I know a lot of people fire a lot of rounds through their centerfires without cleaning. Are rimfires any different? Are you seeing long term accuracy without cleaning rimfires?
Plated vs. jacketed bullets for starters. 22LR is dirty in general. Cheap ammo even worse. But I shoot a pile of cheap ammo and don’t give a shit. Function stops before the accuracy does on my 10/22’s. Old bolt action head space gets goofy when it gets dirty and sends little dribblers.
I used to get a lot of fouling with lead nose..22...switched to copper it's better but 22 is just dirty. Usually the action stops before accuracy falls off.
I will clean an action but quit cleaning centerfire and rimfire barrels a long time ago. I stopped because they shot tighter without cleaning. On my centerfires, when the groups open up, it's time for a new barrel. Just my experience / opinion
Competition rimfire shooters dont clean much. they like to go 100 to 200 rounds before cleaning. it takes several to many shots to condition the barrel after cleaning.
After each range session...or hunting excursion --- I'll at least swab the chamber with an oil laden Q-Tip; because of possible sweat residue being on the cartridges when I load them.
I have a Savage 25 pump that likes to be clean to shoot but it’s the anomaly. The other few dozen .22s I own shoot far better dirty. My 10/22 hasn’t seen a bore brush or patch in several cases of ammo now and is still outshooting my Kimber.
BTW anyone want to buy a Kimber Super America? I’m ready to let it go.
Iv got 700 recorded shots now this spring without a cleaning. Still holding same groups. Up until now I didn’t record enough to figure out if cleaning helped or didn’t.
I do clean my chamber and action more often on my 22lr. Run mainly eley ammo and the lubricant gets all over everything.
I shoot maybe 5k rounds a year through a few guns... don’t know if it’s right or wrong but I generally spray down the chamber with bore scrubber and drop a 22 bore snake through the barrel maybe three times after a big session. Rarely clean the guns laying around for shooting pests on my property but those are only 5-10 shots per week.
Really like the federal auto match and really dislike Remington thunderbolts but surely you’ll get a pile of other suggestions.