a tub of mineral spirits for cleaning.....

J

JERRYS.

New member
a life time ago I use to use give my semi-autos a bath in mineral spirits for about an hour before I cleaned them. I got out of the habit for some reason, seemed regular cleaning was doing the job well enough, or I was lazy I guess.

anyway, I've found that with regular cleaning of my revolvers I still find running black oil here and there oozing out of seems....

does anyone use a bath of sorts for their revolvers prior to the scrubbing? I don't have a place to set up a sonic cleaner, no garage or any place to store chemicals.... I've seen that the "dunk it" buckets sell for quite a bit compared to a simple bucket and a gallon of mineral spirits. what say you?
 
I would not do that for revolvers. With a semi-auto, there are no hidden compartments that will hold onto the fluid. With a revolver, there is a huge hidden compartment that will hold lots of fluid. You'd have to remove the side plate every time you wanted to clean.
 
I'd use ether gunblast gun cleaner, or a can of NON CHLORINSTED brake cleaner to blast that dirty oil out.

Make absolutely sure to follow up with some lube though, as the brake cleaner will leave the metal bone dry.
 
Yeah, I do that too.
Soak in mineral spirits, brush scrub and then blow dry with brake cleaner.
Seems to work equally well with everything.
An air compressor might be better than the brake cleaner with some materials and finishes, though.
If I still had one.
 
It works !!!

Yes, for many years, Mineral Spirits has been my primary cleaner and yes, It works better if you soak for about three days. During that soaking, I slosh it from time to time. I pick up a mastic short bucket with lid and elevate a rack The parts are elevated on top of the rack and when you slosh, the dirt falls to the bottom and area from the item. On M/L barrels, at the end of the day and too lazy to clean, I made a 2" PVC plugged on the bottom and capped on top. O secured this to one of the legs on my bench. Insert barrel, Pour the M/S till the all of the barrel is submerged and again, let it soak for three days or whenever I can get around to cleaning. As long as you keep the oxygen out, no corrosion can start and later, no water is left to start any rusting. ... ;)

Be Patient and;
Be Safe !!!
 
Seems to me y'all are making brain surgery out of a splinter removal!

Y'all clean this thoroughly after each firing?

My method is simply to run a patch soaked with Hoppe's No. 9 down the bore, swab each chamber with the same. Then clean the cylinder window and exterior with Hoppe's No. 9. Use a stainless steel bore brush if needed, then wipe exterior and cylinder window dry, dry bore and chambers, lightly oil with my 50/50 mix motor oil/machine oil. Wipe off with dry paper towel and put away. Takes maybe fifteen~twenty minutes.

Effective? I've had one of my guns over fifty years, excess of twenty thousand rounds through one gun.

Bob Wright
 
I swab the bore and chambers with Hoppes no. 9, then take the patch off and use that to wipe most of the gun.

Let set for 5-10 minutes, then scrub gun inside and out with bore brushes and toothbrushes.

Wipe and scrub everything clean, couple of drops of oil on clean patch on exterior of gun and leave bore and chambers dry.

This is fore smokeless gun. BP ones get a much thorough cleaning.
 
Bob

Use a stainless steel bore brush if needed,
Click to expand...

Stainless steel brush? Do you have any problems with bore, cylinder face or muzzle crowns? I've used chore boy all copper scrubs for years, but a stainless steel brush scares the hell outa me. Rod
 
i have done that for barrels and cylinder, but not the entire gun. it does help break up the nasty stuff for easy cleaning, especially cylinders. may be a good option for AR bolts too
 
Rodfac
Stainless steel brush? Do you have any problems with bore, cylinder face or muzzle crowns? I've used chore boy all copper scrubs for years, but a stainless steel brush scares the hell outa me. Rod
Click to expand...

As I said I've used this method for a long time with no problems. I use the correct size bore brush, lubricated with Hoppe's No. 9. I do use a larger caliber bore brush for cleaning the chambers, entering from the rear face of the cylinder and not quite exiting the front.

The bristles are flexible enough they cause no harm.

Bob Wright
 
Bob, Do you find the SS brush does a quicker job on leading than say a Lewis Lead Remover? I've used the Lewis since the early 70's with good results, until I discovered Chore Boy's, which make short work of any lead build up. But for cleaning the forcing cone, the Lewis' tapered cone mandrels have no peer in my experience. Rod
 
A gunsmith told me the stainless brushes and tornado brand brushes won't hurt your guns as they are designed as gun cleaning brushes made of non-hardened stainless. Some stainless brushes not designed for guns are a different story per the same smith. Personally, I don't like the sound of the stainless brushes going through a bore.
 
One thing Mineral Spirits does a great job on is Cosmoline.

When I had my C&R, I'd take all my recently acquired guns apart as much as I could, soak everything in a bowl of mineral spirits and the next morning all that cosmo would come right off with a toothbrush and compressed air.

Of course it took all the oil off too, so you'd need to re-lube everything with your favorite gun oil or CLP.
 
I think a solvent soak for every cleaning is excessive but I do keep a solvent tank is excessive. I do keep one around for deep cleans. An old pressure cooker, works great to keep solvent in. Is a mix of laquer thinner, mek and acetone.
 
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