FelixP

Hi all, I was wondering what all I need to know about gun cleaning/care. I'm looking at getting a Hoppes Bore Snake, but what all do I need in the way of oil and grease? I have a semi-auto and a bolt gun. I know this is vague, but ignorance necessitates it. Thanks in advance.

BTW, one gun is stainless and synthetic, and the other is wood and blued.

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Walt

Bore snakes are a handy thing to have in your range bag, but I would definitely recommend investing in a one-piece rod. There are a ton of different solvents out there, but you can't go wrong with Hoppes #9. The Hoppes and Remington gun oils are fine for what you're doing.

Quick and dirty; I use nylon brushes, not the copper ones. 100% cotton cleaning patches. Always insert your cleaning rod at the action (breech) end of the barrel, never ever from the muzzle end. This is to protect the rifling at the muzzle of the barrel. Its the last thing to touch your bullet before it flies off in to space - a minor ding in there will seriously hurt your rifles accuracy. One you push a patch through the barrel, remove the dirty patch before withdrawing the rod. Again, this is to protect rifling at the end of the barrel.

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Slims

...FYI, until you become a cleaning guru, don't buy a bunch of different solvents.

In particular, stay away from Sweets, M Pro-7, Powder Blast, gun scrubber and any sort of degreaser.

They will strip all the oil out of your gun, which isn't a problem in itself, but you will start to get rust after only a few hours if you don't then promptly oil with a decent gun oil.

Sweets (I believe) will actually damage your barrel if you allow it to sit too long. Some products, such as gun scrubber can actually start to dissolve plastic or polymer parts on some pistols, so be careful.


Your two best all-purpose bets are Hoppes #9 and Break Free (or any other brand) CLP, which stands for Cleaner Lubricant Protectant. The Army uses nothing but CLP for most purposes, it does everything pretty well, from cleaning to lubricating to rust prevention. It is probably your simplest solution, and it doesn't have a strong smell such as Hoppes.

Aside from a good solvent, a simple $10 gun cleaning kit is probably your best bet. A boresnake is a great tool, but typically barrels need the least attention as they are somewhat self cleaning.



For me, a typical, basic cleaning session consists of:

1 Ensure the weapon is unloaded.
2 Remove the bolt
3 Run a solvent soaked patch through the bore, from rear to front and allow it to sit for a minute or two (it will dissolve carbon/lead/copper in barrel).
4 Run a brush with solvent through the bore from rear to front two or three times.
5 Run two or three solvent covered patches followed by a dry patch through the bore. If the dry patch is mostly clean continue, if it turns grey from fouling, repeat steps 3-5.
6. Clean the chamber with a lightly solvent coated patch followed by several dry patches (important to ensure the chamber has no solvent left in it or it can pit your chamber when you start to shoot!)
7. Wipe out any dirty areas in receiver.
8. Wipe weapon down with a lightly solvent/oil coated patch in order to put a light coat of oil on all metal surfaces in order to prevent rust and to lubricate moving parts.
9. Clean bolt: Wipe down with solvent covered patch, checking under the extractor for fouling/brass buildup.
10. If necessary clean under extractor with a toothpick
11. Oil Bolt
12. Reassemble Rifle
13. Function Check to make sure you didn't screw anything up.

This is actually a pretty quick process and shouldn't take more than 10 minutes or so. perfection is not necessary, rifles will run well even with a little fouling and excessive cleaning can cause damage to the bore and chamber. The Semi-auto may be more time consuming if you start breaking down the action and cleaning those, but it typically isn't necessary.


To put it into perspective, I clean my military rifle after about every thousand rounds or so with a quick wipedown (quicker than what I have described here) followed by a thorough cleaning before storage and periodic wipedowns when not being fired. Bolt guns shoot so few rounds that cleaning should focus mostly on getting rid of dust/dirt and re-lubricating.

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therealcat

I'll concur with a caveat: never use any solvent containing ammonia on a nickel-plated gun: if there's any least imperfection in the nickel, the ammonia can attack the copper beneath it and ruin the finish in PDQ order.

KirStang

I usually use:

1 big bottle of CLP Spray.
1 Towel.
1 Cleaning Kit with Brass Rods (or some sort of 'soft' metal)
1 Cleaning patches.

Lay out towel on ground. Field strip parts over towel. Hit with generous CLP. Walk away and do something else. Come back later and wipe all the crud out, using another patch to leave surface clean. Use brass rod to clean bore/barrel. Reassemble & voila. If I really felt like cleaning in depth, I'll use some degreaser to hit tough to reach parts, but otherwise, cleaning a weapon is pretty fast/straightforward.

But sometimes you'll find me spending an hour scrubbing the bolt tail of an AR.

krystalogik

Erk!

I didn't know that about the M-Pro 7! Back to HOppes for me then. Thanks!

I've been good about reapplying CLP after cleaning, I assume I'm good in that case? Or do I need to find a "decent gun oil" and relube everything with that?

HK pistol, for reference. I don't take it apart further than body, spring, barrel. Wondering if anything has dripped into the hammer assembly that I need to be worried about

No rust yet, at least!

Plan9

HK pistols are pretty easy to clean... all those clunky components. You just need a barrel brush of the appropriate caliber, some Q-tips and paper towels, and the gun oil described above. I use CLP, Hoppes #9, BreakFree, and RemOil gun oils, myself. Pistols rarely get as dirty as rifles such as the AR15 or AK47. Avoid drowning them in oil and wipe them down before use.

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samcol

This shit right here.

BONUS: It smells so good I use it as cologne.

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