What kind of solvent do you use?

[Fly-guy]

What do you consider to be the best solvent to use for cleaning up after a day of cast boolit shooting or heaven forbid, the other kind of bullets?

I started out using Hoppes #9 mannny years ago, progressed to Shooters Choice and recently tried Butches Bore Shine and Barnes CR-10. It looks like to me that the CR-10 is the most agressive when it comes to jacketed bullets.

[smilie=f: guy

[onesonek]

Hoppes #9, Breakfree CLP, and Wipeout here. Can't say they are the best for cast, or in the event of leading however, just really getting into it.

[10 ga]

Ed's Red! With acetone/without the lanolin for heavy powder fouling and removing plastic fouling from MLs and shotguns, also good for the barrel clean up, but be careful as it will damage many finishes. Without the acetone or lanolin for regular cleaning. Without acetone and with lanolin for storage. I can make a gallon, about a quart of each type pretty cheap. It is really good for cleaning shotgun chokes and barrels as the plastic can mess with patterns as it builds up. I really like it in my Savage MLII too, but then I'm shooting smokeless. Just my $.02 from an old guy.
I think Brownells actually sells Ed's Red.
Google it for the formula.
AND only store in metal or glass containers! Lesson learned!
Best, 10 ga

[atr]

hoppes #9, WD40 and acetone,,,,note you can get acetone in small quantities when you buy finger nail polish remover.....its pure acetone and cheaper than the larger cans sold in the hardware store

[wiljen]

I make a cross between Ed's Red and Hatcher's original formula for it.

Basically Ed's Red with turpentine substituted in.

[dale2242]

I like Hoppes #9 and Shooters Choice for everyday bore cleaning.
Sweets 7.62 to remove copper fouling........dale

[ph4570]

Ed's Red for the past several years, #9 before that.

[Tatume]

I use LBT Blue Soft lube on my cast bullets, and do not clean.

[Ron in PA]

:drinks:Ed's Red with Marvel Mystery oil substituted for ATF, and #9

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

I make a cross between Ed's Red and Hatcher's original formula for it.

Basically Ed's Red with turpentine substituted in.

Didn't Ed's Red formula originally use Turpentine,
then Mineral spirits was substituted due to cost or availabilty.

I use Ed's red with Turpentine instead of Mineral spirits, with Acetone, and with lanolin. I am very happy with the cleaning results, it seems to quickly loosen beeswax based lube fouling, where others aren't so quick.
Jon

[Char-Gar]

Clean up what? I use Ed's Red for gun cleaning, but other stuff just gets a paper towel at best.

[winelover]

Kroil and a patch with JB Bore paste occasionally.

Winelover

[onondaga]

I use Hoppe's Elite and it does the job with no stink. Between shots at the bench I use a Hoppe's Bore Snake, this keeps end of day cleaning at home to a minimal simple job.

Gary

[casterofboolits]

Hoppes #9. Bought a couple pint bottles a few years back and just opened the second pint. I use CLP Breakfree to lube the guns. WD40 is not allowed in my gun room.

[geargnasher]

Ed's Red! With acetone/without the lanolin for heavy powder fouling and removing plastic fouling from MLs and shotguns, also good for the barrel clean up, but be careful as it will damage many finishes. Without the acetone or lanolin for regular cleaning. Without acetone and with lanolin for storage. I can make a gallon, about a quart of each type pretty cheap. It is really good for cleaning shotgun chokes and barrels as the plastic can mess with patterns as it builds up. I really like it in my Savage MLII too, but then I'm shooting smokeless. Just my $.02 from an old guy.
I think Brownells actually sells Ed's Red.
Google it for the formula.
AND only store in metal or glass containers! Lesson learned!
Best, 10 ga

+1, exactly what I do. The acetone works great for plastic wad fouling in shotguns, so I have a shotgun formula with double the acetone to stay ahead of evaporation.

I don't shoot jacketed anymore, but when I buy a gun that has, I use my Outers Foul-Out III per the directions.

