GUNSMITHING INFORMATION
Arthur Cleland NCGM, FSG

Recommended Cleaning and Break-in for Barrels

For the first 5 shots, clean the barrel after each shot. For the next 50 shots, clean the barrel after each 5-shot group. The barrel is now broken-in. To maintain the quality of the barrel, I recommend cleaning within every 20 shots. (Unless you are using moly coated bullets).

The Term "Cleaning the Barrel" as stated above, means:

Use a plastic or safety coated cleaning rod, a bronze brush, flannel patches and a quality solvent. (Don’t use Sweets and Stainless Steel barrels or any ammonia based solvent). Saturate the brush with solvent and make 20 passes through the barrel (10 cycles). Let the solvent soak in the barrel for 10 minutes, then saturate the brush again with solvent and make 20 more passes through the barrel. Push 3 or more patches through the barrel to remove excess solvent and loosened fouling. The barrel cleaning is complete. With Chrome Moly barrels apply a little oil on a patch and pass through the barrel to avoid rusting. Don’t forget to clean out the chamber also.

New Cartridges

Over the last two years numerous new wildcats have been thought up to take advantage of developments in projectiles and bore lubrication. With the need for low operating costs .20 cal and .22 cal have been the main areas of development.

One of my clients showed a lot of interest in .22 Vartag Turbo which is an altered .222 Remington Case. Overall case length has been reduced by 100 thou and the shoulder angle altered to 30 deg with body taper of .0161 per inch. The barrel used is a 1 in 14 twist with bore of .219 and groove diam of .224 which is standard for .22 cal. Freebore is set at .039. Barrel length used is 24 inches long. The development and design has been done by Todd Kindler of "The Woodchuck Den Inc." in USA.

The projectiles Todd designed the cartridge for were 40gr to 52 gr and testing showed the performance was better than the .222 Rem. Performance figures of the cartridge which were taken from the first test using a Hart 22 inch barrel are as follows:

22 inch barrel
23.3gr H4198 40gr Nosler BT Velocity 3887 fps
22.3gr H4198 50gr Berger MC Velocity 3505 fps
22.3gr H4198 52gr Berger MC Velocity 3487 fps
In future all rifles will be made with a 24 inch barrel – a gain of 60 fps in all cases.
e.g. 40gr Nosler Bt Velocity 3947 fps
The test used Winchester cases and Federal 205 primers.
This cartridge would be a good choice for medium range Varmit Rifle.