Bore-tips

One of the neat new products I saw at SHOT was these foam bore swabs, called Bore-tips, intended to replace the traditional jag & patch for cleaning. They were first introduced to the market the day before the 2012 SHOT Show opened.

The Bore-tips are packaged in a plastic bag, and attached 6 to a sprue. Each swab twists easily of the sprue, and can then be screwed onto the end of a cleaning rod. I brought a bag of these swabs home with me from SHOT Show, as well as another package of assorted foam swabs and used them to clean my S&W Model 41, and my 24″ .223 Rock River AR-15 upper. I’m used to the very tight fit of a traditional jag and patch, so the ease with which these pushed through the bore was both unnerving, because they truly just slide right through, and nice at the same time, because it was so easy. Because of the loose fit, I’m not sure that the Bore-tips are a true replacement for the jag, but they do a very good job of applying solvents to the bore.To me, that implies that this is more of a replacement for the slotted tip and bore mop.

The bag assorted swabs was very useful for getting into all nooks and crannies found in the upper receiver of the AR-15, and never left little tufts of cotton behind, as Q-tips commonly do. As an added benefit, the Bore-tips and swabs can be cleaned and reused, although I did not try this feature out.

If you’re looking for a better way to get solvent in your bores, or looking to upgrade from Q-tips, I can heartily recommend using Bore-tips and other foam swabs from Swab-its.