I Am No Longer Cleaning My Guns!

[Gunowner99]

I give up, I suck, I can't do anything right!! I asked all the questions. I bought all the potions. I made instructions for myself and printed them and laminated. I just suck and my guns are going to stay dirty and rust into a pile of metal!!

Why no matter if a new gun never shot or one that I have 1 round through or one with 100 do my patches constantly come out black? I soak with cleaner like Hoppes or whatever. Then I use brass brush. Then I use jag with cleaning patch, then I run light oil soaked patch through or a Remoil wipe through. No matter what, before the oil phase the patches are black and I see a lot of lines from the rifling. Never grey or brown or whatever, always black. I could brush the rifling clear off of my rifle and it would still be black. This sucks.

Oil on metal parts/receiver/barrel, etc. Use a remoil wipe and always looks like I am cleaning off rust, it is brown. New gun or old one, always brown, makes me nervous!! I store at 30% in a safe, like I said even new ones look that way on a remoil wipe.

Why no matter if I put 1 gallon of oil on a rag and wipe my barrel/receiver/other metal parts they still look dull and like patchy? I am talking shotgun or rifle black barrels, not blued. It is like why do I bother or what am I doing wrong?

I'm afraid touch the metal because I fear oils from my hands and rust. I wont touch wood stocks because I fear oils even though I apply lemon oil after cleaning. I am being a little facetious here bit it honestly feels that way.

Why can't I get oil where it needs to be on a barrel? Ventilated barrel? No way you are getting below the vents on top. Bottom of barrel where it goes into the forend/guard? Never gonna get oil in there. My guns are sub-par from my treatment!!

What else can I say? I'm doing nothing right!!

[Berncly]

When I was in training I was always the last guy in the gun room cleaning my gun after being on the range.
I eventually bitched about this but my instructor just said "it's because you actually care".
While this is generally a good thing it can lead to the never clean enough issue you are talking about.

I learned a great phrase many years later, "clean enough for you", and it made my life a lot easier.
Just make it clean enough for you and don't worry about spotless perfection.

[Emptymag]

You may be over thinking this.

Back when I had like three guns total, I would clean them after LOOKING at them from across the room. Ha.

Then I started accumulating more.
Then we started doing group shoots every month and I'd drag eight to ten guns along and shoot them all and go home and look at them, and think "OMG, it's going to take DAYS to clean all of these!"

I stopped cleaning them - why bother? Just going to drag them all back out and shoot them in a few weeks and have to do it all over again.
I'll run a patch with Weapon Shield down the bore and call it a day.
If it's a blued gun and it's been out in humid weather, or rain, I'll wipe the metal down, but AR15s and AKs and such get no love.

Guns sit in basements and attics wrapped in newspaper, having not seen a drop of oil in 20-50 years and survive.

I used to be fanatical about cleaning guns. Not any more.

[gghbi]

You may be over thinking this.

Back when I had like three guns total, I would clean them after LOOKING at them from across the room. Ha.

Then I started accumulating more.
Then we started doing group shoots every month and I'd drag eight to ten guns along and shoot them all and go home and look at them, and think "OMG, it's going to take DAYS to clean all of these!"

I stopped cleaning them - why bother? Just going to drag them all back out and shoot them in a few weeks and have to do it all over again.
I'll run a patch with Weapon Shield down the bore and call it a day.
If it's a blued gun and it's been out in humid weather, or rain, I'll wipe the metal down, but AR15s and AKs and such get no love.

Guns sit in basements and attics wrapped in newspaper, having not seen a drop of oil in 20-50 years and survive.

I used to be fanatical about cleaning guns. Not any more.

I think we just cracked the secret of why you keep collecting ARs!

Guns are like cars and kids. The first one gets spoiled and too much attention, the second a bit less, and so on, and so on. If you are keeping them in a warm, dry, safe place, just a good swab and wipe down will get you 90% of what you need for a long happy life. (for the gun that is)

[Emptymag]

I think we just cracked the secret of why you keep collecting ARs!

Guns are like cars and kids. The first one gets spoiled and too much attention, the second a bit less, and so on, and so on. If you are keeping them in a warm, dry place, just a good swab and wipe down will get you 90% of what you need for a long happy life. (for the gun that is)

If one of them all of a sudden won't work because it's full of crud, I just grab another one.

