TargetTalk

how often should you clean your air rifle? how long will it take to 'foul' after the cleaning?

best regards

patrick

Primarily follow the manufacturer's advice.
You might download manuals of various makes and models and check the the maintenance chapter.
I own an Anschuetz 2002 PCP. Anschuetz recommends to wipe the bore with an oily patch after each shooting to prevent corrosion, and after some 2000 to 3000 shots to wipe with a brass brush followed by dry patches until clean; and never to use felt "pellets".

Greetings Hans.

Really? What's wrong with felt pellets?

I don't know what's wrong with felt pellets. The Steyr recommendation for my AP was to use dry felt pellets after each shooting session.

Go figure.

It is what Anschuetz says...
Manual page 33 I read: "....Please use no other means for cleaning, especially no VFG felt pellets....". (VFG stands for a make of those pellets)

Contrary to this Steyr recommends to use felt pellets in the LP2 and LP5.

Greetings Hans.

my fwb book indicates I can use ether an oiled VFG or an oiled patch, but not specific to what oil. Any recommendations for oil?

The felt pellets can deposit tiny fibres which can get inside the air port and cause problems. Oil should be whatever they recommend or ask a decent gunshop.

Rob.

Rob could be right about the tiny fibres getting into the valve mechanism, but surely if this was so why do Feinwerkbau, Steyr and Walther recommend them. I would have thought that if there was a problem, they would have withdrawn the recommendation.

If in doubt, play safe and don't use them, and use a pull through instead.

JSB

felts do very little anyway... if you want a proper clean, use their rod system.

barrel fouling though is a bit of a myth/black art thing. Whilst i have seen 1-2 rifles that demonstrated their barrel needed to be cleaned a lot to keep accuracy and precision, many show little improvement once clean or before, even after 1000's of shots.

Using an air rifle in all weathers, in all seasons, outdoors to 50m, mine sees a clean only when wet or when the groups are proving difficult to maintain, which could be as little as once a year.

In terms of accuracy, it's produced single figure mm ctc groups at 50m, so it's no slouch.

I used felt pellets on my SSP RWS Dianna 100. When I traded to the Anschutz 2002 CA I used the dry bore snake because the felt pellets were not recommended. I continued the bore snake on the 9003. I never had any issues running it through twice after a new tin of pellets. It is easy to remember, and fast to complete. I use RWS R10s, and they are clean. I feel a rod is too aggressive and may damage the rifling.

I don't know if there was not some info hanging around from older manuals. Felt pellets should not be used in spring guns such as the FWB300, because they don't offer enough resistance and allow the piston to slam into the end of the cylinder.

I use half a Q-Tip in my .177 any type guns for the weight. Works well.

TerryKuz wrote:I used felt pellets on my SSP RWS Dianna 100. When I traded to the Anschutz 2002 CA I used the dry bore snake because the felt pellets were not recommended. I continued the bore snake on the 9003. I never had any issues running it through twice after a new tin of pellets. It is easy to remember, and fast to complete. I use RWS R10s, and they are clean. I feel a rod is too aggressive and may damage the rifling.

If you use a brass or coated rod then this shouldn't be an issue. I have used Dewey brass rods for years and that hasn't been issue. I use to use coated rods, but sometimes the coating would get rubbed enough to expose the portion of the rod.

As far as the issue with the felt pellets Don Nygord advised me when he was alive not to use them because they would foul the regulator system.

I'm not saying that anyone's wrong herre. but surely if you've got a 1-200 bar blast of air coming OUT of the regulator/valve, you aren't likely to get many fibres going INTO it? (regardless of how effective or not felt is at cleaning the barrel)

timinder wrote:I'm not saying that anyone's wrong herre. but surely if you've got a 1-200 bar blast of air coming OUT of the regulator/valve, you aren't likely to get many fibres going INTO it? (regardless of how effective or not felt is at cleaning the barrel)

Don was the first repair person to tell and there have been two other people that routinely repair airguns that have told me the same thing. The other things mentioned above about the fiber pellets not doing a good cleaning job is also correct. You can prove this yourself by running a cleaning patch down the barrel with some cleaning solvent (non-petro based). The 10 Ring service person would tell me when he was alive that if you use a petro based solvent just be careful to cover the air holes and O Rings that may get exposed to the chemical and wipe the breach down of any excess solvent. He was also one other repair person that recommended not to use the felt pellets if no other reason in that they don't do a good job of cleaning the barrel.

The other things mentioned above about the fiber pellets not doing a good cleaning job is also correct.

So how do you account for Steyr's advice? Are their barrels somehow different -- different material or special coatings or what?

peterz wrote:

The other things mentioned above about the fiber pellets not doing a good cleaning job is also correct.

So how do you account for Steyr's advice? Are their barrels somehow different -- different material or special coatings or what?

I have no idea why there different other then that is what they have printed in there manuals years ago and haven't bothered to change them and I doubt that there barrels are anymore special then their competitors. I am not a technical expert on how to fix these guns, so all I am saying is that I would take the advice of someone who has been fixing these guns for many years after all they have a chance of seeing the internal workings of these guns after people have using them over the years and in the case of 10 Ring he showed us pictures from a bore scope of barrels that get a good cleaning and ones that aren't. This is just my opinion and experience and like anything else everybody is free to develop your own.