Who makes the absolute best handgun cleaner?

[rockquarry]

I've tried many cleaners in the last several decades. Many work, but I've found none better for cleaning handguns than Hoppe's #9 or Ed's Red. These can be safely used on any finish including nickel.

I've always seen the CLPs as compromise cleaners. They will work for cleaning, just not as well as pure solvents.

However, CLPs do a pretty good job of lubricating, but so will many other oils and lubricants. For "preserving", apply any of these lightly to a soft cloth and give your gun a wipedown.

 

[double-dipper]

Dr.Richard, agree with Robert on liquid mercury as the best but, a little toxic.
CLP and good o'l elbow grease works great with dental tools and a soft cotton cloth. probably second best!!!

Break Free power blast is my go to, I also use Hoppe's #9.

 

[__steve__]

Elbow grease

 

[Ron IL]

Kroil for cleaner and Wilson combat oil for lube if needed. I tried Ballistol one time after I saw people loved it. Used it one time and the smell was so bad I tossed it in the trash.

 

[Old Corp]

Have used about everything mentioned here....with no real hands-down absolute favorites.....

Always been intrigued how well MPro-7 cleans, with almost NO smell.

Hoppe's is a favorite, and pairs with cleaning old guns like a correct wine with dinner. Smells, as we all know are inextricably tied to memories.

For a deep-cleaning overnight soak, I'm sure I've violated all sorts of safety rules by soaking parts and handgun frames in gasoline or kerosene - 'cuz it's what I had. That and a toothbrush scrub works fine.

Not a fan of RemOil, seems too thin for the larger moving parts that may be under heat or stress.
CLP seems fine as a lube, not a fan of it's cleaning abilities.

Have had good luck with both Lucas Gun Oil and Brownell's 'Friction Defense' for lube and have suspicions they may be nearly the exact same thing.

Many good products out there now - any claiming BEST is a little over-stated.......

 

[gwpercle]

You can make the best cleaner / solvent for about $20.00 a gallon .
All ingredients are available at Wally-Mart , buy 1 qt. of the following to make 1 gallon :

Ed's Red Bore Solvent / Gun Cleaner
Dexron Automatic Transmission Fluid , GM Spec. D-20265 or later
K-1 Kerosene - for lamp or heater fuel
Mineral Spirits - Aliphatic (odorless)
Acetone

If you don't wish to mix a gallon , mix equal parts each .

The 50/50 Acetone - ATF is a super penetrating oil and will get under and lift lead better than any other cleaner ,,, except mercury , but that is expensive and sorta dangerous stuff .

I use the solvent / bore cleaner to clean guns , reloading dies and presses , it is a good lube and grease cutter and leaves a film of lubricant (ATF) to help prevent rust .
Gary

 

[tndrfttom]

For most things Hoppes has served well as long as I’ve been shooting. When shooting NRA Bullseye Pistol the oldtimers swore by “Ed’s Red” which did a great job for a home-brew cleaner. When I got involved in Black Powder/Cowboy shooting I became aware of Ballistol; a mixture of Ballistol with some water in a squirt bottle is my choice for BP fouled revolvers and rifles.

On the topic of Mercury, an old timer I knew kept a vile of it on his bench to attack the lead in badly lead-fouled barrels. It worked great. I thought Mercury would be just the ticket for cleaning a leaded-up Model 41 muzzle brake but I never could find a quantity of Mercury to attempt it plus the health warnings made me leery of trying it.

 

[rct269]

Let me suggest that leaded up Model 41 muzzle brake isn't leaded up---it just looks that way after the anodizing's been blasted away. My remedy is a brand new muzzle brake----for display purposes only.

Ralph Tremaine

And I guess this is as good a place as any to remind you of the Notable Thread Index in the early hand ejector section----and the thread titled "lead in barrel".

 

[rockquarry]

Let me suggest that leaded up Model 41 muzzle brake isn't leaded up---it just looks that way after the anodizing's been blasted away. My remedy is a brand new muzzle brake----for display purposes only.

Ralph Tremaine

I bought a 41 years ago that had a badly fouled muzzle brake. It appeared to be a combination of lead residue and carbon. I removed much of it and also removed the muzzle brake as it didn't appear to have any practical function. I would suspect the anodizing on mine is okay as it's had a lot of protection from the coating of grime.

 

[Lou_the_welder]

Doesn't Mercury make you as mad as a Hatter?

We have 100° weather here and had to clean some guns indoors (a/c) and can't imagine cleaning with Hoppes or gasoline or anything that volatile.

It was nice cleaning indoors with some Mpro7 (no smell) and used some clp for oil at the end.

I use very little clp.

As a side note. I ran out of those cotton cleaning squares I buy at the gun store. I got lazy and used my wife's cotton face cleaning circle things. Dont know what they're called but she has bags of that stuff laying around- to remove makeup. They work really well!!! I don't think I'm gonna buy those cotton squares again! [emoji16]

 

[AJ]

Doesn't Mercury make you as mad as a Hatter?

We have 100° weather here and had to clean some guns indoors (a/c) and can't imagine cleaning with Hoppes or gasoline or anything that volatile.

It was nice cleaning indoors with some Mpro7 (no smell) and used some clp for oil at the end.

I use very little clp.

As a side note. I ran out of those cotton cleaning squares I buy at the gun store. I got lazy and used my wife's cotton face cleaning circle things. Dont know what they're called but she has bags of that stuff laying around- to remove makeup. They work really well!!! I don't think I'm gonna buy those cotton squares again! [emoji16]

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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For other uses, see Mad as a hatter (disambiguation).
"Mad as a hatter" is a colloquial English phrase used in conversation to suggest (lightheartedly) that a person is suffering from insanity. It is believed to emanate from Denton and Stockport, Greater Manchester, where men in the area worked predominantly in the hattery business, which used mercury in the hat making process. The accumulation of mercury in the body causes symptoms similar to madness. The earliest known appearance of the phrase in print is in an 1829 issue of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine.

