I found this...whatever it is...in the bottom of an old gun cleaning kit I recently picked up. I'm hoping someone here can help me identify what it is.

As you can see in the photos, it's a metal tube, about cigar-size, with knurled caps on each end and a divider inside creating two separate compartments. One side's cap is solid with a rubber seal and a flat-tipped pin attached. The other side's cap has a black rubber or plastic insert. This side's compartment holds the small bronze(?) thing you see. This thing, whatever it is, itself unscrews into two separate parts. This thing also had a foot or so of cord/string attached and wound around it but it basically disintegrated when I was taking it apart. The whole thing was soaked in oil.

What's driving me nuts is I know I've seen something like this before, who knows when or where, but I should know what this is and, for some reason, it's just not coming to me. Even an hour or so on Google was no help. So, anyone have any ideas?

It looks like a military cleaning kit/oiler. One side with the needle holds the oil and the needle is the applicator. The jag looks like put a patch in the eyelet and pull it through the bore with a string or wire.




Edit:
Did a search on Oiler and found one just like, it says it's a Springfield 03 oiler
http://www.usmilitariaforum.com/foru...howtopic=68297



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Guy-Harold Smith II

I agree with smith357. Looks like an oiler and possible swab holder for bore cleaning.


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James

I do believe it is for the venerable M1 Garand. Fits in the buttstock.

I think Smith357 has got it, that makes sense. I recognized the small bronze part as resembling a jag but couldn't see how it worked with the other stuff. Being a pull-through jag, via the string, makes sense now.

Thanks for the help, folks.

Yep. I thought it looked familiar too. Pulled my late Fathers National Match M1 Garand out of the safe. There was one just like it in the butt stock.
Jim

Cleaning kit, the M1 uses similar or same thing, in the butstock as mentioned above.

The nomenclature is 'oiler and thong case'. The thong is the pull-through. Older ones are metal, like that. One of the caps, probably for the pull through, has a soft end insert so it won't rattle against the inside of the butt trap. Most of the WW II versions are made of an orange, transparent plastic. Nice find; they're going up in price.

This one has the leather insert in the cap. It's a bit dirty and I thought it was rubber or plastic at first.

I'm sure they rolled over into the 03 era, but they were used with the Krags before that.

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Lee Jarrett

Yep, my 4-43 Remington 03-A3 has one in the buttstock.

Looks like one of Gizamo's antique teeth cleaning kits.

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Thirty characters. Exactly...

I was going to guess a prison tattoo kit with concealable storage container...

Those were sometimes pressed into service by players in the woodwind sections of symphony orchestras. You could use the pull swab to get the condensation of the bore of your instrument in order to keep Handel's Water Music from sounding like watery music. The spike could be used on the metal stem of a double reed (oboes, English horns) in case you got a clog in mid performance.

Oboists also used turkey feathers as bore swabs and kept shot glasses in their cases so they could stand extra reeds in them during performances. You don't want to be without a ready backup when a reed splits while you still have two movements of the symphony to get through. The double-reed woodwind guys are master improvisers. They have to be because with only a thousand of them in the world, nobody ever sees a big enough market to produce standard tool sets for them.

That thing could also be used as a singleton cigar humidor; it even comes with a built-in tip piercer. The cord can be pressed into service as one of those fabric matches. It should burn well without being consumed, what with all the oil it would pick up from use in its primary purpose. A Hoppe's-scented Montecristo, hmmm.

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David Wilson

They got it, known as oiler's, one compartment was a oil container and the other compartment held a pull through cleaning jag. You will find a simular WWII production made out of translucent plastic. Used in both the 03's and the M1 Garand.

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The one sold to me as for a Krag was about half the diameter of this and about half as long. It only held oil, not a pull-through. I haven't consulted Brophy's Krag book on this (don't have one in my library).

What has been said is correct. The "Pull-through" should have about 24-30" of strong cord wrapped around it and tied to both ends. To use, the ends are uncsrewed from each other. A bore brush screws into the female end or a patch passed througn the eye. The male threaded end is the weight that is dropped through the bore.

You use that thing to pull her thong through your gun to clean the bore and she is going to PO'd at you!!


Pete

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Don't tread on me

That's what caused that pretty pattern. Where the tarred/oiled string was wrapped around the pull-through.

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