If you habitually used Hoppes #9 to clean your guns but...

Take a some ferric chloride and stick a cleaned and de-varnished ten penny nail in it. Watch it start etching straight away and dissolve. You think one iron compound wouldn't bother to attack, but apparently the chlorine likes to be shared. And any little splatter of ferric chloride on iron or steel that is left to dry in an even remotely humid environment results a few weeks, if not days (depending on the humidity) later in a big knotty deep rust barnacle, heavily pitting the steel underneath. Definitely no go.

I'd guess the ammonium persulphate has a good chance of doing the same thing, but don't know from personal experience. The last time I was etching my own circuit boards was about thirty years ago, and then we had replaced ferric chloride with a mixture of dilute solutions of sulfuric acid and hydrogen peroxide. The peroxide cause rapid buble formation that kept scrubbing the copper so you didn't get the underetched zones that ferric chloride can leave.

The name, Hoppe's No. 9 came from the fact it had 9 ingredients originally. Last time I looked at the MSDS, it was down to 5. So, more than just the nitrobenzene (something archers once used to speed up development of callouses on their string fingers) were removed from it. I read the original formula somewhere once, with all 9 original ingredients included. I've forgotten where, but it seems to me there was a mercuric compound, as well, probably for amalgamating lead fouling.

The Hoppe's Elite is water soluble and safe. If you want something that is easy to get hold of that works about as well as the current #9, make up some Ed's Red. Automatic transmission fluid, deodorized K1 kerosene, mineral spirits, and acetone all in equal portions. The ATF and acetone alone is also a good penetrating oil. Your best bet it dribble a little down the bore while it is still warm at the range, plug the ends and head home. Getting the carbon while it's still soft makes it come out much more easily.

Finally, talk your gun store owner into importing some Boretech Eliminator, a genuinely superior general purpose cleaner. I also squirt it down the bore at the range and plug the ends with neoprene stoppers for the ride home. Gun is pretty much clean after I get there and wet patch it to clear out the bulk of the crud and to check for any remaining copper. I let that sit for ten and run a dry patch. No brushing, no muss, no fuss.
 
Finally, talk your gun store owner into importing some Boretech Eliminator, a genuinely superior general purpose cleaner. I also squirt it down the bore at the range and plug the ends with neoprene stoppers for the ride home. Gun is pretty much clean after I get there and wet patch it to clear out the bulk of the crud and to check for any remaining copper. I let that sit for ten and run a dry patch. No brushing, no muss, no fuss.
Click to expand...
I don't wet and plug the bore, but Bore Tech Eliminator is what I have been using lately.

Great stuff.


Just don't use it with brass or copper bore brushes. You'll never know when the copper fouling has been removed, because you're getting color from the brush(es).
 
About 35 or 40 years back I became acquainted with an older gentleman that was a gunsmith.
He specialized in building some very nice custom rifles and told me when it comes to bore cleaner he highly recommends Accu-Bore.
I ordered some, after trying it I've never used anything else.

Best Regards
Bob Hunter
 
Beats me, I don't have any nickel or gold plated guns to worry about.

There was a series of claims on the SASS Wire back when I was active in CAS that Ballistol would fade your case colors.

I just don't think the stuff is that strong, it is oil with some additives to make it emulsifiable in water (Which is what gets out the chloride residue from "corrosive" primers.) and an odorant so your Feldwebel knows you have cleaned your Mauser.

I saw there were youtube videos claiming to test the actual metal dissolving ability of Ballistol, but I don't have an hour's patience for them.
 
I have a question for those who say there are better choices than good ole Hoppe's. How?
When I clean my guns with Hoppe's #9 they end up........well,.......clean!
So how much more clean, than clean do the newer products get a gun?
 
I have a question for those who say there are better choices than good ole Hoppe's. How?
When I clean my guns with Hoppe's #9 they end up........well,.......clean!
So how much more clean, than clean do the newer products get a gun?
Click to expand...
200% ?
Hoppes #9 takes longer, takes more elbow grease, and takes more applications.
And, in the end, the parts in question are only half as clean (if that), as they are with less effort and less solvent when using a competing product. (In my experience.)

