Pennsylvania Firearm Owners Association
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  1. #11
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Location
    Richboro, Pennsylvania
    (Bucks County)
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    Default Re: Can Used Gun Cleaning Rags Spontaneously Combust?

    Petroleum based oils will not spontaneously combust. A rag soaked with them will light instantly and burn though. Lighter petroleum products that can evaporate like gasoline and paint thinner can also give fumes that can ignite with a spark or pilot light.

    Linseed, Tung, and even vegetable oils can air oxidize, heat up and spontaneously burn. But it takes a pile of them under the right conditions. If I gave you some rags and some linseed oil I doubt you could make a fire if you tried. But that does not mean they won't catch fire. They do.

    When I refinish a stock with linseed I always take the rags out to my fire pit and burn them. Same if I am degreasing a firearm with solvent. I usually don't bother with a few bore patches.

    Not recommended but I have been lazy on occasion with a small rag soaked with some linseed oil. I made sure it was completely unfolded and placed it in the middle of a concrete floor. I dont think you can generate enough heat to combust that way (famous last words) and when you pick them up in a few days they were hard and mostly dry.

  2. #12
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Apolacon Township, Pennsylvania
    (Susquehanna County)
    Age
    77
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    Default Re: Can Used Gun Cleaning Rags Spontaneously Combust?

    Lately I've taken to using the blue paper shop towels as my cleaning rags. When finished they and the bore patches and q-tips go right out into the burning barrel once there any method of combustion is perfectly OK.


    "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities".

  3. #13
    Join Date
    Oct 2012
    Location
    Douglassville, Pennsylvania
    (Berks County)
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    Default Re: Can Used Gun Cleaning Rags Spontaneously Combust?

    Quote Originally Posted by streaker69 View Post
    If you do what EM does, this isn't a concern at all.
    Clean 'em at streaker's house?
    Gender confusion is a mental illness

  4. #14
    Join Date
    Oct 2012
    Location
    Douglassville, Pennsylvania
    (Berks County)
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    Default Re: Can Used Gun Cleaning Rags Spontaneously Combust?

    Quote Originally Posted by Walleye Hunter View Post
    Clean 'em at streaker's house?
    If you don't think that's funny you're demented.
    Gender confusion is a mental illness

  5. #15
    Join Date
    Jan 2007
    Location
    Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
    (Allegheny County)
    Posts
    33,567
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    Default Re: Can Used Gun Cleaning Rags Spontaneously Combust?

    Quote Originally Posted by streaker69 View Post
    If you do what EM does, this isn't a concern at all.
    Yeah if I didn't spend so much time not cleaning my gun's I'd have time to reload.
    I called to check my ZIP CODE!....DY-NO-MITE!!!

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