[unclejumbo]

I rarely clean my guns to the point of spotlessness. I got enough of that in the academy. Functional cleaning and oiling.

Get yourself a nice bucket, fill it up with some lightweight motor oil and just toss your guns in there when you're done. Easy peasy.

[Lycanthrope]

Boretech Carbon Eliminator.

I rarely brush.

Lycanonlycleanbarrelswhengroupsopenthrope

[ForeverPA]

I have yet to meet a guy who said his gun didn't work because he didn't clean it. That cleaning patch gets dirty if you scrub your face with it.

[Rural Ruger]

You may be over thinking this.

What EM said. I clean to a point if desired/when I can, or when its crusty or having functional issues. Risk of overdoing is as bad if not worse than underdoing it. Store in good temp/humidity conditions and you'll be fine (excluding corrosive ammo, obviously).

[Noah_Zark]

Why no matter if a new gun never shot or one that I have 1 round through or one with 100 do my patches constantly come out black? I soak with cleaner like Hoppes or whatever. Then I use brass brush. Then I use jag with cleaning patch, then I run light oil soaked patch through or a Remoil wipe through. No matter what, before the oil phase the patches are black and I see a lot of lines from the rifling. Never grey or brown or whatever, always black. I could brush the rifling clear off of my rifle and it would still be black. This sucks.

It's a matter of using appropriate materials and technique.

For example, on any dirty gun, I first run DRY patches through the chamber(s) and bore to pick up and remove as much DRY schmutz before applying wet patches and smearing all that dry stuff around, making a bigger mess that takes longer. It's similar to why you vacuum or broom clean a dirty floor before mopping - when you mop a floor without first sweeping you distribute a bunch of previously-dry dirt around, requiring more "rinse" mopping. Get rid of the dry stuff first, push two, three, or more dry patches through, one-way, and discard them. They should get progressively less verschmutzt with every dry patch.

Once the dry patches start looking cleaner, THEN use a powder solvent or Cleaner, Lubricant, Protectant (CLP) on a patch to wet the bore. You can skip a wet patch and run a wet brush through, first wetting the brush with a eyedropper, or using the CLP's bottle dropper tip. Then scrub with the brush several passes, THEN clean the brush by means of spraying or dipping in a solvent. In nice weather outside, I'll use spray carb cleaner to clean all the schmutz out of a bore brush, or if indoors, remove the brush from the rod and swish it in a small jar of miserable spirits. Then put the brush away. It's done its job.

Immediately after the wet brush treatment, send through more one-pass DRY patches to get rid of the wet schmutz in the bore. Repeat until the patches get noticeably cleaner.

Following that, make one pass with a patch wetted in your favorite solvent. Think of this as a rinse. Then more DRY patches. NOTE WELL: These dry patches will not be spotlessly clean, but each one should be successively cleaner. Expect to see some bluish tinge from copper. Expect to see spiral tracks from rifling. But the patches should be successively cleaner and cleaner. Just recognize that you'll reach a limit; they will be only so clean.

THEN as a final measure, make one final pass with a patch lightly dampened (NOT sopping) with an effective protectant oil. Rem Oil is NOT one of them. Use either CLP, or better, FP10 or my favorite, Corrosion-X. That's it. Hang it in the rack, put it in the safe. But before shooting it, run a dry patch through it to wipe out the protectant oil residue, and DO NOT be shocked or upset about how dirty that dry patch will be -- it's had days, weeks, or months to work on the microscopic schmutz that's deep in the chatter marks of the rifling, or at the base of the lands, etc. All that dirt means is that the protectant oil DID ITS JOB while the rifle slept in your safe, and you got on with your life.

Oil on metal parts/receiver/barrel, etc. Use a remoil wipe and always looks like I am cleaning off rust, it is brown. New gun or old one, always brown, makes me nervous!! I store at 30% in a safe, like I said even new ones look that way on a remoil wipe.

