Recent cleaning threads and an experiment

[Brad Y]

Theres been a few threads on cleaning recently- hot topics were the black coming out on a patch after bronze brushing, cleaning while warm and I asked about the bronze vs nylon brushes.

During the week I purchased a pro shot 7mm bronze brush in the hope of proving a couple of things to myself.

I also purchased a bottle of MPro7 gun cleaner which is rumoured to be good on carbon on a few US forums. My idea for this is Im not interested anymore in breathing carcinogenic solvents while cleaning my rifles. The top engine cleaners (similar in formulation to GM TEC and not a run of the mill aerosol carby cleaner) seem to clean the carbon out with a nylon brush short scrubbed in the throat. But read the MSDS and make the choice if you want to use them. Not me anymore. The MPro7 seems to be fairly soapy and is alkaline.

Anyway after shooting and while the barrel was still warm I gave the rifle a couple of passes of the bronze brush to get into the carbon a bit and allow the MPro7 to soak in a little better.

I got home and have just finished up cleaning.

My findings are

1. The MPro7 seems to be ok at removing loose carbon.

2. The bronze brush was required to loosen carbon for the solvent to collect it.

3. The carbon was fairly easy to move while it was warm, once I got home it took alot more work with the brush to get it to a point where I considered it clean.

4. Even after a few patches come out white and it seems clean, another few passes with the bronze brush produced black patches. It looks like doing this process continually gets the best results, eventually the patches that followed the brush came out only slightly coloured (where I thought that was sufficiently clean)

5. A Nylon short scurb back and forth in the throat with this solvent did nothing at removing carbon. Patches came out pretty much white.

So it looks like I might stay with a bronze brush a little more for a bit. Will get to run a borescope down it tomorrow hopefully.

One thing Im going to look at is how this stuff penetrates compared to hoppes. Ive got a feeling that the wonderful smelling hoppes gets in deeper quicker and might be a better choice for the few wet patches while the bore is warm before getting into cleaning.

Thats my experiences, hope it helps with the few people that have been asking questions.