Heavy duty cleaning for lazy guys… me
I dislike cleaning guns almost as much as I dislike changing the oil in the tractor or generator. I like to build them, and I do love to shoot them… guns, not the tractor or generator, but gun cleaning can be mind numbing at times… No, it is always mind numbing. For minimal numbingness…
Readers ask me what my approach is to bore cleaning. And no, I don’t know why. Usually I offer my thirty step jag, brush, jag, brush, program. The process begins with Drano and ends with oil, sometimes peanut oil, sometimes olive oil – double virgin. In reality, I shoot a new gun until the crud gets too thick for a bullet to squeeze through then I drop down one caliber and shoot some more. When that reduction is no longer sufficient to overcome copper and powder residue accumulation, I pull the scope, lock the gun up in the safe and pick another gun.
Recently, I found the safe full, my wallet empty and it was obvious I would have to resign myself to cleaning them… or at least those I was determined to shoot.
Above is my high buck cleaning patch catch can. Some people refer to them as Ziploc bags, however, this is a Ziploc bag with a purpose. I haven’t shot my .338-378 Weatherby Accumark for some time. It’s a good gun, was accurate at one time, wasn’t any longer, so it had a very low shooting priority. I was getting ready to try a different brand of cleaning products and thought it might be a good time to clean up the Weatherby and see if I could track down the cause of its inaccuracy.Materials used were a combination of Montana X-Treme’s 50 BMG Special Formula Copper Killer and Copper Cream, Hoppe’s #9 Nitro Solvent, and Break Free. Dewey nylon coated ball bearing handled cleaning rod and jags, Brownells heavy duty nylon and bronze brushes and, approximately, 8,000 coarse cotton twill patches took care of the mechanical side.
Patches on jags can be shifted toward or off center of the jag to tighten or loosen the bore fit and twill because there is enough tooth to really break things loose. This was the process used to clean up the Weatherby’s bore –
- Hoppe’s No. 9, wet nylon brush through the bore – ten minute wait.
- Dry patch through the bore.
- Copper Killer soaked patch through the bore – ten minute wait
- Copper Killer on nylon brush, bore scrub – half hour wait
- A bunch of dry Patch through the bore
- Copper Cream on a patch through the bore – half hour wait
- A bunch of dry patches
- Looking down the barrel, still copper residue
- Repeated Copper Killer patch and brush cycle
- Repeated Copper Cream cycle
- Hoppe’s #9 on patch
- Hoppe’s #9 on a nylon brush with heavy scrubbing – ten minute wait
- Dry patched until they came out clean
- Wet patch with Break Free
- Dry Patch.
For each step of cleaning the bore, beginning with the Hoppe’s No. 9 post copper cleaning application, a 28 gauge Brownells handled chamber brush was used to scrub the gun’s chamber. Then a Break Free coated patch was placed over the chamber brush and used to wipe down the chamber, then the chamber was dry patched until no oil residue could be seen. The bore looked so bright and clear of any residue, even when viewed with a little inspection light, I think I might have cried… but just a little bit… in a very manly sort of way. The gun returned to shooting as it had when it was new, I didn’t have to rebarrel the rifle and the story begins anew. Neato. Now I have to find someone who likes to clean rifles so I can clear out the rest of the pile. Montana X-Treme is available at Sinclair International.
It was either a sling or… whut?
This is my LR-308. It weighs 106 lbs, give or take a few. OK, I am prone to exaggeration, but it does weigh 12 lbs 13 oz without the scope and that is a lot to haul around. In fact, I drove it out to the woods the other day, thought about getting out of the truck and climbing some hills to get to a good shooting spot… thought better and settled for driving back down the mountain and losing my self-loathing self in a bucket of KFC… extra crispy… breast and thigh. And maybe some of those big chunky fries.
While I was sitting at the KFC table, I began sketching out a four stroke self-propelled hand truck, but that was dismissed as too noisy and an electric version was too… dorky. Investigation into the purchase of an Acme Rocket Company transporter ended when I read some really critical reviews on Amazon posted by a W. E. Coyote. Then I sketched out a buttstock that incorporated retractable landing gear, I realized the hydraulic system would be leak prone and I’d never figure out how to place the limit switches. A last ditch effort, a dachshund with a saddle scabbard, was set aside for fear of PETA protest. Ultimately I folded and went in search of a sling.
As ex-Air Force, I didn’t understand the battlesling concept. A single point sling seemed to make the rifle look like a twenty pound potato sack hanging from a rope. A two point looked better but, when I tried to duplicate the manufacturer’s installation illustrations, I ran into two problems. The first, I had no camo makeup, or any other makeup for that matter. The second, when I shot from a preparedness carry position, I kept giving myself an atomic wedgie. In the end, I bought a Brownells #100-004-121 Troy Industries Two-Point BattleSling, for $39, then modified it and installed it for my purposes. After swapping the sling hardware on the MagPul stock to the left side, the wide shoulder strap rides high and flat on my shoulder, the magazine is rotated out away from my hip so it would dig in while I am walking and the buttstock pulls in close to… my butt. Comfortable if unintended installation.
Where rusted handloading dies may not be desired…
With years of accumulated die sets and tools, even with a full time dehumidifier, boxes of desiccant and Golden Rod lights, the high Maine humidity tends to grab a hold of bare metals surfaces. Oil works for a bit, as does WD-40, however, KwikSeal can lay down a protective coating that will put an end to longer term storage casualties as the product seems to protect for even a couple of years.
KwikSeal is basically the wax oil combination gunk that you find on brand new firearms as received from the manufacturers. So it provides a lot of protection, but it is easy to remove with any sort of mild gun solvent cleaner. While it appears to be an aerosol can, it is actually a pump container, which means all product and no propellant in the can. It isBrownells # 100-004-399 and 100-004-400, 2 oz an 14 oz, $8.95 and $15.95 respectively.
When it comes to multiple years of storage, Rust Veto, Brownells replacement for the product Cosmoline does a great job, but it takes a bit of doing to get it off of a stored firearm. About $5/lb, it can be heated so it will seep into even small part surfaces. Brownells #083-000-034.
For tools and die sets in semi-active use, Rust-Blox Vapor Tabs can be tossed into each die box or in with handguns stored in a waxed paper bag and they do good job of keeping corrosion off of bare metal. They are suppose to last for a year, but I I’ve had them in use twice as long. Brownells #084-058-012. They are priced at about $6 per dozen.
This year’s spiffy box awards
My wife is always on the lookout for ways of helping me organize. This was her solution to miscellaneous brass and bullet caches that had been stored in easy to burst Ziploc bags.
A buck a piece from the local Dollar Store, they are air tight, lid locking, stackable and sold in 0.3 and 0.6 liter sizes. A .308 Winchester case, pictured, the larger size holds one hundred of them and, easily, a few hundred bullets or pistol casings.
The brand is “Really Useful Box”. An appropriate name for a useful product.
Sinclair Heavy-Duty Poly Block
Sinclair Heavy Duty loading blocks are replacing my old wooden blocks. Machined from solid white polyethylene to a one inch height with chamfered holes, they are high enough to prevent cases from tipping over in handling, but low enough to not obscure sample numbers when I’m building up test loads. And, yes, they do look nice on a reloading bench. The little extra heft causes them to stay in place even when those twenty knot spring breezes are blowing across my shooting bench.
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