Shaving cream for cleaning your gun?
- Thread starter tanfog101
- Start date
I wouldn't use toothpaste to clean my bore. In fact... I've never even used it to brush my teeth. Instead I use mouthwash along with a toothbrush because the abrasives thing always bothered me. I'm in my early fifties with zero cavities. Imagine that.
No abrasives in my bore, thank you. Not even in the chrome-lined ones.
No abrasives in my bore, thank you. Not even in the chrome-lined ones.
sigcurious
New member
A clerk/former Marine at one of a LGS by me swears by shaving cream and simple green. He uses a process similar to what madcap described. It should be noted that regular formula simple green will etch aluminum, however there is a different version that is safe for aluminum(the purple one IIRC).
In regards to the drink powder floor cleaner. I would imagine the use of citrus flavor only is because they contain high amounts of citric acid, with lemon being the highest in citric acid content for its more sour flavor. Similar to using vinegar(also acidic) for cleaning.
I'll stick to the made for gun cleaning products though. I just picked up some froglube CLP, heck if I know about all the claims they make but it sure does smell nice!
@new_scopeshooter, I remember when I was younger and shenanigans were abound, shaving creaming someones car was a no-no because it would harm the paint. I always wondered if it was true, and so it seems to be
In regards to the drink powder floor cleaner. I would imagine the use of citrus flavor only is because they contain high amounts of citric acid, with lemon being the highest in citric acid content for its more sour flavor. Similar to using vinegar(also acidic) for cleaning.
I'll stick to the made for gun cleaning products though. I just picked up some froglube CLP, heck if I know about all the claims they make but it sure does smell nice!
@new_scopeshooter, I remember when I was younger and shenanigans were abound, shaving creaming someones car was a no-no because it would harm the paint. I always wondered if it was true, and so it seems to be
Cheapshooter
New member
I find this forum sooooo informative! I just had to try Hoppe's # 9 for shaving this morning!
A shaving blood bath
Reminds of that first morning in basic training when the Drill Sgt sent everyone off to the shower and shave. Some of the kids hadn't ever shaved so it was a real blood bath. Not as bad as the Zombie Picture posted above but amusing. 1969 was a long time ago.
Reminds of that first morning in basic training when the Drill Sgt sent everyone off to the shower and shave. Some of the kids hadn't ever shaved so it was a real blood bath. Not as bad as the Zombie Picture posted above but amusing. 1969 was a long time ago.
For nitro powered RC trucks the go to cleaner for a lot of guys is a 50/50 mix of simple green and denatured alcohol. The nitro fuel is two stroke with a heavy oil content so it's a pretty good approximation of the crud that builds up in a gun's action. The simple green cleans and degreases and the alcohol helps it cut better as well as making it evaporate leaving a clean dry surface.
$0.02
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$0.02
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Shaving
Or like the guy who forgets to shave in the morning and then gets to dry shave in front of the platoon with a cheap plastic disposable razor.
Well that happened to me once and I started carrying one of those tiny travel-sized cans of shaving cream in my cargo pocket, but I never again forgot to shave after that so it wasn't needed.
I wonder if I still have that can somewhere? I can use it now to clean my guns...
Or like the guy who forgets to shave in the morning and then gets to dry shave in front of the platoon with a cheap plastic disposable razor.
Well that happened to me once and I started carrying one of those tiny travel-sized cans of shaving cream in my cargo pocket, but I never again forgot to shave after that so it wasn't needed.
I wonder if I still have that can somewhere? I can use it now to clean my guns...
If you're going to put soap on your firearm you're going to have to get it off some way, that either means water or water based solvent or some oil based solvent.
I had no problems spraying Uncle Sam's M16 with carbon-tet, running it under hot water, squirting it with dishwashing soap / rinse repeat... and drying it with a blow dryer.
I wouldn't do that to my own guns though...
I personally want to limit my firearm's exposure to H2O in any form as much as I possibly can, and I feel that the amount of oil-based solvent that I would use to get soap off of and out of my firearms is probably enough to get them clean without using the soap in the first place.
I had no problems spraying Uncle Sam's M16 with carbon-tet, running it under hot water, squirting it with dishwashing soap / rinse repeat... and drying it with a blow dryer.
