The (to me, at least) Gun Cleaning Revolution

  A few weeks ago I took the Arisaka rifle to a buddy's house to run the parts through his ultrasonic cleaner, to make sure that I got everything gunky out of it. After that was finished (and WOW, a bunch of goop boiled out of the bolt pieces. I was a little surprised at how well it worked), he had  me run a Bore Snake through the barrel to make sure it was cleaned - and I was instantly sold on how useful it was.

  I'd seen the Bore Snakes before - and another friend of mine even has some - but I was never convinced that it was any better than my old rod-and-brush method. It felt gimmicky. Once I got over my Old Ways Is Best Ways attitude, I was instantly struck by how quickly the Bore Snake cleaned and polished the Arisaka barrel. Looking down the barrel with a flexilight, the lands and grooves gleamed at me.

  I ended up with a bunch of Amazon credit, so I picked up Bore Snakes for .22LR, 6mm/.243 and .30 cal - that takes care of all our guns except for Mama Bear's little Rossi pistol in .38SPL and the two 12ga shotguns. They arrived a week ago and today I got down to the business of using them.