i have always thought that cleaning barrels was a good idea and something that should be done just to keep everything accurate and on target, but after reading parts of this thread it has made me think twice. I have always cleaned the barrel using a soft copper brush and never seen and visible damage and now this appears to be wrong thing to do i should be using cloth and no cord as this can wear out part of the barrel.
Now i am confused as i thought metal was more hard wearing than cord, i see the FT boys with the cloth pull throughs and using them every 100 shoots or so. Now are they doing correctly as they are at the top of the airgun evolutionary tree as it were and all the rest of us aspire to be as good as them respectfully.
So i ask if my grouping is the same cleaning the same barrel for 20yrs with a copper brush then where is the damage and why has it not effected the grouping at 40yds (Theoben Sirocco)