Today Private Trent and I cleaned guns. We toiled away for hours and got about 21 guns cleaned. And I am thinking. Here I am cleaning guns and my gun buddies in GUNOWNERS are probably home having fun. Either loading ammo or reading some gun magazines. Now how can I get even with them? Well I remembered a little column that I wrote in the old "GUNS" forum before it got infected with African 'B's and I thought I would start that again. I called it Gun Myths. So here we go. Myth # 1
"If you clean your gun from the front of the barrel you will ruin your barrel and affect the accuracy of your gun."
OK if you really believe this, do a little test for me.
First you will need a old gun or a piece of rifle barrel. Like maybe you cut a old Mauser barrel down to a handier length and you have a 4" piece of barrel laying in the drawer somewhere. In a pinch you can use a water pipe or a piece of elect conduit. I have never tried it with those and they maybe too soft but lets go ahead.
First let's establish a control size. Take your vernier caliper or your micrometer and measure that piece of barrel's diameter. Measure it in several places so we can be sure to get a good average and not a odd number. Write down all the measurements. They should be within .0001 of each other. Then mark off about an inch of barrel with tape and double check the measurement of that area. Hopefully it will be pretty round. Now an average gunowner will take his gun out to the range once or twice a year but lets say we are not average and we go every month. And when you get home you clean the gun and it takes about 6 or 8 passes of the cleaning rod to complete the chore. So 8 x 12 equals 96 passes of the cleaning rod in a year. Lets go for 10 years of cleaning, really give it a test. 960 passes of the cleaning rod. So set up in front of the TV and use a section of your Aluminum cleaning rod moistened with a little Hoppes9 every dozen strokes or so. Just keep rubbing that alum rod across the barrel in the 1 inch area you taped off. At the end of the 960 passes or when your wife hits you with the coffee table which ever comes first. Take your micrometer or vernier caliper and measure that barrel again. It will be easy to see where to measure because there will be a aluminum smear in the area. If there is any wear or groove in that area all the drinks will be on me. Then tell me that it is bad to clean your gun from the front of the barrel.
Try it.
Sarge
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