The tried and true traditional method to Clean, Lubricate and Protect a Gun Bore works vs. choosing not to perform firearm maintenance

The Tetra Gun Prosmith one piece coated stainless steel cleaning rod is available in a dozen models covering different lengths and different caliber diameters. In general, you want to match up rod specs to your firearm bore.

Follow These Easy Steps

To begin, run a brush thru the bore for cleaning. Use solvent assuming you have obvious buildup. Then, run either a cotton patch loaded patch holder or patch covered jar down the bore. Once again, saturated with cleaner. Repeat 8-12 times. Let stand for minutes or up to an hour or much more depending on your confidence in the cleaning product.

Then, run a dry patch thru the bore to pick up solvent residue and fouling left behind. Repeat until you have a patch that is visibly clean.

You can repeat steps 1 and 2 if you aren’t convinced of success.

Additionally, since you want to ultimately remove solvent residue before lubing, run patches thru that are soaked in 91%+ isopropyl alcohol until that is visibly clean in appearance. If you see a color like amber or anything resembling teal, solvent or hard fouling residue is still present. I forget to include carbon black but I wanted to assume you achieved removal of that.

Now, apply lubricant to clean, dry gunmetal. That will either something like the Tetra Gun All Purpose Lubricant or the Triple Action CLP oil. Either way, soak it into patches and run them down the bore 8-12 times. Follow that up with clean, dry patches until they appear clean.

In the end, you do not want to have visible lubricant accumulated in the bore. It will be a debris magnet and it may impede the firing performance inside the barrel.

Only use a gun grease consistency lubricant for outside of the bore. It is only intended for slow moving, high wear gun parts.

Some people will actually fire a round or two, and go back and repeat the cleaning process as an uber detailed bore conditioning method. This is usually recommended for breaking in new long guns.

I know what I am talking about. Tetra Gun pioneered bore conditioning nearly 40 years ago. It is still valid because it works. When you clean a firearm after action, a clean dry wiping should get powder fouling off fairly easily because the lube is there acting as a barrier and minimizing buildup.

This is by no means a result of using just any ole gun lube. Tetra Gun’s synthetic fluoropolymer formula is a technology that delivers greater results. Long standing customers understand the difference.

Trouble Shooting

A popular question is whether a particular rod will fit a rifle or shotgun the gun owner has in mind. The quick answer is if you have a .22 cal. rod, expect it to work with that diameter bore and anything larger, though once you get to the .30 cal. model which has a thicker diameter, you should choose that for that caliber and above because it will provide greater strength and stability as you push it down the barrel. I hope that makes sense.

If you use a .22 cal. rod on a high caliber bore, it will work, but the physical strain on the rod will be greater and the additional force and pressure on the rod may make it bow out, which is exactly what you don’t want to happen.

Some people get upset with a warped rod, but even before that, there is a deeper concern for the rod body to make contact with the inner surface of the barrel. Ideally, you want to leave contact to the brush, jar or mop.

More Ideas

More and more I hear of people covering bronze brushes with patches. That’s fine, especially when a used brush gets compressed and makes room for it. Remember, brushes, mops and jags are sized to fit a caliber.

Bore rope is popular with many sport shooters but it is a quick fix rather than the best possible method. Using a rod with accessory attachments does take more time, but the cleaning and lubricant will be more effective.

Important Tips

You only want to run a rod from the breech to the muzzle end as not to travel fouling back into the action.

If you go by the book, you want to run a brush etc. from breech to muzzle and then unscrew the accessory so that you can only reenter again from the breech end.

I think its ok to scrub back and forth inside the bore in short distances before exiting as to get the most out of one pass, as long as you only finish at the muzzle end.

When it comes to rifles, centerfire and rimfire designs will force you to address gun cleaning rod use differently. The natural difference between under over and side by side style shotguns will also present their own considerations.

Handgun cleaning is different and generally less demanding but you will clearly appreciate that the needs of a semiauto pistol will be vastly different from that of a revolver wheel gun.

This is all just part of the fun, when cleaning your gun. Hey, it rhymes.

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