Tiger II Cleaning Rod

Information on these rods is slim at best and pretty much reserved to tank restoration sites. Everything I've been able to find indicates that 88mm gun barrel rods were wood with metal connection points. The rods could have been painted, although I would assume that tank crews would keep the connection points clean. Obviously, these rods would become quite dirty over time from carbon build-up and may have become nearly black in appearance.

Hopefully someone else can chime in with more definitive information. Although I suspect that the majority of these large-bore rods were wood, I am interested in knowing if any of the smaller caliber rods were metal.

That makes sense to me. Dirty wooden rods seems to explain what I've been seeing. I'm also curious about the smaller rods. Thanks for the input. Every bit helps.
Matt

All I can remember seeing for cleaning rods are wood with metal fittings, at least until I Googled; "Tiger II Munster". The rods on the Munster KT appear to be metal, at least as far as I can tell. I can't seem to get these photos to load beyond thumbnails;

http://images.google.com/images?q=Tiger+II+munster&hl=en&btnG=Google+Search

Here is a shot of Saumur's restored and running KT;



These are obviously wood.