What's the advantage of Ruger Mark III's fluted barrel?

[DonVoigt]

Originally Posted by alvin

Fired 200 rounds CCI .22lr from it in range. It worked very well, no issues met, and it's very accurate... Shooting a little bit to the right, but that's my habit related. I did not carry tool with me today, will adjust the rear sight a little bit next time.

Field stripping for cleaning is not easy on this gun. Putting back took even more effort. Try and fail a few times, that's still manageable. So far so good.

You do not need to strip the pistol to clean it.
A good wipe will do.

After 2 or 5 thousand rounds, you may want to take it apart as you have in the picture. Depends on which brand of cartridges you use, some are much "dirtier" than others.

More .22s are ruined by excessive cleaning than they ever are by firing. JMHO.

[Zorba]

Here we go again...

A post I wrote on RFC several years ago:

You should always clean your guns after every use - except when you shouldn't. Powder residue will corrode your barrel except you'll wear your barrel out cleaning it. Softer than gunmetal bronze and/or nylon brushes can't possibly wear your barrel out but never use cotton patches as they'll ruin the crown and wear the barrel prematurely. You should always coat the inside of a freshly cleaned barrel with gun oil, except that will hydro-lock your gun next time you fire it so you really should use {insert fave brand of CLP here}. Dirty barrels are far more accurate than clean ones except nothing centers like a freshly cleaned barrel. Barrel accuracy degrades, and corrosion sets in after the third round, except for the guy who has shot exactly 15,348,723 rounds since the last cleaning and his barrel looks brand new. The previous is only valid if you use {insert fave brand of ammo here}. If you use {insert hated brand of ammo here}, your barrel will tie itself into a knot, and your cat will barf on your computer keyboard. Match shooters clean their barrels every 10-15 rounds, except the champ who has never cleaned his 50 Y.O. gun. Hoppe's #9 was good enough for grandpa, its good enough for me; but its outdated and you really should use {insert fave CLP here}. You should only run patches with a loop unless you're using a jag. Never use bronze brushes, nylon ones are clearly inferior. You'll wear your gun out cleaning it, except you'll wear it out from the unburned grit and glass particles left by every shot! Don't ever let your cleaning rod touch the inside of the barrel as soft aluminum will damage a hard steel barrel, except that the aluminum oxide on the soft aluminum rod will abrade the barrel. But soft brass/bronze rods won't hurt anything except you should use stainless steel as it doesn't flex as much. Don't forget to always brush or swab from the breech to the muzzle as this is the way the bullet travels - except swabbing/brushing from the muzzle to the breech reverses the the "flow" of crud so it won't migrate from the chamber to the farthest parts of the barrel. If you shot corrosive ammo, spray Windex down the barrel but never use ammonia under these circumstances, put your gun in the dishwasher instead. A good, stiff cleaning rod is best; especially when it is a nice flexible cleaning cord. One should always use a 1 piece rod, the 3 sectioned ones travel better. Clean your gun at the range, but its OK to wait until you get home. Never use {whatever} to clean your rifle, it will cause flash rust within .0352 microseconds; its far better to use {another whatever} because it will cause buildup that will clog your barrel the very first time its used. Its best to use the {whatever military} cleaning technique except its outdated and ineffective; better to use the technique employed by {whatever police dept.} as everyone knows all cops' guns are perpetually dirty. The 15 step, all intensive, 3 hour, 18 patch method is best, just run 1 patch through the bbl and throw the gun back in the truck for next time.

That should pretty much sum up where this thread will end up going - did I miss anything?

As for me, I keep mine clean. YMMV!

I clean the bbl on my Mk III after every range trip, and a field strip and thorough clean every 600 rds - and by that time the gun is in desperate need of a cleaning!

[Olle]

Originally Posted by DonVoigt

You do not need to strip the pistol to clean it.
A good wipe will do.

After 2 or 5 thousand rounds, you may want to take it apart as you have in the picture. Depends on which brand of cartridges you use, some are much "dirtier" than others.

More .22s are ruined by excessive cleaning than they ever are by firing. JMHO.

Cleaning can be done in many ways, and there's definitely a chance that you'll damage the gun (especially the barrel) by careless cleaning. The worst example I have seen was probably a P.38, advertised as "mint". The vet had brought it back after WWII, and since then he had wiped it down with oil several times a year "to dust it off and preserve it". I don't know what kind of oil he used, but the rag the gun was wrapped in looked like it had served since 1945 and was probably as abrasive as fine grit sandpaper. There was not much bluing left on that gun, but it was sure clean and shiny.

Anyway, clean ammo will save you a lot of cleaning, especially in 22s. The cheap bulk pack will usually leave a lot of soot and grit in the gun, to the point that some of my guns will gunk up and malfunction after 50-100 rounds. After I installed a bull barrel in my 10/22, I found that the mag would jam after 30-40 rounds. I finally realized that the new barrel was leaving much more grit in the action (tight barrel, more back pressure, ejects before the grit blows out the muzzle...?), and a lot of this ended up in the mag. I had lotsa fun cleaning those 10/22 rotary mags, but (knock on wood) I haven't had any problems since I discovered the miracle of clean ammo. Dry lube helps too, all I usually do is to run some lead cleaner through it now and then (always cleaning from the chamber end), the rest can be removed with compressed air and a quick wide-down.

The best bang for the buck IMO is Federal AutoMatch, with Blazer as a close second. These are pretty clean, and the accuracy is better than I can use, at least in a handgun. The 10/22 will shoot about 1 MOA at 100 yards with AutoMatch, could be better but definitely acceptable with relatively cheap ammo like that.

BTW: I have drilled a hole in the rear of the receiver on the 10/22, this makes it possible to clean the barrel from the chamber end. It's a good way to preserve the barrels on these guns, and it makes me wonder why Ruger didn't make the receivers like that to begin with.