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4.5
This 36 inch, one-piece cleaning rod from Raiseek is really nice. It's packaged in a long, clear plastic tube with a rubbery stopper at each end, so it's easy to store safely out of the way until needed. The rod itself is made of carbon fiber, with a threaded female connector at the end for attaching jags and such and a handle at the other end that turns freely with the rifling when it's being drawn out to keep damage to a minimum.Well, that's the plan. The rod is very strong, but it's also slightly flexible and with careful handling, should last for years, unlike some of the screw-together, multi-part rods included in many airgun cleaning kits, which can be prone to breakage with normal use according to some reviewers.The Raiseek Gun Cleaning Rod worked great in three of my four airguns, but for some reason it wouldn't even FIT into the muzzle of the fourth, which naturally was my favorite. That's really not so bad, as the rod turned out to be well worth the money for clearing jams in everything else, which happens more often than I like in my pellet-picky-pistol particularly. A jam is very rare in my air rifles, but when it does happen, I'm very glad I have this extremely useful gadget to safely and easily push the pellets back out, hopefully with very little or no damage at all to the rifling of the blocked barrel. Speaking of which... Recently, while visiting the website of one of the major airgun manufacturers to check up on officially recommended maintenance, I was extremely surprised to discover a recommendation that users -never- clean their airguns, or maybe once only before beginning to use them. Incredible! It also strongly warned against using brass brushes in particular, because of the real danger of damaging the rifling, so now I won't be using anything but patches and Hoppe's in any new airguns. Obviously, the rifling in airgun barrels is much more delicate than I could have guessed, or at least it is on the models for which I was doing the checking.Except for the nylon-covered, braided-wire snake I'd used to clean the barrel of my favorite rod-rejecting rifle, I'd already cleaned all of my other airguns at least once using this, a jag and patches, a nylon brush and Hoppe's 9 before I found that unusual recommendation, so for awhile I thought I might never need it again, or at least not until I acquired another new airgun (notice I didn't say "unless" I acquired another new airgun ). I needn't have worried: I soon discovered that defects in pellet skirts, probably caused by being squashed into semi-oval or other-than-perfectly-circular shapes during shipment, or just from normal handling (such as being carried around in a full tin), could and would cause a jam occasionally, especially in my newest, somewhat picky Umarex Strike Point air pistol, so the Raiseek rod still sees use, at least on a semi-regular basis. I do experience the rare jam in my rifles too, and every time it happens, pistol or rifle, it reminds me that I'm very happy to have this.I have to admit: at three feet plus the handle, the cleaning rod can be just a wee bit unwieldy for clearing a jam in my pistol, but it would be even worse if I were using it on almost any air pistol other than my fourteen inch long Strike Point, so I suppose it's a wash. :-) I like that the rod is made of carbon fiber instead of metal, but that inch or two of brass at the front worries me a bit, so I try to be as gentle as possible when I'm forced to clear out a pellet, particularly in my rifles. For the same reason, I also was very careful when I used it for its intended purpose of cleaning the barrels of my airguns. So, should you decide you would like to do the same, this Raiseek Gun Cleaning Rod is just what you need, but it also was and is incredibly good at quickly and safely clearing jams -- in everything from the shortest to longest barrel in which it fits. From here on out, if the only use I got out of it was cleaning the barrel of a brand-new airgun, or even if I used it exclusively for clearing the occasional jammed pellet, this purchase still would have been totally worth it. Highly recommended.Update October 2021: This rod is of course designed to fit snugly in .177 barrels and does (too snugly for one of mine), but I'm happy to report it works for cleaning and clearing jams from .22 air rifles too. It does the job very well with just the gear provided with the original .177 purchase, but if really interested, just get a couple of nylon brushed or similarly 'safe' .22 attachments (only a couple/few bucks) with the same threading and you're good to go with that snug fit in both calibers. After discovering how fragile the rifling really can be in some of these airguns, I think the rod as purchased, with the .177 attachment, a larger patch and a little Hoppe's is all that's necessary even in my .22 airguns; in my desire to keep that all-important rifling intact, I actually prefer it that way and practically never use a 5.5mm, .22 caliber attachment. Of course, your mileage may vary.Remember way back a few paragraphs ago when I jokingly mentioned 'when I get more airguns' instead of 'if?' Well, I now have ten altogether: 5 air rifles, 4 air pistols and a Drifter carbine and I'm greedily eyeing another one or two more air rifles this evening! :-) All seven of the newer purchases were .22 caliber airguns, with which this .177 rod and attachments have no problem. It's an extremely useful, well-made, high-quality device that will do the job regularly and for years to come and actually was very affordable, even at a cost almost the same as. about one-half of and almost one-quarter what I paid for my first Daisy 880, Winchester 1977xs and Crosman 1077w air rifles (and it works better than a straightened coat hanger, which I'm embarrassed to admit I've used with an ancient, bolt-operated, 'real' .22 rifle I used to have). The only way this could be any better is if it were cheaper, although that's just my inner bargain-hunter talking, since it's well worth every cent of its cost. Now that I actually have "a collection" of airguns, I'm not only VERY glad I purchased it, I couldn't get along without it (or a replacement) and couldn't recommend it more enthusiastically.
