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Any issues with just using a piece of a paper towel to clean the bore rather than the purchased patches?

If you have any old cotton shirts, I'd start there before paper towels. Paper towels tend to leave dust/particulate, and usually don't hold up very well soaked in solvent. YMMV based on quality of paper towel. I'd also use the blue shop towels before regular paper towels.

I've used those blue shop towel paper towels before. Cut them to where they were a good fit, and they worked great. This was for .30 and .45 though, they seem to thick for .22.

What loktite already said above no paper towels. I use my old cotton t-shirts and they work great.

carlson1 wrote:What loktite folks already no paper towels. I use my old cotton t-shirts and they work great.

I haven't bought patches in many years.

I have a whole tackle-box full of patches I made from a pair of rotary scissors and old t-shirts and underwear.

You can get a pair of rotary scissors in the sewing department at Wal-Mart for less than fifteen bucks if memory recalls. They are great for cutting square patches of various sizes.

The blue paper towels work too as indicated by other posters.

For Christmas I asked "Santa" for one of those brass picks that hold up much better than those cheaper plastic picks. Tomorrow morning I will find out if Santa granted my wish.

With the patches and picks you can really go to town cleaning up hard to reach places. Mr. GunsNGear has a whole video devoted to that on Youtube. Very informative.

Patches (real or the tee shirt variety) are cheap... and if you use a proper fitting jag, paper towels will often tear before being fully inserted... especially if wet with solvent. Good patches and a jag do much of the work for you.

Old t-shirts are my cleaning patches, don't have rotary scissors, but regular scissors have worked well for me.
When they get too ragged for Mrs. Jusme to let me wear they then get cut up.

We have always bought 4 or 5 yards of soft cotton at dress shops or Wal-Mart and cut our own. Being raised in a gun shop my family has always been OCD with gun cleaning. My grandmother went through the depression and always washed patches & rags until they were ragged, threadbare and disintegrated. She never threw out aluminum foil either and god help you if you ripped a piece!

Merry Christmas Armed Texans!!

I guess I'm the odd man out, I buy my patches and right now I use Paul Clean Rollpatch since it is one patch for most calibers (the jag size is different depending upon caliber).

I've never bought a patch. Like some have said, I use cut up tee shirts. I even strip and lube ticking for muzzle loading. I guess I like it old school.

I use old underwear...as long as they dont have any brown in them.

I use cotton flannel. You can pick up left-overs (partial yards) for a little bit of nothing at sewing-supply stores.
I bought 3 yards of it at Walmart for $2.00 earlier this year, and that's enough to last me a couple of years.
Flannel doesn't 'shed' and is very absorbent - works nicely for general cleaning and can easily be cut to whichever size you need.
I usually run it thru a wash/dry cycle with other clothing, then cut it into patch-sized pieces for bore cleaning and some larger pieces for general cleaning. In my experience, it works much better than the packaged gun-cleaning patches.

jminn1 wrote:I use cotton flannel. You can pick up left-overs (partial yards) for a little bit of nothing at sewing-supply stores.
I bought 3 yards of it at Walmart for $2.00 earlier this year, and that's enough to last me a couple of years.
Flannel doesn't 'shed' and is very absorbent - works nicely for general cleaning and can easily be cut to whichever size you need.
I usually run it thru a wash/dry cycle with other clothing, then cut it into patch-sized pieces for bore cleaning and some larger pieces for general cleaning. In my experience, it works much better than the packaged gun-cleaning patches.

Sounds like that is the way to go. The patches sold are often cotton flannel.