The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

Any ex service types on here?
We used to spend a lot of time cleaning rifles and the only chemicals we used to use on the bore was a tiny bit of oil on a patch to stop it rusting whilst in storage. We might have one go with a barrel brush but that was it. We were never issued anything to tackle copper fouling nor was it ever mentioned by the instructors - not even to the shooting team. I can't imagine what state some of them must have been in!
Would they have done anything to them in the armoury?

That is still what I do with all of my rifles pull though until the flannelette is clean and lightly oil, can't be doing with all of this brushing and chemical malarkey.

Copper fouling?
"Minute of Ivan" is achievable with very dirty bores.

Each unit may have given their own slant on cleaning.
I seem to recall bore cleaner being available....but that was in the days of proper "Belgian" rifles in 7.62 flavour....and I tended to have Hoppes or suchlike on me for deep cleaning when needed.

I used to just pull through my T4 then i shone a torch down the barrel one day and the thing was copper coloured for as far as I could see! Two hours with Butches Bore Shine and around 40 patches got it clean - turns the patches a lovely blue colour!

I was out for a ex-squaddie friend of mines birthday a few weeks back and his best mate in the army is just about to retire as an armourer. Needless to say I bored him to death asking questions about kit and I did ask about cleaning of rifles. He said, in no uncertain terms, that the armourers do no cleaning whatsoever, he even seemed a bit taken aback by the question, a bit like as if I asked a mechanic if he washed and polished cars after putting them through an MOT

I think the standard of accuracy a target/sports shooter expects and that of the regular military units are rather different, to put it mildly.

The staff just had certain areas they always looked at to see if it was clean - they looked for a shiny ring around the end of the barrel then they stick a finger into the chamber to check for muck. That was a difficult bit to clean with the supplied tools! The guys in the armoury sometimes put a rod down the barrel to make sure there wasn't a round up the spout but that was it as far as I saw.
To be honest we didn't really have a clue what we were supposed to be doing as no one ever explained it to us! I doubt that they really understood either.

In the Canadian Army we certainly had bore cleaner available. We didn't use it every time, but it did get used. We got quite a lot of instruction of cleaning our rifles.

Cleaning? Some harsh lessons were learned in Vietnam with the M-16

Thats true but mainly related to dirt etc and being initially told they they didn't need cleaning at all (they didn't even issue cleaning kits to start with).

Our rifles were always spotless in terms of carbon and grit etc. The only stoppage I ever had with mine was after firing well over 2000 blanks and not cleaning it. It still worked but wouldn't self load.

Rockhopper wrote:Thats true but mainly related to dirt etc and being initially told they they didn't need cleaning at all (they didn't even issue cleaning kits to start with).

That plus a lack of chromed bore, poor surface treatment and the issue ammunition was not the same as the test ammunition which resulted in a higher cyclic rate of fire and a vastly reduced mean time between failure. That plus a complete denial of the issue at the highest level within the Pentagon and Colt having an abject inability to listen to their own engineers report from Theatre.

Sadly the ultimate losers were the feet on the ground and there were many reports of M16's with cleaning rods stuffed down the barrels alongside in the earlier days.

It is not just our country that have let troops down...