scoot wrote:How do you get experience???
Experience takes time and costs money, and involves making mistakes, but it's the best way for the lessons to stick.
There is no right way to clean a barrel, there are dozens if not hundreds of ways people have cleaned barrels for centuries. Some work better than others, some don't work at all, some actually cause damage. But basically you are simply cleaning off anything (moisture, salts, and chemical residues) that might cause damage to the metal itself (generally some type of steel alloy so the biggest issue is iron corrosion), or to the mechanical design (the rifling, crown, chamber, etc), and then applying something that will protect the metal from the elements (oil or grease generally). Pick whatever you think works and do it. After some time you'll decide whether it's working as you want or it's not. Or you might just want to try something different. Most barrels are going to be a steel alloy, blued on outside surfaces, but probably "in the white" in the bore due to bullet friction wiping away any blue. Some barrels might be chrome plated in the bore. The blued outer is less likely to rust than the clean inner surface but all of it should have some film of protective oil or grease.
Or you can study what other people have decided works for them, including the manufacturers of barrels, and adopt one of their methods.