[Milkmaster]

I recently bought a shotgun that had a set of four chokes with it. The barrel of the shotgun was clean, but all of the chokes had lots of plastic buildup inside them. I cleaned one of them just like I clean the bore of the barrel with Break Free, elbow grease and a bore brush. The plastic is always the hardest nasty item clean out. Is there a secret short cut to remedy this aggravation?

[RNB65]

Hoppes #9.

Soak a patch and run it through.
Let it sit for 15-30 minutes.
Run a brass brush through a few times.
Push patches through until they come out clean.

[Shell Shucker]

I soak mine in Hoppes #9. The Hoppes will blister the plastic in a few minuets. I then brush it out. I often let the Hoppes soak for several hours or overnight; let the solvent do the work.
If the fowling is really bad...... I soak the chokes in Hoppes overnight. I then chuck up a section of cleaning rod in a drill with brush attached (10ga brush works good in a 12ga choke). I use a pump sprayer (WD-40 pump spray bottle) full of #9 to keep it wet and cool. If the situation demands I'll wrap the brush with #4 steel wool. I've never had a dirty choke/chamber/bore defeat me yet using this method! Wad up a Kleenex to a tight fit and push it through to remove the mess.

[Dave McCracken]

Elbow grease. While I've been told that if left long enough the plastic will peel itself off, I lack the stones to try that.

Power tool.

I chuck a wooden arrow shaft in the variable speed drill. It's slotted at the tip for some 4/0 steel wool. Slow revs, and after a pass or two reverse the direction and repeat. Finsih off with a thin coat of SLip 2000 or similar.

[ZeSpectre]

After a cowboy action shooting match my SxS looks terrible inside with lots of plastic clinging to the barrel. I've found that a good hosing down with Birchwood Casey Barricade followed by a nice stiff tynex brush seems to peel a lot of it right out (usually).

After that it's time and elbow grease <sigh>.

[Snarlingiron]

Tornado brush, Hoppes 9.

[748]

I use a drill and a shot gun cleaning brush on a rod.
It will remove every thing form the bore you will be able to see the scraches and machine marks on your bore. The hoppes9 will be paste when you are done.

[GRIZ22]

I find that Gunscrubber or Brake Kleen really dissolves the plastic in shotgun barrels. It will also make an AUG magazine a lump of goo,

[K9american]

In this instance, Shooter's Choice has a bit of an edge over Hoppe's. :)
Cheap enough to give it a try and see how it works for you.

YMMV
NAYYY

[El Tejon]

I wad up toilet paper soaked with SLIP2000 and push it through.

[Whole Hog]

I remove the choke tubes and soak them in a jar of acetone I keep around for that purpose.

[BigG]

take the barrel off, take it outside and blow a shot of gun scrubber aerosol through the bbl. It will dissolve the plastic and a clean patch will push it right out, looking something like ashes. Works like magic.

[ArmedBear]

You can get aerosol stuff that works. Shooter's Choice brand, I think.

You still have to soak it and clean it with a brush.

Pardon my trapshooter's perspective, but why does it matter if a CAS gun has plastic in the bore? I'm not all that meticulous with my trap gun, and I have to hit little things 50 yards away or more. Doesn't seem to matter all that much.

[RNB65]

Old school, guys, old school. No reason to go WMD when a little Hoppes #9 will melt plastic like there's no tomorrow.

I usually use CLP to clean the powder residue out of my shotgun bores and only give them a good clean with Hoppes #9 about once a year to get the plastic out. Life is too short to fret over a little plastic in a shotgun barrel. :)

[ArmedBear]

A good trapshooter where I shoot was going on about how much plastic goo he got out of his barrel using some solvent or other (I think what I got), and how he was going to use that stuff more often.

This was AFTER he'd shot 75 straight, yet again, so I really didn't see how the plastic buildup was wrecking his patterns or anything.:p

[mswestfall]

I usually see plastic fouling when shooting Doubles Trap on a warm day.

I soak a 12 gauge cleaning pad with Hoppe's #9 and push it through with a tornado brush. It really doesn't take that much more work than the powder fouling.

BTW, wads in new Winchester AA's seem to foul the barrel more than reloads with Claybuster wads.

Good luck!

[K9american]

Once again now --- Shooters Choice for cleaning plastic goo. Back in the day when I was shooting a lot more trap than I shoot now, all the ATA Vandalia Fanatics swore by Shooters Choice to clean the plastic from their Kreighoffs, Perazzis and one Winchester Model 12. All 95 life time average or better. But then, maybe times have changed.

Edit: Just read all the above comments and agree with all of them. Whatever works is good. My personal routine is shoot, run tika tool soaked with WD-40 :eek: through the bbls then, on arrival at mi casa, shooters choice thru the bbls, a smidge of lubriplate on the bearing surfaces and back in the rack. Perazzi MT6. YMMV.

[Milkmaster]

The best advice I got out of all the answers is patience! I sprayed the chokes with Break-Free and let them sit overnight. This morning the plastic was already curled up loose inside them. So from now on instead of cleaning my shotguns right after shooting, I will just wet down the barrels and let them sit a day before cleaning the bore. That way the plastic will be loose and easliy removed. Patience is supposed to be a virtue. I guess that applies as well to cleaning firearms. Thanks to all who participated in my question.

[scout26]

Milkmaster, et al.

I've always found that giving any and all of my firearms a good wipedown with CLP and then let them sit for ~24 hours cuts out a lot of elbow grease from the cleaning job.

If time is a factor, another thing that eats through the plastic quick is Ed's Red. (probably because it contains acetone.) A search will turn up Hatcher's recipe and the modern version also.

Another trick I've found is what I refer to as "Don't make a mess in the first place and you don't have to clean it up" school of thought in that Nothing But Dust (aka Dusterwads) leave a lot less palstic residue then OEM, Claybuster or just about any other wads I've tried/tested. Downrange wads also seem pretty "clean", but then I've only tested 50 of them at one time. I got a free sample pack of 25 orange and 25 pink wads from them. But I don't have a "local" source for them other then Recob's Target Shop, and they don't dtop at my club like they used to. Now I have to go either to the Northlake or St Charles clubs on the days that they're in town when I need supplies from them. I can get Dusterwads for either $6.99 for a bag/500 from the Gander Mountain locally, and Downrange wads are about a buck a bag higher, so my wallet and the gas tank says don't drive way out of your way to pay more, just stick with what works and cheaper. (although I'll probably invest in a bag of purple 1 oz jammers, pink 7/8 oz XXL and orange 1 oz XXLS next time I see them. :D )