An unscientific 45-70 Hi-Tek "do-not-clean"-report.

[Petander]

I have been playing with Hi-Tek & 45-70 full power Marlin loads lately. A factory rough barrel,1700-1800 fps.

Being a mad scientist,I wanted to see what happens when I don't clean the rifle in between range sessions at all. Not even a spray of oil,nothing. After a week of about 150 rounds,three range trips,I went shooting yesterday.

Attachment 225803

Attachment 225802

Clays broke @ 50 meters just like they always do. The accuracy was still there.

Attachment 225804

At least half of those 150 bullets were old,undersized 457 bullets that I cleaned from lube and coated. They gave me some minor leading near the muzzle earlier. Now,the last ones fired yesterday were 4595 and here are my dry,tight cleaning patches:

Attachment 225805.

I then gave a short oil soak and some copper brush, repeat that. Here are 50 cal VFG wads I got:

Attachment 225806

The following wads came out clean.

My baking is not perfect,I overbake a bit to avoid underbaking. I sort of feel that the last correct size bullets actually cleaned the barrel from whatever minor leading there probably was from the undersize bullets.

This is good.

[Tatume]

Very good.

[Walter Laich]

I probably ran 200 rounds through my Marlin 1894 .45 Colt without cleaning (cowboy action and didn't clean it between the 4 matches I fired--mostly because I'm lazy)

After all this I ran a wet brush through the barrel and let it sit for 5 minutes or so. I had two patches like your first one then clean.

first of summer I also started annealling my brass and inside of rifle is much cleaner but that's another story