I wouldn't do that to my own guns though...
I personally want to limit my firearm's exposure to H2O in any form as much as I possibly can, and I feel that the amount of oil-based solvent that I would use to get soap off of and out of my firearms is probably enough to get them clean without using the soap in the first place.
What he said. And plain jane barbasol shaving cream works far better than just lathered soap. It will eat cammy paint off on contact whereas dish detergent won't even do it. Shaving cream is excellent for OC detox too. It intensifies the pain for a few moments, but it gives relief faster than most other methods. I never cleaned a rifle with shaving cream. Simple green, absolutely. I always hated cleaning weapons at the armory. They finally broke down and gave us varsol tanks, but you were cleaning with a whole company and had to wait in line for the tank. Plus Varsol does nasty stuff to composite stocks so you had to be careful. Funny how varsol was okay, but the armorer would have a conniption if we used simple green (which was less harmful). When we could check weapons out of the armory and clean in the barracks, though, it took half the time. Go to the shower, spray the whole thing with simple green, scrub a little here and there, then rinse. We had a one gallon air compressor to dry off the rifle. Then a light coat of CLP and we were done. My whole squad would always finish in 45 minutes, including all crew serves. Everyone else was still cleaning for an hour or longer after we finished.
Obviously during a deployment, we always used simple green or strike hold. Strike hold is some good stuff for a hasty clean, especially of automatic crew serves.
+1. Concentrated Kool-Aid mixture (sans sugar, of course) is extremely acidic. While serving mess duty during USMC bootcamp, we used Kool aid to polish and clean the copper heatpipes on the serving line. I can imagine other uses for this and would not surprise me if gun cleaning is one of them.
Scharfschuetzer
New member
Interesting thread.
I can't speak for shaving cream; but, as posted earlier, Simple Green works quite well on machine guns. Rinse with very hot water and let dry. As Simple Green removes virtually all the oil on the metal, give everything (other than the gas system) a light coat of CLP. Simple Green always goes with us on deployments and the supply sergeant gets the stuff in gallon sized jugs.
Windex with vinegar is a great detergeant/cleaner for any salt residue left from firing corrosive ammo or black powder. The windex cleans out the carbon or BP fouling well and the vinegar in it helps to neutralize the salts left from firing the corrosive primers or Black Powder. Let the bore dry or use dry patches, and then use your normal solvents to get at any copper or lead deposits remaining.
Another advantage to using these two products as cleaners is that they pose no health hazards to you and they can be used inside without smelling up the place.
I can't speak for shaving cream; but, as posted earlier, Simple Green works quite well on machine guns. Rinse with very hot water and let dry. As Simple Green removes virtually all the oil on the metal, give everything (other than the gas system) a light coat of CLP. Simple Green always goes with us on deployments and the supply sergeant gets the stuff in gallon sized jugs.
Windex with vinegar is a great detergeant/cleaner for any salt residue left from firing corrosive ammo or black powder. The windex cleans out the carbon or BP fouling well and the vinegar in it helps to neutralize the salts left from firing the corrosive primers or Black Powder. Let the bore dry or use dry patches, and then use your normal solvents to get at any copper or lead deposits remaining.
Another advantage to using these two products as cleaners is that they pose no health hazards to you and they can be used inside without smelling up the place.
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The most common thing in them is stearic acid (a saturated fatty acid).
Butane and propane have been used as propellants to whip the stearic acid, water, and other minor ingredients into a foam.
Leaving it on aluminum long term is going to cause etching, like almost any material with a hydroxyl radical, for the same reason lye, NaOH, eats aluminum quickly.
Have you looked at your the ingredients in soap lately?
Water
Sodium Laureth Sulfate
Acrylates Copolymer
Cocamidopropyl Betaine
Fragrance
Sodium Chloride
Sodium Hydroxide
DMDM Hydantoin
Tetrasodium EDTA
Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea Butter)
Zea Mays (Corn) Oil
Benzophenone-4
Gelatin
Acacia Senegal Gum
Mica
Punica Granatum (Pomegranate) Fruit Extract
Mangifera Indica (Mango) Fruit Extract
Xanthan Gum
Citric Acid
Titanium Dioxide
FD&C Red No. 40
Ext. D&C Violet No. 2