Gun cleaning tools, how many do you need?
There are always arguments that can be made about hypothetical things, but one thing we do not believe is that gun cleaning should take you a long time. We have had numerous discussions about gun cleaning supplies with our team of firearm instructors and one thing they commonly tell us is that gun cleaning can be over done. The same people that are afraid to go to a firing line during a little drizzling rain and get a combat firearm wet are usually the same people that think they need to clean a gun until they get a perfectly clean white patch. The truth is this, you can over due firearm cleaning and damage a gun if you don’t use your gun cleaning supplies correctly.
Cleaning rods can damage chambers and wear out barrels, but we’ve never heard of anyone doing this with a bore snake. Sometimes cleaning rods are necessary, but the Hoppes Boresnakes that I personally use always get used on my AR15 rifles and my FAL rifles. Firearms like the Mini 14 really don’t have any other options that I can think of that are better than a boresnake basically because the M1 Garand style of rifle is difficult to clean from the chamber and you can mess up your bolt carrier if you are ramming a rod through the rong way. For pretty much $15-$20 you can get a caliber specific gun cleaning device for your firearm that don’t call for brushes and cleaning patches.
One pass loosens large particles, scrubs out the remaining residue with a bronze brush, then swabs it all spotless with a cleaning area 160X larger than a standard patch. Add a few drops your favorite gun or Hoppes Elite and your guns ready for storage. The bore snake is caliber specific so make sure you get the correct one for your pistol, rifle or shotgun. You will also notice your gun cleaning time will be cut in half or more. I’ve cleaned more than 4 firearms in an hour, from AKs, FALs, M1A, Mini 14s and AR15 rifles all will accept the use of the Hoppes boresnake.