Have you ever... cleaned a gun with a drill?

Last night, I was cleaning my shotgun, after it had a 100 rounds through it sunday. I figured it was gonna be a quick clean so I just ran the boresnake in it. Looked pretty decent. Then it dawned on me... I read a few articles about guys attaching the cleaning rod and brush to a drill. Ill give that a whirl, just to see what I missed... sprayed some bore cleaner in the barrels, chucked up the rod ran it down the barrel and back, both top and bottom. I could not believe the amound of crud that came out of those barrels. I clean this gun after every round of sporting clays.

I think those boresnakes are great if you hunt and only shoot 6->12 shots in a day. They dont do jack for much else. Glad I own the boresnake and regular stuff.

Anyone else ever use a drill to clean your gun?

My barrels on this gun are chrome lined.... what the hell type of shells are you shooting that its that clean?

Faster and heavier loads tend to leave lead deposits.
Same as shooting hot loads with lead bullets in a pistol.

I would not use a stainless brush with a drill-brass should be ok.

Jeremy,
 
Between hunting during the regular season, belonging to a pheasant club, hunting competitions, and dog training, I shoot between 150 and 250 birds per year, with about 75% of them being pheasants -- all with 7.5's.  That size shot kills them quite dead.
 
The smaller pellets penetrate feathers easier than stouter ones much like a pin penetrates your skin easier than a pencil point.  I do shoot copper plated pellets, so they are quite hard.  Very often they punch clear through a pheasant, especially with only fall plumage.  Winter plumage is very dense and it takes a lot more to get through it.  Unless one belongs to a pheasant club, most hunters never need to deal with winter plumage because the season is long over.
 
A lot has to do with where you shoot a bird.  Just like you don't just shoot at a deer, you shouldn't just shoot at a bird either.  Make a very studied effort to shoot it in the head/neck area by concentrating on its beak/eye or ring.  The easiest way to do that is with a pass through approach.  Start the swing like you were shooting sporting clays and swing through the tail to the beak.  It is normally called the butt, body, beak, bang method.
 
Of course there are times that you simply cannot do that -- namely when you get a limited angle, rising straight away shot.  This angle leaves little more than the tail feathers and back exposed.  Shooting the tail feathers doesn't do any good and back shot birds often get away -- no matter what size shot you use.  When this is the only shot, I swing up on the bird and just before, like milliseconds before, I pull the shotgun slightly to the right (I am right handed) and shoot the bird in the wing.  They don't fly very well with only one functional wing.  The higher number of small pellets (I think there are about 100 more 7.5's in a 1 1/8 oz. load than # 6's) allows for far more margin of error.
 
After shooting a bunch of birds, you will be surprised at just how well you start to see them in flight and that makes the beak/eye/ring sight picture a whole lot easier.  I really didn't believe that until I started training with quail.  I remember reading about hunting quail in the south and how they would only shoot cockbirds out of the covey and I thought what a load of BS.  How could you pick out the males, signified by a brown stripe through the eye area, when a bunch of little brown whirling blobs where all taking flight at the same time?
 
Well, in reality, it isn't that hard and as you train yourself to look for the beak/eye area, it becomes rather easy, almost like the bird is in slow motion.
 
When I particularly target chukars, I use # 8 and for quail # 9's.  I guess I just like more pellets in the air.
 
Also, if you think shooting 7.5's is light, I also shoot skeet 1 in the bottom barrel for the 1st shot and either skeet 2 or, at the most, IC for the second shot.  With a finished pointing dog, most shots are between 20 and 25 yards.  It is rare for a 30-35 yard shot.  And if the shots are even further, then either I did something wrong to put myself in a bad position, the person who walked in on the point missed and I had to shoot clean-up, or the dog and I need to have a conversation about crowding a bird.  It is usually the 1st issue.
 
My male English Pointer has been out this week for breeding.  Hopefully we will have pups born sometime close to the 1st day of pheasant season (isn't that ironic) and have them ready to go by early December.  Because Dartanian was the stud, I get pick of the litter.  Since there have been a lot of questions on the boards about dog training, if I get enough interest, I'll chronicle, with photos, the training process from picking the pup from the litter through making him a finished dog.