Re: Bolt Gun Cleaning
Except for an occasional (every couple hundred rounds) wet patch down the bore and a slightly more frequent bolt cleaning, I almost never completely clean my bolt guns.
I'm not shooting a bench rifle for cloverleafs or single-hole groups. That would be nice, but impractical for the kind of shooting I do (mostly for fun, 3-4 times a year, steel out to 1,071 yards last weekend, pushing for 2,000 yards now with a .338 LM). Friend I've been shooting with for nearly 15 years once ran a Rem 700 PSS in .308 into the ground, never cleaned it until the trigger jammed up, he turned it over to Ed (now at Central Virginia Tactical) who gave it a good cleaning and when Bill got it back he said it didn't shoot right. He had over 5,000 rounds down that barrel, maybe twice that many. Ed said the barrel rifling was gone for the first 6 inches. That said, Bill frequently shot matches (Allegheny Sniper Challenge, Mayberry, many others) with that gun and won several a year, or at least placed highly enough to keep shooting.
On the other hand, I've been with him on informal "range dates" when his semi autos locked up from lack of cleaning/oiling. Several times.
But clean bolt guns? Not fanatically, not religiously.
Push the envelope of what you're comfortable with, keep your DOPE and see what if anything changes with or without cleaning.
Personally I think it's highly overrated.
YMMV.
True story: 1977, Basic Training at Ft. Lost in the Woods, Misery. Guy name of Donald Cudworth III (the third) went through all of basic and somehow NEVER tore down and cleaned his M16. It took several of us, under threat of not graduating, many hours to take his gun apart, and get the carbon out of his bolt and make repeated trips back to the hot water baths in the garbage cans to dip, scrub and repeat to get that damned thing clean enough to turn in. It was so bad the extractor wouldn't move from carbonizing and brass fouling. Took a BIG ball-peen hammer and drift to get the pin out even. Made me rethink the Army philosophy of getting every gun squeaky clean after every range date and how well an M16 will still run (I did an attack on a machine-gun nest drill with him once late in the training cycle and his gun worked fine) no matter how dirty it is. Use the right ammo, put a few drops of oil in it from time to time (he DID do THAT) and drive on.
