Clean a gun with gasoline?

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I just found it odd that they would have a gun bath filled with gasoline inside a training room
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I'm sure the author/reporter was simply mistaken. She was probably looking at a perfectly normal solvent cleaning station.

I can absolutely assure you that Army Special Forces garrison arms rooms, class rooms, and maintenance bays have been using standard auto shop/weapons parts washers (filled with solvent...not gasoline) for over 40 years. Any supervisor or leader who allowed a solvent tank or wash tray to be filled with gasoline would be fired on the spot for stupidity.

In a remote field location or combat outpost with no solvent? Sure. You do what you have to do...carefully.

As an SF sniper, I was taught a common technique to periodically clean the trigger assembly on glass-bedded M21 Sniper Rifles. We would carefully squirt that component with Zippo lighter fluid (Naptha), which would dissolve gunpowder residue and flush dirt, salt, moisture, or sand out the mechanism. The fluid would wash out the residue and drip downward towards the trigger guard...then evaporate. You couldn't pull out that assembly (as with a normal M-14) without ripping it out of (and ruining) the bedding job. Best done out doors. ;)
 
Wow! this is very interesting. It's my first time to hear/read something about cleaning guns using gasoline. Cool. Out of curiosity, I searched online on other ways to clean guns. I found something that uses an ultrasonic cleaner. Anybody heard of that? anyone tried it yet? Which is better - gasoline or this type of cleaning? I really want to know because I'm a newbie and it will be a big help. Thanks guys.

Check out the article here: http://www.iultrasonic.com/springfield-xd-overhaul-with-an-ultrasonic-cleaner.html
:)
 
Yeah, I have used gasoline before in like a shallow, and cheap baking pan. I just field stripped the gun, a Beretta 92/96, took off the rubber Hogue grips.

I had it setting in the pan for like 3 days. At least twice a day I would go out to the pan and tip it back and forth to slosh the gas around.

At the end of the 3rd day, I could definitely see all the crud and sediment settling down in the bottom of the pan.

I think it worked well....sorry, I am kinda lazy, and at the time I didn't have all the little punches to break the slide down any farther to say get the safeties off and get the firing pin out.
 
It works really well as a cleaner but you have to be a bit smarter than the can that it came in to use it.
 
Thinking back when I was a teenager I used gasoline as a solvent/cleaner for practically everything around the house: cleaning lawnmower parts, car parts, tools, tar remover, etc. I didn't even know about other solvents as that was all my Dad ever used. I siphoned a lot of gasoline as well (from the truck to the ski boat) and that can be nasty if you aren't quick enough. Fortunately we never blew anything up including ourselves. I also did not know back then how explosive gas fumes can be.

But we never used gas for cleaning guns, only Hoppe's #9.

It can certainly be used but with so many other better choices gasoline would be about my last choice for a solvent today. If I had no access to purpose made gun cleaners I would use non-chlorinated brake cleaner, kerosene, diesel, or mineral spirits.
 
This sounds like bs, but I have personal knowledge of a guy who cleaned carburetors by placing them in a pot of gasoline and then boiling the gas over a hot plate. This Brit used the technique when cleaning Triumph carbs. I hate to relate this true story because of the flaming I'll receive.
 
I believe you.

However, before we get to page 3 of the unsafe-uses-for-gasoline list, I'm going to close this. Advice has been given, take it or leave it.
 
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