Gear

[markinalpine]

BEFORE shooting with cast boolits, I run a patch coated with JPW through the bore and cylinder, and find it helps prevent leading, and makes cleanup of all fouling much easier. I let it sit for several minutes, while packing the supplies I'm taking to the range, then run a dry patch through the swabbed openings just to remove any excess.
Mark :coffeecom

[Moonie]

Eds Red, with acetone, with lanolin

[pdawg_shooter]

Ed's red made with atf, mineral spirits and kroil.

[buck1]

Eds red, Shooters Choice and #9.

[southpaw]

#9. I love the smell of that stuff! I use it for the majority of my cleaning needs. CR-10 and sweete's when copper is a problem. Kroil is used aswell at times. My quart of hoppes is getting kinda low so I might look into making some Ed's red.

Jerry Jr.

[chboats]

Ed's red gets my vote. Works for everything except copper fouling. I use the original formula: acetone, ATF, mineral spirits and kerosene. Mix it up by the gallon. But like 10 ga said, it will damage any wood finish. It has always worked for me. Saw no reason to change it
carl

[GH1]

Chalk up another vote for Ed's Red here.
GH1

[Shooter6br]

Ed's red with acetone. It also is a great rust preventor. (I would not add acetone for wipe down)

[tomf52]

Ed's red is one I like, but don't laugh until you try it and that is plain old Liquid Wrench. Available in small plastic spouted squirt bottles and it does a pretty good job on powder fouling and getting under leading to loosen it. Does not seem to attack stock finishes either. About $2.75 in the big box hardware stores.

[ElDorado]

I mostly use Hoppe's #9. I find little oily splatter marks on my work bench after using Ed's Red. I also use CLP sometimes. I recently tried Shooter's Choice for the first time, and I thought it did a great job.

My father taught me to clean his old 22 by pulling a piece of cloth soaked in 30 wt motor oil through the bore with a string. Then he would wipe down the outside, both metal and wood, with the 30 wt.

He actually scoffed at me in later years when he saw that I had bought a commercial cleaner for my own guns. My old man wasn’t the type of guy to reminisce and wax sentimental about the smell of Hoppe’s. But for some reason, that old Springfield is still in great shape and a great shooter, too.

[Mal Paso]

Ed's Red for guns.

Hoppe's #9 for aftershave.

WD40 isn't allowed on the property!

[primersp]

ed'Red original formula and an stainless steel cleaner that contains no abrasive but amonia
i have also jb

[olafhardt]

I buy the small cans of clear plastic pipe primer and cleaner at the hardware store plumbing section. It is MEK (methyl ethyl ketone), it stinks, is flamable, and has attacked every finish I got it on. It comes with a very useful swab DONOT GET THE GLUE. There is no residual oil or other corrosion protection.

[Lizard333]

#9, here for the bore and general cleaning. Wish they made a cologne for that stuff!! I use Gun Scrubber on my Semi-auto pistols to get in all the nooks and crannys, expensive but does the job very well! I usually finish with CLP and a wipe down of everything.

[alamogunr]

I'm working on my last 1/2 gal of Ed's Red w/acetone & lanolin. Contrary to what everyone else does I store it in a plastic juice bottle. It has been in there for about 5 years and has never been a problem. I wouldn't argue with those who say the acetone has migrated out, but if it did, it didn't affect the jug.

Someone might ask why I even risked it. I didn't have a metal container big enough and didn't want a glass container in the shop. I did have several of these grape juice jugs from church so I used them. For the first couple of years I put them in a metal tub just in case. Now I don't do that.

John
W.TN

[jrayborn]

Seriously, nobody has tried Bullplate sprue lube as a cleaner????? I have to admit that I have...

[Shiloh]

Ed's Red. No Lanolin. Stored in a Coleman Fuel can.

