that took like 28k rounds without a cleaning., and without a problem.
I have never had issues "neglecting" my pistols. I mixed up a batch of "Ed's Red" a while back and occasionally use it to soak parts that don't have tritium lamps glued into them. Most of the time a Boresnake and brake cleaner do the trick. If you go back through TLG's blogs at pistol-training.com you can see the number of rounds he put through his training guns before cleaning. It was eye opening to me...
I am also convinced that solvents act like, well, solvents, and dissolve the stuff we clean out of guns, making them more bioavailable when inhaled or absorbed through the skin. Even with brake cleaner and boresnakes I rear nitrile gloves, goggles, and usually a mask...
I have also learned the hard way with a Glock or two, both mine and shooters I am/was responsible for that too much detail stripping can cause accelerated wear that can reduce reliability, as the plastic holes change dimensions from different plastic and metal pins being pushed in and out, as well as the normally metal tools used interact with plastic parts.
1k rounds is when I start thinking about wiping my guns out, and even then it is usually quick and dirty, non-chloronated brake cleaner, a rag, a boresnake, and maybe a few cotton swabs. Filed strip, spray, and wipe. Lubricate properly. Reassemble and put a mag through it to make sure everything is back together properly and working right. I do clean optic and light lenses much, much more frequently.
pat
Any thought's on pistol barrel's that see a lot of WC / LSWC ?
Should lead removal be a concern, products and process's suggested,
and at what intervals? Or just run an occasional patch and shoot on,
not worrying about lead build up.
It's going to depend on how much lead is being deposited. With soft lead projectiles you'll see noticeable buildup in the bore.
You can use a Lewis de-leader.
I've had decent luck with copper sponge wrapped around a brass brush in a barrel that I've soaked in Kroil. I use stainless sponge in shotgun barrels to do de-leading.
3/15/2016
When I competed with a rifle I typically cleaned my rifle at the end of the season, fouled it in at the beginning of the next season and left it at that.
With handguns, the vast majority of the rounds fired are polymer coated cast bullets. I clean the bore of my training gun every 5k rounds, or so. Then, that consists of scrubbing the barrel with a bronze brush wrapped with copper Chore Boy, followed by a single wet patch. It all takes less than five minutes. If I was shooting jacketed rounds I probably wouldn't bother with that. I clean my carry gun every time I shoot it, just for reasons. When I was shooting 50 yard bullseye I was a bit more serious about it, since swaged lead wadcutters tend to be filthy. But, standard shooting from 25 yards in just doesn't matter. As already mentioned, the closer tolerances of the match barrel probably account for any difference you're seeing.
I work with an individual who insists on cleaning his guns to a level of surgical cleanliness every he shoots them, whether it's one round or a thousand. When I described my cleaning routine I thought he was going to go apoplectic.
We may lose and we may win, but we will never be here again.......
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