So, rather than piece together a cleaning kit for my AW, I bought Accuracy International's kit. It's produced by Parker Hale. It includes a Parker Hale 1 piece rod, a plastic bore guide, a bronze brush, a patch jag, what appears to be a makeup brush, a bottle of CLP, and a set of metric hex wrenches.
So, here are my observations- I bought my rifle with 120 rounds through it, I have put another 320 since then, with only a bore-snake run between sessions, and cleaning and re-lubing the bolt every other range session or so. I figured I should give it a cleaning, just so I know for sure that it has been done, and because the rifle was still very new when I bought it. I plan on cleaning it every 500-1000 rounds in the future (following the same bore-snake protocol, and cleaning the bolt ever 100 rounds or so.)
My observations are this- the bore guide is molded to match the reciever perfectly, but does not have the same fit or feel as a Lucas. Furthermore, the rod has a lot more "play" in the guide than a Dewey would in a proper fitting Lucas guide.
The brush is very tight and very stiff- so a patch can't fit on it and go through the bore. I found this out the hard way. I applied a patch with Iosso paste, and tried to run it through. I jammed it and almost wasn't able to get it back out. Half that is my own retardation- I shouldn't have tried to "make it go" so hard.
The patch jag is of a somewhat nonstandard design. It looks like it is meant to have the patch wrapped around it, but again, it won't fit through the bore like that.
Finally- this makes this setup rather non practical: the cleaning rod has a large MALE attachment at the end. The brush and jag both have matching female attachments. This is all well and good, but all standard rods are a smaller female end, and this will make replacing the brush much more difficult when the time comes.
All in all, I guess I would recommend piecing together a kit from quality components, rather than buying this one.
-BM
So, here are my observations- I bought my rifle with 120 rounds through it, I have put another 320 since then, with only a bore-snake run between sessions, and cleaning and re-lubing the bolt every other range session or so. I figured I should give it a cleaning, just so I know for sure that it has been done, and because the rifle was still very new when I bought it. I plan on cleaning it every 500-1000 rounds in the future (following the same bore-snake protocol, and cleaning the bolt ever 100 rounds or so.)
My observations are this- the bore guide is molded to match the reciever perfectly, but does not have the same fit or feel as a Lucas. Furthermore, the rod has a lot more "play" in the guide than a Dewey would in a proper fitting Lucas guide.
The brush is very tight and very stiff- so a patch can't fit on it and go through the bore. I found this out the hard way. I applied a patch with Iosso paste, and tried to run it through. I jammed it and almost wasn't able to get it back out. Half that is my own retardation- I shouldn't have tried to "make it go" so hard.
The patch jag is of a somewhat nonstandard design. It looks like it is meant to have the patch wrapped around it, but again, it won't fit through the bore like that.
Finally- this makes this setup rather non practical: the cleaning rod has a large MALE attachment at the end. The brush and jag both have matching female attachments. This is all well and good, but all standard rods are a smaller female end, and this will make replacing the brush much more difficult when the time comes.
All in all, I guess I would recommend piecing together a kit from quality components, rather than buying this one.
-BM
