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Yep, go ahead and throw me on the bandwagon – I’m another Boresnake believer.  I’ve seen ads for the Boresnake all over the place for the last year or so, and a buddy of mine wouldn’t shut his mouth about them.  I finally broke down and asked Santa to get me one to try out on my 12 gauge…in typical fashion, that fat lovable bastard came through.

I put about 300 rounds through the shotgun over the last few weekends without cleaning it so that the Boresnake could be given a proper test.  Two nights ago, I broke the 870 down, gave it a much-needed scrub with the rest of my gun cleaning kit, and saved the bore for last.

Following the Boresnake instructions, I added a bit of solvent to the rope, as well as a little oil, dropped the brass weight through the receiver so it hung out the bottom of the barrel, and pulled the viper on through.  If I weren’t such a crappy photographer, you’d be able to see from my failed “before and after” pictures just how darn good of a job this gimmicky little thing does.  After running it through two times, the bore had a mirror finish…I crap you not.  Even cleaning the Boresnake is easy enough; just drop it in a laundry bag (my wife tells me it’s a “lingerie bag”), and throw it in the washing machine.

While this thing is fantastic, it doesn’t clean everything.  I’m not faulting product with that remark, I just want to make sure you still recognize the importance of cleaning the bolt, trigger assembly, rails…the bore is just a piece of the pie.  I’ve yet to run this through a REALLY dirty gun, but I’d imagine it wouldn’t be a bad idea to warm up the barrel with a traditional brush rod in really nasty circumstances before you send the snake through.

You may have to pull the snake pretty freakin’ hard to get it all the way through (I actually wrapped the black string around my hand to get it started), but that’s relatively normal.  A fouled-up gun has a lot of blockage – this thing is designed to get it all in one pass – it’s perfectly reasonable to expect a little resistance.

For those of you with porting on your shotgun barrel, you’ll still need to scrub the crap out of it with a brush.  I think the Boresnake loosened the gunk up a little on mine, but unfortunately, there’s no substitute for elbow grease in those tiny little recoil-reducing holes.

Anyways, I’m pumped about the addition to my shotgun cleaning kit (pun intended), and I’ll definitely be picking up a couple more for a few lucky rifles.  A clean gun is a reliable gun is a safe gun – add this to your cleaning kit and stay safe ;).

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