Let me preface this with a warning: more people have learned themselves into better accuracy than cleaning themselves into better accuracy. Most gun owners treat cleaning as some sort of religion in which if one makes the sacrifice of time and inhaled/absorbed chemicals; the guns gods will be pleased and you will shoot better. You won't. Spray out occasionally with non chlorinate brake cleaner, clean the bore every thousand round or so, dry fire, and SHOOT. Oddly, enough this is one of those things where practice is required. You can actually check condition of the weapon in a few second without cleaning it from top to bottom.
On cleaning your bore and barrel break in, listen to Gale McMillan.
- oil of wintergreen is the best penetrating oil I have ever seen, bar none. Get some
at your local crunchy granola, hippy food store
- in the military and having a problem getting your M240's operating rod end clean for
inspection? Get it clean and then before firing next time, "acquire" or "liberate" some GM-D
gray grease; best source is from anyone in your AO that is maintaining or shooting an M242
25MM chain gun. Coat op rod liberally. Next cleaning time, literally wipe the fouled
grease away
- in a pinch for lube, drizzle some oil off of the dipstick of any engine in your vicinity.
Motor oil is an excellent lubricant.
- non chlorinated brake cleaner is cheap, and ridiculously effective. Hose your weapon down
with it before getting silly with the brush and Qtips (if you must, you really don't have to)
- always clean your bore for carbon before copper. KG-12 and Montana Copper Killer are my
favorite bore cleaners. Plain old Kroil works well for carbon.
- when cleaning your bore, do NOT overdo it! Better to have a dirty bore than a damaged crown
- let that bore cleaner soak and do its job! At least 5 minutes between patches.
- abrasive bore cleaners are a bad, bad idea and should only be used as a last resort.
Remember, those abrasives are abrading EVERYTHING. Those sharp lands and grooves, the
copper, everything. Better to use chemical cleaners.
- when disassembling, a weapon for the first time, take pictures of it as you go. Have a
magnet handy to pick up any small metal pieces that may go flying. The magnet can find what
your eyes miss.
Let us not rail about justice as long as we have arms and the freedom to use them. - Duke Leto Atreides
Good post. Another handy item is to have a couple of dry cleaning bags for assembly/disassembly of guns with spring loaded small parts, like AR lower assembly. Just open the bag and put your project inside to catch and small parts.
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