Hoppes #9 smells great... but I don't consider it to be worth a crap, any more. The remaining Hoppes that I have on hand is used to dilute other oils when I soak a rag to re-oil the bluing on my firearms, or to treat freshly-blued parts.


It's a bit like toilet paper versus baby wipes.
Toilet paper gets your butt clean.
But once you try baby wipes to 'finish', you learn that there's a whole new level of clean. ;)


My brothers have a similar concept for rating the effectiveness of cartridges/loads on varmints.
When shooting prairie dogs, there's dead, which is just dead; deader, which might include evisceration and flying chunks; and then there's better dead, which indicates "red mist" and that you might spend half an hour searching, just trying to find an ear or toe.
Everything still ends up dead, but better dead is definitely better than just dead.
 
It's a bit like toilet paper versus baby wipes.
Toilet paper gets your butt clean.
But once you try baby wipes to 'finish', you learn that there's a whole new level of clean.
Click to expand...

OK. Good analogy, I'm sure, but that has left me with a mental image over my morning coffee that I could have done without!! ;)

When shooting prairie dogs, there's dead, which is just dead; deader, which might include evisceration and flying chunks; and then there's better dead, which indicates "red mist" and that you might spend half an hour searching, just trying to find an ear or toe.
Click to expand...

Now that I think about it, so did this! :eek:

For my part, given the OP subject, I will go there tomorrow and pick up whichever of the M-pro and Elite is cheapest, seeing as they seem hard to tell apart in performance.
 
I bought:
- Ballistol 200ml
- Hoppes Elite Bore Gel 100ml
- Hoppe's Dri-Lube 200ml (just in case)

We'll see how it goes.

The others on sale were all cleaner/lubricants or oils and I wanted a dedicated cleaner that wasn't a foam.

Thanks for the pointers!
 
I haven't tried the gel. Let us know how it goes.


Cheapshooter,

Go back to my previous post #21 and follow the link to the article on the Boretech product. It's a magazine article on testing cleaners, and includes describing a range session in which a fellow was sure his gun was clean, too, until he looked with the borescope. If you don't have access to a borescope, you may be unaware of what was all is being left in there, too. Getting it out can reduce group sizes.
 
I use Hoppe's 9 and Hoppe's Gun Oil religiously. I use it to clean and lubricate all my guns. It cleans corrosive ammo as well. I would just order a quart of it online. It's got a pretty small spout of it so it's easy to put on patches and brushes.
 
The OP can't just order a quart on line; he's in Estonia. That's why he limited the choices at the start of his post to what the stores there can import.

The Hoppe's Elite and the Boretech products I mentioned are water-based, so they dissolve the corrosion-causing potassium chloride (combustion product of potassium chlorate) from corrosive primers even better than Hoppe's No.9 can. They dissolve copper and eventually even lead by chelation, leaving the dissolved waste non-toxic, despite the metals in it.

The Boretech corrosion inhibitors are so effective you can let their products dry out in the bore and still have remaining humidity protection. I assume Elite has something similar. And the borescope doesn't lie about what cleans most effectively. I know No.9 is an old favorite, but it was introduced in 1903, and, believe it or not, 112 years is enough for chemistry to have made an advancement or two.

Hoppe's claim that Elite cuts the cleaning time by 80% sounds plausible if you don't count time letting the solvent sit and work. Boretech Eliminator makes that kind of difference if you use it correctly. Check out the article I linked to.
 
I haven't tried the gel. Let us know how it goes.
Click to expand...

I will, but I fear that I don't know enough to tell the difference and I think I clean my guns so frequently (every trip and a trip is at most 200 rds in a semi, 50 with a revolver and anything from 20-40 to 200 for the bolt gun and AR respectively).

In any case, the Hoppe's #9 still has about 20ml left in it and that bottle has lasted me about two years, so I doubt I'll be moving on to the Elite before the spring.

All the same, once I do and if the results are evident, I will certainly report it!
 
+1 for Ed's Red. UncleNick has the recipe in Post #21.

Buy a quart of each ingredient (diesel fuel works fine as a substitute for kerosene) and mix it up a bit at a time, as required.

