Re: cold bore confusion
This guy just set a new Open F Class record. Read what he says about cleaning his rifle before the shoot.
http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/category/competition/
More damage to a gun is done by imporper cleaning then shooting.
Lets look at Vintage Military Rifles like you get from CMP or else where. Most people gage these guns by Throat Erosion and Muzzle Erosion.
Throat erosion is cased by the gas hitting the throat. Except for getting picky on ammo and/or reloading, not much we can do.
Muzzle erosion is caused by improper cleaning, or with old military rifles its using the steel, jointed cleaning rods tearing the crap out of the muzzle by GIs who don't know any better.
Anal cleaning can mean an accurate rifle. But that's assuming the anal cleaning is done for each shot.
Like LL I'll run a brush through my rifle every now and them but as for scrubbing, no sir.
Pistols/Revolvers are different. I use med soft lead cast bullets, I'll scrub the barrels to prevent lead built up. Since I'm mainly a revolver shooter I do get anal on the cylinders. We all know that autos are (for normal people) slower to load the revolvers. To give my self a bit of advantage, I clean the crap out of my cylinders. The reason being it helps to allow the rounds to slip into the cylinders all the way plus assist in empties falling from the cylinders.
As to rim fires, I have an Anschutz 1807 that's never had a cleaning rod down the barrel. I've had this gun since the mid 80s and it's still capable of cleaning the ISU Small Bore targets in English Matches (with proper ammo of course).
