The parts that sit between the rod and the bore, plus the odds and ends that make cleaning a bench job rather than a kitchen-table job.
A bore guide is the one thing most people skip and should not. It keeps the rod centred so it is not dragging across the throat and the chamber mouth, which is exactly where accuracy lives. Clean from the breech wherever the action allows it; where it does not — most shotguns and some rimfires — a muzzle guide does the same job at the other end.
A bore snake is a field tool, not a replacement for a rod. It will pull the worst of the fouling out at the end of a day and it packs into a pocket, but it cannot work a patch against a stubborn copper ring, and it carries last time's fouling back down the bore unless you wash it.
Chamber safety flags are worth having whatever the ground rules say — an empty-chamber indicator anyone can see from ten yards ends the argument before it starts. Match jag and brush diameter to the calibre rather than eyeing it: an oversized bronze brush will jam, and a loose one does nothing at all.
Related: cleaning kits, cleaning rods, bore brushes, jags, bore mops, patches and cloths, solvents and grease, maintenance stations.