Shiloh

[44man]

NO WD-40, PERIOD! :holysheep
The cans make great targets! :bigsmyl2:

[waksupi]

About WD-40. I just received our club newsletter, and this is an excerpt from it. The writer is a third generation machinist, steam operator, gun builder, and Navy veteran;

"As we stood talking in the middle of traders row there was an incident that unfortunately tells the sign of the times; a couple of men dressed in Rendezvous gear, whatever that is, walked by and the two men we were talking to greeted them and knew them enough to ask how they were doing. The answer came back that it wasn’t doing so good and that the one of them had dry balled his flint lock and couldn’t remove the ball, the men I was talking to asked the usual questions about what they had done to remove the ball, had they used a puller, had they tried a CO2 charge, had they tried to get priming powder behind the ball?

The answers were short and kind of in the line of we know what we’re doing and you don’t, the pullers had taken out the center of the ball, the ball was covering the touch hole and so they couldn’t use CO2 nor any priming powder! The person who was talking to us and had asked said that he had a longer puller and maybe that would work, the answer again was that it wouldn’t work, I said that he would probably have to pull the breach plug and push the ball out.

Now the all knowing expert on flint lock rifles, who anyone that smart shouldn’t have been in the position of loading without powder anyhow, informed me that you CAN’T remove the breach plug because you will never be able to get it back in the right position again!!!!!!! We all said almost at one time that he should place a witness mark on the plug and barrel and we were informed that you couldn’t do that and he calmly walked away with his useless rifle!! In the first place his short, fat puller had probably just wedged the lead ball tighter into the rifling and if he was as big an expert as he sounded he probably hadn’t cleaned the bore very well, he could have even used WD40 which is not good for rifle bores in the first place!

I have in different times removed the breach plug and in one case during the state shoot drove back the 10 miles to the shop where I removed the breach plug and had to drive the offending ball out of the rusty barrel with a brass dowel and the 3 pound blacksmith hammer! This man had religiously used WD40 to rust proof his barrel, as I cleaned the barrel, which looked like the outside of a Holstein Cow I retrieved the ball and patch intact to show him how hard it had wedged into the rusty rifling!"

And that pretty much covers the use of WD-40 in barrels.

[watkibe]

Hoppes # 9, and occasionally mineral spirits for miscellaneous grunge.

[MBTcustom]

Not to disagree with Waksupi, But I think that WD-40 has a good place in gun cleaning. It works better than anything at getting the water out of a firearm that has been rained on or hunted hard in humid climates or dropped in dewy grass etc.etc. It is also a very effective cleaner and dissolves most any oil/carbon/slime/resin buildup. The only thing is that the solvents will evaporate off leaving a gooey stuff behind that will allow rust to start growing very easily. You can use it as a cleaner, if you follow it with alcohol or something pure, and follow that with a rust preventative. I have used it to get off stuff that regular Hoppe's might not, or in situations where I need a large quantity of cheap cleaner (like for my black powder rifles) but it never, ever, has the last word in a cleaning job.

[wtfooptimax200]

I have recently converted to Ed's red (no acetone) from #9. I have never made the mix with Lanolin....what purpose does it serve?

As far as copper fouling goes, I've heard nothing but GREAT things about KG12, never used it, though.

[alamogunr]

I have recently converted to Ed's red (no acetone) from #9. I have never made the mix with Lanolin....what purpose does it serve?



There is another recipe for cleaner that uses LLA instead of lanolin. I guess that the purpose of both is rust prevention.

John
W.TN

[wiljen]

Lanolin helps the stuff stay in place. ATF is the corrosion fighter.

[Pat I.]

WipeOut for jacketed Ed's Red for cast. I don't clean very often though.

[MtGun44]

goodsteel has a point. WD-40 comes from "water displacing - 40th try at a formula" It is
intended to displace water in ignition systems, like a distributor (anybody still have one?)
and NOT as a lube or corrosion preventative.

IMO it sucks out loud as a lube and is a marginally useful corrosion preventative, but a
good water displacer.

Kills primers (temporarily) too.

Bill