This is easily answered, but some folks find the answer hard to understand. Most (not all ) blueing is a form of iron oxide, or rust. In fact, there's a process called "rust blueing" where a very light uniform coating of rust is intentionally formed on metal parts of a firearm in a humidity box, and then "carded" off with steel or bronze wool, leaving a duller, darker steel surface. This is repeated a number of times, and each time the steel gets darker and bluer. At some point, the now-blued surface is polished with oil and a coarse linen cloth to brighten the sheen of the blueing.

But that blueing is still nothing more than iron oxide, Fe3O4, or "Iron 4 Oxide." Orange rust, commonly what everyone thinks of when they hear "rust" is "Iron 3 Oxide" or Fe2O3. Both are "rust", iron oxide. So when you wipe down a blued barrel, receiver, or frame with an oily rag, IT IS NOT UNCOMMON to remove a tiny, invisible to the naked eye layer of iron oxide. Even every time. Because that barrel IS rusting in your safe, your basement, the corner of your closet, every minute of the day. The rusting is controlled by the Iron 4 Oxide, or blueing, because "rust does not rust;" it's already rust, whatever form it's in. But this continuous entropic corrosion of the rifle's metal constantly takes place, even if waaaayyyy slowed down by blueing. So every time you wipe the metal, EXPECT TO SEE BROWN. Want to see less? Use a oxygen-blocking preservative like Corrosion-X, and apply with a microfiber cloth or a satiny polyester like a pair of discarded panties.

Why no matter if I put 1 gallon of oil on a rag and wipe my barrel/receiver/other metal parts they still look dull and like patchy? I am talking shotgun or rifle black barrels, not blued. It is like why do I bother or what am I doing wrong?

Actual blueing is still somewhat porous, that's another reason why it keeps rusting as explained above. If you're talking about the "black" blueing, that can either be actual blueing that's applied thicker, or it can be another coating altogether. If it's a technical coating, it is likely not porous, and will tend to "repel" oil to a degree, leaving a discontinuous, "patchy" appearance.

There is one technique that is amazingly effective at applying a uniform coating of oil or oil-based protectant -- a shaving brush or artist's "camel hair" brush. Shaving brushes are expensive, and if you don't shave with shaving soap, just go to the craft section of WalMart, or a Michaels or Hobby Lobby and get some wide "fan" type artist brushes with fine hair. Mine are about 1" wide at the tip, fan-shaped. You can keep the handle length as-made, or trim them to 3'-4" for convenience. If you use more than one oil product, label the brush handles, and ONLY USE ONE PRODUCT per brush.

To use a brush to apply oil or protectant (Corrosion-X, for example), apply three or four DROPS to the bristles, and using the tips of the bristles only, "sweep" the oil onto the metal surface as if you're painting. DO NOT lay the brush down on its side; sweep with the tips. The metal won't look like it's oiled, but when you get the technique right, run a clean finger on the surface and you will see the fingerprints "track" or smear the oil lengthwise. The key is to have patience, and let the oil build up in the brush and on the metal. Even on a new brush, NEVER exceed four drops. As it transfers to the metal, you may need to add another couple drops. If you can see the oil as a thick layer, you're putting too much on. When right, the sheen reflection in the light will tell you it's there. Also, when you're oiling by brush correctly, it may take you 10 mins or more to do a long gun, especially at first. Be patient.

I'm afraid touch the metal because I fear oils from my hands and rust. I wont touch wood stocks because I fear oils even though I apply lemon oil after cleaning. I am being a little facetious here bit it honestly feels that way.

No offense, you're going a bit far off the rails here. Do you have objective evidence that your personal skin oil HAS corroded a firearm? If not, relax a bit and reign in the OCD. Again, no offense. However, if your skin oil HAS caused rusty fingerprints on a firearm (some people do), then just get some inexpensive nitrile gloves to handle the guns when cleaning, and shooting gloves when shooting.

Why can't I get oil where it needs to be on a barrel? Ventilated barrel? No way you are getting below the vents on top. Bottom of barrel where it goes into the forend/guard? Never gonna get oil in there. My guns are sub-par from my treatment!!

Yes you can get oil in all of those places! Use the artist's brush oiling technique on ventilated ribs and recesses and other details, as described above. Again, use a sweeping or stippling action with just the tips of the bristles.

HTH; try these techniques and report back.

Noah