 

[chief38]

For just cleaning Hoppes is about he best IMHO. I am not a fan of Acetone in any cleaner and I avoid it as much as possible.

 

[wellthought1]

Lately, I've been using ballistol. In the past, Hoppe's copper solvent and then some Breakfree CLP to finish it off and lube it.

 

[dave1918a2]

I mop the bore with Hoppes and let it sit for a few days. Then push a very tight patch through. Be surprised how much gunk comes out. Same with rifles. If it's really bad I have been known to use Barnes #10, very carefully.

 

[TXBryan]

I've used many over the years and one that's not been mentioned yet is Frog Lube. Please don't jump on me as Frog Lube, apparently, has detractors and if you disagree that's fine. It is a "natural" product that is plant-based and there is zero doubt it smells better than anything mentioned in this thread so far - kinda menthol/mint. Perhaps a good choice for indoor cleaning or confined spaces.

If you follow the manufacturer's directions Frog Lube does what it says it'll do regarding rust protection and I've found it to get after crud as well as most anything else. And it's easy to apply to patches. As with most products letting it sit awhile enhances the action.

If it's leading that's the problem do yourself a favor and peel or slice some strands off a Chore Boy copper scrubber pad and wrap them tightly around your cleaning brush. The extra aggressive scraping removes lead about as well as most of us occasionally require and doesn't hurt a thing.

I also like Ballistol and a product called EEZOX Synthetic Premium Gun Care. Frankly I've always thought it a good idea to rotate cleaning products as some are better on certain elements of crud than others and sometimes follow EEZOX with Frog Lube during the same cleaning session. It's rare that changing solvents and running a patch through what you believed was a clean bore won't yield evidence of some residual something.

 

[gwpercle]

For just cleaning Hoppes is about he best IMHO. I am not a fan of Acetone in any cleaner and I avoid it as much as possible.

You can simply omit the acetone from the Ed's Red Bore Cleaner
recipe if you are "not a fan" of the stuff .

Remember it's only 25% of the total mix , replace the acetone with a cleaner of your choice or some mineral spirits , kerosene , marvel mystery oil or whatever cleaner you think best .

Hoppes ELITE Cleaner has no smell and works fairly well ... But it's just so darned expensive ... 2 ozs. for $5.00 @ Wally Mart.

True acetone is a rather harsh solvent but when mixed with three other ingredients in equal parts ...it's not nearly as harsh or dangerous , watering it down takes a lot of the bite out of it .
Gary

 

[Richard Simmons]

Corrosion X. Slather in inside and out on a clean firearm, let it sit for a bit then wipe it down. Cleanup after the next range session, also using Corrosion X is effortless.

 

[Walter Rego]

Good old Hoppes No. 9 for general cleaning. It is not a super strong solvent but the key is to let it work by giving it some dwell time and not be in a big hurry. For barrels that have a lot of copper fouling, I will use Sweet's 7.62 solvent. It has a lot of ammonia and needs to be used in a well ventilated area. The manufacturers of most of the copper specific solvents don't recommend leaving the bore wet for more than about 15 minutes.

Hoppes No. 9 can be left to soak in the bores for days with no ill effects. Ballistol works as a light cleaner, and MPro7 does a good job on loosening carbon buildup on cylinder faces.

If I had to limit myself to one solvent product, I could use Hoppes No. 9 and just be prepared to let it work which it eventually will. And if I had a Nickel plated gun I would not let the Hoppes sit on the finish for more than a minute or so.

 

[cmj8591]

MPro7 cleaner and a good nylon brush. I sometimes use a bronze brush when the carbon and lead get a little heavy.

One thread mentions Frog Lube. I went down that rabbit hole and ended up throwing out about $150 worth of it. The only good thing I have to say about it is that it smells nice. Maybe it would make a good bathroom odor eliminator but all it does to guns is make them stop working. I don't care how carefully you follow the instructions. Do yourself a favor, stay away from it.

 

[tlawler]

Then we discovered liquid Freon with a spray wand. Cleaned the M-16's in just a few minutes. Problem was it turned them white as it took all the oil and carbon out of the metal. Had to wipe them down with oil so the armorers would not know what we had done. Really did not need to be cleaned the second and third days, but we went through the motions.

Do you happen to remember which one you used? I have access to most of them except the really obsolete ones. It was most likely R-11 used in low pressure centrifugal machines. I know it makes a great degreaser, but never tried it on firearms.

On a side note, I knew about using Mercury as a lead stripper, but haven’t tried it. A possible source of Mercury would be A/C parts houses that take in old Mercury bulb thermostats for hazardous waste disposal. A four stage commercial stat(2heat/2cool) will have about 12 grams/1 cc of pure Mercury. I’m not sure how much would be required, but 3 or 4 stats worth would probably last a lifetime if stored properly and handled very carefully. You normally see a recycle bin full of them next to the counter at most supply houses. My caveat is that I don’t know what the policy is on them and never asked. They may be tightly controlled by EPA laws or something. I’ll ask a couple places tomorrow and see if there’s a consensus on what they can do with them and report back.

I didn’t realize Mercury was that hard to obtain and expensive. I remember reading Richie Kohler and John Chatterton’s novel The Shadow Divers, about ID’ing the U-boat they discovered(ended up being U-869), and finding out the cargo was several tons of Mercury. They at first thought they had struck it rich, but later found out it was essentially worthless because of environmental impact fees to salvage and the actual salvage cost was more than it’s value. Who knows...it still may be there to this day!