Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Discovering An Old Favorite
I bought an FWB300 several years ago and have enjoyed shooting it in the back yard. It never seemed to be nearly as accurate as I thought it should be. I usually shoot it at longer ranges (25-50 yards) so I just assumed the inaccuracy was due to the longer ranges. I had it tuned by David Slade and he worked his magic on it. When I got it back it definitely had more power and was smoother shooting but the accuracy didn't improve dramatically. I put it back in my gun cabinet and didn't shoot it a lot after that.
A couple of weeks ago I got into a conversation with David about cleaning airgun barrels. He mentioned that he uses a brass brush on a solid coated cleaning rod when a barrel looks leaded or really dirty. I was always hesitant about pushing anything down my airgun barrels but I thought I would try brushing my 300s barrel.
I went out and bought a coated 177 cleaning rod with a brass jag and brush and went to cleaning the barrel. I pushed several 1" patches wet down with Windex down the barrel before using a brush on it. After a couple of passes with the brush I pushed a clean patch down the barrel and man did it come out dirty! I pushed enough patches through the barrel until they came out clean.
I re-zeroed the 300 at 35 yards and now it is shooting a nice tight, mostly touching groups. Wow what a difference. I had cleaned the barrel by pulling patches through with coated cord but the brush really cleaned out the gunk that had built up in the barrel over the years. Now my 300 has a bit more power and definitely more accuracy. I sat one evening shooting at my 50 yard field target and was able to hit the 1" kill 8 out of 10 times.
I am having a great time shooting my revitalized 300. It is so easy to shoot with little movement or noise. And at longer ranges it can be very challenging, especially in the wind. I wouldn't have thought that just brushing the barrel would have made that big a difference but it did. Now I am going to have to really clean some of my other rifles too.
A couple of weeks ago I got into a conversation with David about cleaning airgun barrels. He mentioned that he uses a brass brush on a solid coated cleaning rod when a barrel looks leaded or really dirty. I was always hesitant about pushing anything down my airgun barrels but I thought I would try brushing my 300s barrel.
I went out and bought a coated 177 cleaning rod with a brass jag and brush and went to cleaning the barrel. I pushed several 1" patches wet down with Windex down the barrel before using a brush on it. After a couple of passes with the brush I pushed a clean patch down the barrel and man did it come out dirty! I pushed enough patches through the barrel until they came out clean.
I re-zeroed the 300 at 35 yards and now it is shooting a nice tight, mostly touching groups. Wow what a difference. I had cleaned the barrel by pulling patches through with coated cord but the brush really cleaned out the gunk that had built up in the barrel over the years. Now my 300 has a bit more power and definitely more accuracy. I sat one evening shooting at my 50 yard field target and was able to hit the 1" kill 8 out of 10 times.
I am having a great time shooting my revitalized 300. It is so easy to shoot with little movement or noise. And at longer ranges it can be very challenging, especially in the wind. I wouldn't have thought that just brushing the barrel would have made that big a difference but it did. Now I am going to have to really clean some of my other rifles too.
