All posts tagged Hoppes Gun Oil

The differences between all of those gun cleaning supplies?

gun cleaning suppliesI’ve heard of Frog lube, Militech but haven’t gotten my hands on it yet.   We normally don’t like to bring in too many gun cleaning products because many of them just confuse our customers and create more problems for us from an inventory management.   I have a bunch of left over gun cleaning supplies from various gun cleaning kits i’ve owned and usually kept the best parts of them.  I started out, like many, with a Hoppes gun cleaning kit.  Usually a bores sovent, gun oil, and 22 caliber cleaning patches.  The plastic case for the 3 piece cleaning rods began to not snap closed and I started losing pieces of the kit one by one.  After a few years I had some mistakes made and bent the cleaning rod, I learned the hard way about why a one piece cleaning system was the way to go.

When it comes to gun cleaning stuff, I have pretty much settled on M-Pro7 for gun cleaning and Slip 2000 for gun lubrication.  I have good experiences with the M-Pro 7 gun oil but something about Slip 2000 gun cleaning supplies makes me like the brand and the scientific breakthroughs that clean a firearm without all of the toxic materials.  It’s bad enough you have to deal with lead and washing your hands from gun powder, but having a green cleaning product that actually holds onto a firearm when in use, and when not in use is a step  up.   Some of the Remington gun oils i’ve used in the past just lubricated parts and I still had rust issues, not with Slip 2000 products.

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Gun cleaning supplies… depends on the firearm

We all know we need to have good working magazines and a firearm that is ready to go if we are serious about protecting ourselves but many people tend to not stock up on gun cleaning supplies.   I understand not everyone shoots as much as I do and sometimes a 32oz bottle of Break Free or MPro7 is going to last a decade but for those of us that shoot a lot, it’s good to know what we have at hand.  I’ve changed my gun lubrication standards and have moved away from using CLP on everything.  It just does not seem to stay on the firearms as long as the Mpro7 gun oils.

It’s one thing to keep your guns clean, but its another to know that the gun is going to stay lubricate even if you aren’t going to be shooting it anytime soon. Having gun cleaning supplies doesn’t mean just brushes and cleaning rods it means  having everything that you need to maintain the firearm.   Most firearms might just need a wipe down but for firearms that are being stored you need gun lubrication that stays on and will keep the gun at its optimum operation standards.  I’ve seen firearms go down after a few hundred rounds just because they had not been lubricated.

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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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Beware of over cleaning

I admit that I have been called a perfectionist.  I have several years experience in working in the music industry and in that line of work, only the best work gets noticed.   When it comes to maintaining a car, you can waste a lot of time working on things that aren’t going to increase your mileage or prevent it from getting hit by another car.   Although many of us like to take our favorite firearms out of the safe from time to time, and wipe them down and look everything over, there can be a point where shoving a cleaning rod down a barrel too often will cause excessive wear and tear.

In a Carbine course, we got a good lecture on some of the BS that people are claiming about the amount of maintenance the AR15 direct impingement guns need.   The reality is that they sure as heck do need to be cleaned more than any other semi-auto military rifle, but not as much as  some people claim.  The reasons the military makes soldiers do this so often is to basically just keep them occupied.   Keeping the gun lubricated and putting a few drops where it’s needed is all we  had to do while running a Carbine course and not a single one of us had an issue.  Be careful about how much you use your gun cleaning supplies on your firearms, but also, make sure you have the right tools for the firearm.   There are some neat cleaning brushes and tools that you can get from Otis gun cleaning kits and they will help you get into the areas that are hard to reach.

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Thorough cleaning of firearms

Otis gun cleaning kitThis past weekend I got to test out an Otis gun cleaning kit.     I was issued the LEO deluxe cleaning kit and was amazed at how much stuff this thing had in it.    I’ve been using bore snakes for several years now and I have been pretty happy with how much time they have relieved me of when it comes to cleaning.    I have a few rifles that I spend more time with when it comes to cleaning the barrels with and every once in awhile I still dig out my rifle cleaning rod to clean them.    I was listening to a discussion with a LEO that was the PD sharp shooter and he mentioned some issues with using bore snakes.    I was a little sketical when I first heard him talk about it because I was always very happy with my previous cleaning methods.

The Hoppes bore snake is much faster to  use than a cleaning rod, brush and patch system, but If you need to do some serious chamber cleaning, especially on an AR15, you’re still going to have to use something else.   The Otis gun cleaning systems best advantage is that it is small and compact and basically does everything that a cleaning kit should do and will fit in your pocket.    There are always advantages and disadvantages to various cleaning methods, but gun maintenance is important for those are deployed.   Bore snakes can be hard to repackage once they get lubed up and you’ll have to do your own research on how to pack one up and bring it with you.   The Otis gun cleaning kit is already organized and compact, and depending on the cleaning system you use, you may be able to clean pistols, rifles and shotguns with the Deluxe Law Enforcement cleaning system.   I say again, the real benefit of the Otis gun cleaning kit is it can be as thorough as a traditional kit, but far more compact and mobile.

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Gun cleaning should be easier

hoppes boresnake I realize there is still a place for using cleaning rods to clean out the barrels of a rifle or pistol, and that running a white cleaning patch through a firearms and having it come out just as white is something that tells us our job is done.   Gun cleaning has gotten easier over the years.   If you are cleaning your firearms after each use, there is no need to be sitting there for hours and soaking your rifles in this cleaner and that cleaner and they running through the routine 2x’s.   Gun lubrication  has taken long strides in practically eliminating the need for having to use more than 2 gun cleaning liquids.   The really issue I see is in having a lubrication that also has preservatives to help protect metal from rust.   I have some friends that use Mobil 1 for all of there AR15 lubrication, but Mobil 1 doesn’t protect a firearm as well as BreakFree CLP does.

I’ve been talking to some of my friends about the issue of gun cleaning equipment.  One of them told me that he only owned a few rifles and there wasn’t a need for getting any fancy gun cleaning kits.   I asked  him how he cleaned his lever action rifles and he said it was a pain to clean because he had to clean it from the muzzle end unlike his bolt action.   I explained to him that Hoppes boresnakes cost less than $20 and he could run it through his lever action in seconds and not have to worry about cleaning patches ect.  I clean my hunting rifles even if I don’t fire them.  Ever since the time I brought a couple guns with me on a hunting trip, didn’t get anything, came home and put them back in the safe and then took them out 3 months later and found rust all over them, I’ve paid close attention to the gun cleaning equipment I use.

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