Four ounces of each will produce a pint of CLP, and that should last a while. And you have enough for seven more pints of mixture. :)
 
Hoppes is not a cleaner, It is a air freshner.
Click to expand...

You do know they make them, right?

{No hotlinking to copyrighted material is allowed on this board unless you get express permission from the source and provide and provide an attribution explaining they have given it to you.. Please see http://thefiringline.com/forums/announcement.php?a=94}

As for Hoppe's #9, the new definitely isn't as good as the old. I've noticed the difference, and while it gets powder/carbon out okay, it can't touch the copper. So I bought some Hoppe's Benchrest, and am pleased with it. It's pretty much the old stuff, with a slightly different smell haha.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I use whatever bore cleaner I have on hand down the bore and in the chamber.
But for trigger assemblies, and all the little parts in the action, I use brake cleaner. Blast it clean. No problems.
I let it dry and mop off any residual carbon with a rag, then apply a thin coat of rem lube on everything.
$3 for a big can.
Haven't had any problems so far...
 
FWIW, Have used the MP7 pro for a couple of years now....a very decent bore cleaner. Also like the Shooters Choice Aqua Clean a lot. Both of these do a good job dealing with copper.

A few months ago, came home from a LGS with a bottle of Hoppes synthetic bore cleaner....a Hoppes product I'd not seen before. Showed the bottle to a sales clerk in the store, asked him about it. Clerks in this large store have been there for years, very experienced and knowledgeable guys. Clerk looked at the bottle, commented, "I've never seen this, must have just got it in stock." What was odd to both of us was lack of info on the bottle as to what it was good for....removing copper, powder fouling/carbon and etc. Just said it was a superior bore cleaner and no listing of its ingrediants, just said it was synthetic. Anyway, after using it several months now on a number of different rifle bores, the Synthetic Hoppes had worked pretty good for me. Cost several dollars more than Hoppes #9 and does have some of the #9 aroma.
 
Just found this thread. I have used most of the products at one time or another.
But I have found that Gunzilla works pretty well for cleaning and maintaining. It doesnt seem to do that well with severe copper fouling. I also use the Break Free Powder blast and find that it works quite well. Nice citrus scent masks all the toxic chemicals im sure it contains. I have had the Powder Blast soften and take the sheen off of a remington 7400 stock that may have been back yard refinished. I dont let any cleaner stay in contact with rubber grips like the packmayer on my Kimber.

If someone has tried Gunzilla and found a better product Ill try it.
 
I've been using Hoppes #9 for 50+ years, love the smell of it. Seems to take me back in time. Started using it by cleaning guns for a gunsmith in the back of his shop at 13years old. Use it to clean the powder fowling and then use Sweets or Shooter Choice for copper fowling, followed by another wipe down with Hoppes #9. I buy it by the quart. I also use an Otters Fowl Out electrolysis system for copper fowling removal. But having read this, I'm going to try Boretech Elliminator.
 
I read the link in post #21 then ordered some Slip Carbon Killer and Bore Tech Eliminator. I must say the two work very well together. I've always used Hoppes #9 and Shooter Choice to clean my barrels. I've cleaned six of my rifles that I thought had clean bores, to my surprise, they were not. The Carbon Killer really got the carbon and crud out allowing the Bore tech to remove the copper with less work than I ever used before. I used only nylon brushes and patches and the Bore Tech removed more copper fowling from cleaned barrels than I believed possible. The Carbon Killer contains no petroleum or solvent products, but it cleaned better than another carbon or lead bore cleaner that I have ever used. My deer rifle is an old Win Model 100 in .308. I completely disassemble and clean the entire gun before each deer season and after the deer season, after firing maybe two to three shots. One or two to fowl the barrel and one for the deer. So this gun is clean, at least I thought. The Carbon Killer still removed carbon to the point where the nylon brush and last patch squeaked as I pushed it through the barrel. The Bore Tech containing no ammonia still removed copper fowling from this clean barrel. The same with my Arisaka in 6.5X57 Mauser. Re-barrel two years ago and always cleaned after firing. Maybe 150 rounds through the barrel. After cleaning with Carbon Killer and then the initial Bore Tech the patches were so blue I was stocked. Got another 15 or 20 rifles to go.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top