All posts tagged 1911 gun cleaning

Get rid of your old gun cleaning hazzards

gun lubeOtis gun cleaning kitsIt’s bad enough to be around lead for 30yrs but lead is something that’s on it’s way out the door, even the military is destined to be moving beyond it at some point and oAR15 Cleaning kitsgun cleaning suppliesne of the biggest problems gun clubs run into are EPA issues with range clean ups.    Hoppes #9 has been arSlip 2000 Bore CleaningBoresnakeound a long time and has a reputation of working well at cleaning bores, but that stuff is just nasty to be in the room with and liver damage warnings aren’t much of an incentive to keep it around.  I wouldn’t know where Copper removerRifle Cleaningto start from with suggestions on what is best to  use, but anything from Slip 2000, M-Pro7 to Frog Lube have great improvements and almost zero health risks attached to them.   Things like Boresnakes help avoid the need for piles of cleaning patches and can be thrown in the wash machine after several use ages to get back to clean and new shape.

I find pistol cleaning primarily revolver cleaning to still be a little more tedious because cylinder cleaning takes a little more focus and I still use lead reloads for some of the Smith & Wesson revolvers.   The best thing to do to avoid major projects after a range session is to clean your firearms shortly after using them and not let things sit for long.   For many hunting rifles and many handguns, just gun handling can cause rust to eventually form from your finger prints that it’s very important to keep a gun cleaning cloth or rag around to wipe them down and have the right gun cleaning supplies available.   One of my biggest gun rust issues was after a hunting trip where no bullets where fired and the firearms were put away, and 3 months later when they were taken out there was rust along the barrels.   A wipe down before putting it away or using something like Slip 2000 gun lube would have prevented it in the first place.

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There are many things you will need

I have owned an AR15 now for close to 12yrs and when I first got it it seems so expensive and I was almost afraid to beat it up.   Then one day I was holding a local shooting event at a gun club and it started to drizzle, several guys with the $2000 rifles didn’t show up to the event because they were afraid their stuff would get ruined.   An old guy that was hanging with us burst out laughing and said he trucked an M1 Garand around for 2 years in the rain and snow and is gun wasn’t ruined.  It’s funny how many prima donna their are in the tactical community and that is so common with the AR15 accessorized and customized world.

I don’t teach carbine courses but I listen to the guys that do and over cleaning seems to do more damage to guns than not cleaning them enough.  I’ve seen many firearms go down due to the lack of lubrication, but many gun cleaning supplies from years ago are out dated compared to what Break Free CLP and M-Pro 7 products are doing.   I use break free products basically to protect hunting guns and for a do it all cleaning, but for handguns and my larger caliber semi-auto firearms I use M-Pro7 gun oils, it seems to last longer and doesn’t evaporate.  Sometimes I don’t get to shoot a gun for a year or more, but I like knowing that nothing drained or evaporated from the firearm.

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The Otis gun cleaning system

It’s kind of like being in a cult when you acquire certain firearms.   The Kalashnikov crowd is a cult and so is the AR15 crowd.   AR15’s are so common now that it’s  not really as much of a cult anymore, but the furniture  you use on  your firearm and the  optics you use may put you in a certain cool category.    When I first heard about the Otis gun cleaning systems, I was wondering how someone could have devised a system that would be so much better than a cleaning rod and a cleaning patch, so I walked around at a trade show and went right up to the guy running the Otis booth.   I was lucky enough to have asked enough questions that I was given the AR15 buttstock cleaning kit and the Pistol cleaning kit.

When I got home, broke out several of my AR15 guns and a could handguns and tried to use the system.   I found the Otis cleaning kits to be very complicated but I have enough life experience to know that that just means having patience and find out why gun cleaning supplies were designed the way they are.   I have never had to use a scraper or a brush on any of my AR15 guns because I clean them so often there is really rarely any long term build ups that I missed.  I do think that the Otis Cleaning Systems do slow down the cleaning process because of all of  the fumbling I do with the accessories, but the compact bags make

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Gun cleaning brushes don’t last forever

I have several gun cleaning kits laying around my gun cleaning room and some of them are close to 20yrs old.   I still use various elements of them since not all of the kits are still intact.   Most of the non-one piece cleaning rods I have used in the past have become broken or bent and have been tossed, but I have some of the Hoppes gun cleaning solvent and a few cleaning brushes that have moved in with my gun cleaning kits.   The bore snakes that I have, have pretty much replaced the gun cleaning brushes but there have been a few times recently that I have gone back to using tradition cleaning kits.   I have been testing out many of the Otis gun cleaning kits to basically get use to the product line.

Otis gun cleaning kits aren’t going to clean your guns in some magical new way.   They really are just another mode of gun cleaning supplies, different type of cleaning and lubrication, different way of using a metal cord instead of a cleaning rod, but other than that, it’s just a compact way of keeping your gun cleaning kit something that can go in a range bag. The larger multi-caliber cleaning kits make a ton of sense if you own a lot of firearms, but if you don’t they will be a major over kill.   Gun cleaning patches are something we know we should throw away at certain point, but I see many using gun cleaning brushes for far longer than they should.   If you are noticing that you can’t get a barrel clean, try replacing the gun cleaning brushes you have.   Getting lead out or cleaning a gun that has not been cleaned all that well in the past is harder if you don’t have the right tools.

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