How to Clean A Rifle Barrel   (Using a Borescope)

      I still own a popular (and very expensive) borescope and have used it quite often in the last 20 years.   However, I was sure there must be something better out there for inspecting rifle barrels.   I needed a borescope with a bit more brightness, clarity, and a much larger field of view.   I also wanted a borescope that could travel "all the way down the barrel" - not just half way.

      I searched for months examining other borescopes, and I purchased several different models for testing.   There was virtually nothing like this available . . . . and definitely not at an affordable price.   The most expensive borescopes can produce a good image, but they all have at least one very important feature missing.   I've found that the older "rigid" borescopes make it way too easy to miss seeing the gas port when examining AR-15 barrels.   Sure, that would be easy enough to see the gas port by just indexing the angle to see the top of a barrel.   However, what happens when you want to see the "entire" inside surface, and you don't know exactly where the dirty spots are located?   A rigid borescope requires almost a dozen straight passes through your barrel using a very delicate system of glass lenses inside a thin tube.   You also need to rotate that tube one full revolution for every 1/4" all the way down the barrel to see the entire surface (if that's even possible).

      My project involved designing a borescope to provide a clear 360 degree view with a 40" long flexible fiber optic cable.   I also found that the smaller diameter a "quality" fiber optic cable is, the more expensive it will be.   That's why a quality borescope is still not cheap.   As far as I can find, there is currently no other borescope that can fit inside a .22 caliber barrel and provide a good image . . . . but ours will.   In fact, my borescope will easily fit inside a .204 Ruger barrel.

      Since 95% of all rifles are .22 to .30 caliber . . . . that's a whole lot of rifles that benefit from shooters using our unique borescope design.   Cleaning a barrel properly is actually a very quick and easy task.   I always clean my rifle at the range while the fouling is still fairly soft, and when I get home, I use this borescope to actually "see" how well I did on my "quick cleaning".   A bit of extra cleaning is usually required somewhere along the bore.   In just a few seconds, it usually shows at least one missed spot which is now easy to locate, clean, and verify.

      At this point, it's an easy job to clean any part of the barrel that was missed during my quick cleaning at the range.   I use a one piece cleaning rod with a very small diameter bore brush (one that will fall all the way through the barrel).   I cover the brush with a paper towel patch to make it fit fairly tight in the barrel.   I use this to lightly coat the bore with Kroil to help it slide smoothly down the barrel.   After that, I add "Non-Embedding J.B. Bore Paste" to the paper towel patch and run it back and forth to scrub the part of the bore that needs a little "extra" cleaning.

      There are now over 500 hundred of our borescopes being used by shooters worlwide.   Give one a try . . . . they are available from this website for just $298.95

     NOTE :   It is important to always use a rod guide and Bounty paper towels (remember the quicker picker upper?), because other brands really do turn into mush when they get wet.   Except for this particular technique, I always recommend pushing bore brushes only forward, and NEVER pull any brush or patch back into the barrel.