Do you wear gloves when you clean your guns?

Gloves? Nope, I clean my guns in a climate controlled environment so my hands never get very cold.

Plus if I wore gloves, they would get contaminated with solvents and nasty oils. Why ruin a nice pair of gloves?
 
Its probably a good idea to wear some. I haven't yet in the 30 years I have been cleaning guns but I keep intending to...:D
 
Never.

There's just not that much to cleaning a gun. Working on a mortorcycle or car is a different story.

Besides, if you use one of those oil-filter solvent traps......:D
 
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No, I never have.
I'm in my senior years, a little long in the tooth so I don't fret over things that I do or eat that's going to kill me, as a matter of fact I never have.
After all, none of us is going to get out of this world alive.

Best Regards
Bob Hunter
 
No, I never have.
I'm in my senior years, a little long in the tooth so I don't fret over things that I do or eat that's going to kill me, as a matter of fact I never have.
After all, none of us is going to get out of this world alive.
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Nicely stated, I concur.
 
True, but I - for one - want to delay that ending as long as possible
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And be able to breath without dragging an oxygen bottle around with me.
The main reason I use gloves is that I am lazy.
Some of that crap is hard to get off your hands.
 
Yes and . . .

I wear nitrile gloves when I clean an when I reload. Hands come away "dirty" from both those processes and I know the dirt isn't soil. :-) Plus when I come home from the range I have "D-lead" that I use to clean my hands with.

Live well, BE SAFE

Prof Young
 
If you've ever had a brush with cancer you won't want to joke about this stuff. So much of what we do in shooting, also cars, construction, a lot of things that are fun and even necessary, can be more dangerous than we realize.
I use that gritty orange mechanic soap, seems to work pretty well.
On another subject but the same general idea, someone once said he wanted to die on Mars, but not on impact.
 
I was not joking or making light of the subject of wearing gloves while cleaning guns, those that wish to wear them I say go for it.

In the 60's after graduation from high school Uncle Sam paid for my Senior trip to a country called Vietnam.
While there I was assigned to a mechanized infantry unit ( www.1-5th-m-25th-inf-1966.com ) we operated in Hell's Half Acre in the Tay Ninh Province.
The jungles were thick to the point that very little day light shown through the tree tops, so Uncle Sam decided to help us out by using a defoliant called Agent Orange.
That along with the insect repellent that we bathed in to try and keep all the types of insects that liked to bite or sting us off of us I'm sure was not good for us.

Add to the above all the rank horses I've ridden, all the ill tempered bovine I've worked, 30 years of dancing with the Devil, God only knows what I breathed in and came in contact with while doing that.

So yes I too would like to live as long as possible, but I don't sit around and fret about it and I sure don't fret about a little Hoppes No.9 coming in contact with my hands.

Best Regards
Bob Hunter
 
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What! You're supposed to clean your guns? Oops... :D

I rarely use gloves but agree it's probably smart. I sure wish I'd known to use hearing protection in the '60-70s. I pay for that every day now, no hearing aid can fix that.
 
If you reload with lead bullets, especially with a hand press like I do, where you touch each and every bullet, then it's probably a good idea. I had myself tested a few years ago when I was reloading a lot of rounds and my blood-borne lead levels were elevated.
 
I wear 5 mil blue nitrile gloves http://www.harborfreight.com/5-mil-nitrile-powder-free-gloves-100-pc-large-68497.html sometimes the black nitrile which are thicker at 9 mil, http://www.harborfreight.com/9-mil-nitrile-powder-free-gloves-50-pc-large-68511.html every time I clean my firearms and I recommend that all wear gloves when handling gun powder solvents and copper solvents.

You just don't know and you won't know until it is too late whether the chemicals in these solvents will cause you problems in the long run. It was not that long ago that Hoppes #9 contained nitro benzene a known carcinogen. Most of the chemicals on the market have been "grandfathered", that is no real testing has been done to prove they are good or bad for humans one way or another and the grandfathered chemicals are assumed good until proven bad. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_Substances_Control_Act_of_1976 Humans did not evolve with industrial chemicals and so it is best practice to assume that contact with industrial chemicals has risk and should be minimized to the maximum extent possible. Therefore, wear gloves.

Given that gunpowder solvent will not only contain its own chemicals, they will solvate lead, barium, etc, all the nasty chemicals in primers and gunpowder, and that stuff will absorb through the skin. Therefore, wear gloves.
 
An interesting thread. While I am certainly old enough to know better, I have never worn gloves when cleaning my guns. I am just young enough to have missed a senior trip to Vietnam, but I do come from a generation where asbestos, DDT, and chlordane were widely used in industry and agriculture. Knowing what we know today there really isn't any good excuse for not using proper precautions when dealing with chemicals. I am going to add a box of disposable gloves to my cleaning supplies.
 
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