Video: Cleaning Your Bolt-Action Rifle

Transcript for Bolt Action Rifle Cleaning

On screen: Cleaning Your Bolt-Action Rifle

Always follow the manufacturer’s instructions for cleaning your firearm provided in your instruction manual. This content is a general guideline for this style of firearm.

Now I get asked all the time, how often should I clean my rifle? And that depends on a lot of different things like the weather in your area, the humidity, the dust, whether or not you're going to be in the snow or the rain. Any of those factors play a role, as well as how often you shoot your rifle and how many rounds you put through it. At the end of the day, you want to make sure you refer to the manufacturer's instructions on how often to clean your rifle.

Speaker fires a shot with a rifle.

Now before we get started, we need to make sure that our firearm is cleared and safe. So, we're going to visually and physically inspect it, making sure there's no ammunition in here. And if there is, we're going to take it and set it away from our work area.

Now that we have this cleared and ready to go, let's go ahead and break it down and get it cleaned.

Speaker places the rifle on a desk for cleaning.

For this cleaning, we're just going to be removing the bolt. For any other takedown, make sure to go to a licensed gunsmith. To remove the bolt, there's a small button inside of the trigger guard right in front of the trigger. Press that button, and then you can remove the bolt.

Once we have that done, we're going to use a bronze brush and rod and push it through the barrel from breech to muzzle. Depending on how dirty the rifle is, it may take a few times of doing this to get all the build-up broken up.

Next, we're going to use a jag and alternate a patch soaked in gun bore cleaner and a clean patch, again running them from breech to muzzle. We're going to continue this process until we get clean patches back.

Once we have a clean patch back, we will add lubricating gun oil to a patch and run it through the barrel.

Now that we have the inside of the barrel cleaned up, we're going to use lubricating gun oil to clean the rest of the rifle. A lot of people rush this step, but it is key to keeping your prized possession in tip-top shape, so don't rush. Make sure to hit all the tight spaces and get all that grime off that tends to build up while out in the field.

Now, we're going to reinsert the bolt.

Alright, now that we've got the Remington 700 all cleaned up and ready to go, we're going to go ahead and do a quick functions test. Make sure you point it in a safe direction.

Speaker demonstrates a functions test with the rifle.

Excellent. I'm going to turn on the safety. And it does exactly what it's supposed to do. Now it's time to take this and put it back in a safe location per the manufacturer's recommendations. Alright.