[Unclenick]

Hooligan1,

I'd take you up on your offer to vote for me twice, but in most parts of the country you have to be dead and buried to earn multiple voting privileges, and that would be asking for a little more sacrifice than good bore cleaning advice merits.

Get yourself a small pump sprayer to carry some Eliminator with you to the range (I've got a 2 oz sprayer; one of the nice things about going water-based is you know the stuff is safe with plastics, sprayer parts included). At the end of your firing session (or earlier, if your tests include a cleaning schedule) remove the bolt, stuff a rag into the action to protect the bedding, and squirt a couple times into the chamber with the muzzle pointing down. I actually look through the bore and watch it run down to the muzzle to be sure it looks evenly wet. I keep a Neoprene stopper for each bore size, and once the liquid makes it to the muzzle I cork it. If I have a chamber plug for the chambering with me, I'll put that in, too, but a rag in the receiver lugs works, as does a larger stopper in some designs. Then I pack up and head home. By the time I get there, most of my rifle bores are pretty much free of adhered fouling. A couple of wet patches to get the loosened crud out and to re-wet the surface, then a wait and maybe one more round of that and a final wet patch and it's usually about as clean as it will get. No brushing, no abrasive cleaner, no heavy stroking. Just patched clean.

The reason for that wetting at the range is not simply to save cleaning time at home, but rather it's because carbon hardens with time. It was pointed out to me some time ago that if you decap cases at the range most of the carbon just falls out as dust. Let it cool even a few hours and it's already a lost less easy to remove. By hitting the gun with the Eliminator at the range, the surfactants penetrate the carbon and prevent hardening. They also penetrate the layers of carbon that alternate with copper layers, and will continue to even after the copper solvent is consumed. That makes any remaining copper easier to attack and remove.

Several folks I know don't bother to dry patch after their last wet patch of Eliminator. Its corrosion inhibitors are so effective that actually protects the bore. On another forum there's a fellow who shoots black powder who does that with his muzzle loaders. But if you want to oil with synthetic oil (I do) to make the next round of cleaning easier, then a dry patch before you apply the oil is reasonable.