Birchwood Casey- Bore Cleaner? or Biological weapon?

B

Blue Duck357

New member
Store was out of all types of Hoppes so I tried Birchwood Casey Bore scrubber. My god, to me all of the Hoppes cleaners smell like sweet perfume so I'm no wimp, but this Birchwood stuff smells like the sewer of a chemical plant just backed up. My 45 still stinks an hour after I cleaned it. Almost as bad as the smell is the fact that it does not seem to clean the bore even as well as regular Hoppes. Does anybody actually like this stuff?

Thanks, Blue Duck
 
I think you're smelling ammonia. It's pretty good for removing copper fouling (and supposedly lead), but that's all I've used it for. There are other bore cleaners that remove copper and don't smell like ammonia. Keep it and you'll probably have a use for it. Try this: run a generously soaked patch through your bore and let it sit for 5-10 minutes. Then run a clean patch through and see what it picks up. You'll probably be surprised!
 
I'm just getting a tiny amount of blue stain (copper) after a five minute wait. The Hoppes seems to get it out a lot faster. Course the Hoppes gives a green residue when it cleans copper. Any ideas on which chemicals make green or blue... just curious?. I use Windex with amonia to clean my Yugo after fireing corrosive rounds, it does not have the same smell at all, but it might just be a much lower concentration. It cleans with the green hue too. So I wonder if it's the ammonia being the active ingrediant that causes that reaction. If so maybe the Birchwood is using something different?

Thanks, Blue Duck
 
Not sure about the composition differences. I initially bought the Birchwood Casey because I couldn't seem to get all the copper out. The Birchwood Casey seemed to do the trick. After the initial greens and blues, I was getting a dark gray color after letting the Birchwood Casey soak for 5 minutes....maybe that was lead. Last I checked, I was still getting that gray after about 10 of these 'soaking events'.

I like Hoppes and Outers but I'd been stuck on the US Mil Spec solvent since I had a couple of cans. The Birchwood Casey was getting more after the initial solvent wipes and scrubs. My thoughts were: keep on scrubbing until it comes out clean and try everything! Call me a fanatic.....

I still haven't found the best cleaner, but I also balance price with effectiveness :-)

Good luck!
 
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