Originally Posted by
Outpost75
The Ed's Red recipe substitutes ATF for the sperm whale oil that was in the old FA18 formula in Hatcher's Notebook.
The Ed's Red bore cleaner was popularized by him, but was probably first concocted in some form by John Miller of the Army National Guard rifle team, as they had a famous "red oil" mixture which is well known among those who shoot at Camp Perry. Ed met John when he was on the NRA Tech staff working at the National Matches in the early 1980s and was assisted by a VA Team shooter who was a chemical engineer at NavSea gun division, in making certain refinements in perfecting the recipe and instructions. Guys on the Virginia State team began using the stuff and when shooting at Quantico one of the Marine armorers was curious about the red stuff and asked what it was. The VA Team user, whose name I don't remember simply said, "Idunno, it's just red army bore cleaner," in reference to the National Guard rifle team.
The funny part which got garbled in translation was that when a sample got back to the RTE (rifle team equipment shop), the "R" and the "A" had became capitalized, and the unknown product thus attained the barrack's legend that it was indeed purloined rare Red Army bore cleaner of a secret formula brought back from Afghanistan, where the Soviets were at that time.
And so a sample was sent to the FBI lab...
Ed tells me that he got a call from one of his FBI contacts, who was laughing uncontrollably... So the story goes, "What are you and John Miller doing messing with the Marines head's again?..."
"Huh?" Ed was clueless. The story continues...
"We got this lab request from MCDEC for analysis and one of our academy firearms instructors saw and read the tag on the evidence bag, sniffed the sample and then busted out laughing. I asked him what gives and he said, 'well, it sure ain't a Bartle's & James wine cooler, but I can tell you it IS Ed's Red' " and the name stuck. Ed told me later that he mixed the stuff in quantity at Ruger when he was QA manager for the Newport operation, and that they were still using it at the factory when he left in 1987.
And now you know the rest of the story.