[doorgunner69]

Mine are semi auto and I was brainwiped at an early age to not leave a speck of fouling for my DI to find. They knew where to look.

I cannot to this day leave a firearm not spotless. I suppose a single shot or gbolt gun might not need more than a barrel wipe, but habit would have me examining and lubing the bolt and all moving parts.

[Pecos]

I get that. We are often driven down very narrow channels in our early years. DI's need to drive obedience an attention to detail into the brains of the young because that is what keeps troops alive. In this case, if they didn't, too many youngsters would let their weapons nearly rot with neglect.

But there is a big difference between "clean and ready to fire", and "chemically stripped". A fellow posting on YouTube as TiborasaurusRex has a long series of videos under the title "Sniper 101". He discusses this topic at length in a couple of videos and makes a very good case for using a sub-microscopic bit of gilding metal to fill in the way-too-small-to-see crevices in the bore. IOW, those places that a copper cleaner would react to and give you a blue-green bore patch, but which only serve to slicken up the bore. Personally, I suspect that more bores are worn out by over-use of bore brushes than by a high round count. Just my two cents.....

[tet68]

What I learned in the Marines was if you want a clean
weapon, have someone else inspect it!
There is usually dirt your brain didn’t want to see.