Driftwood Johnson
Member
Geez, you guys are leaning towards needing to be a chemist to clean a BP gun. What happened to hot water and Dawn? That's all I used for years, before I worked in a shop as a smith and was spoiled by T/C #13.....
Howdy
The word HOT is the difference. I have been using Murphy's Mix (equal parts Murphy's Oil Soap, Rubbing Alcohol, and drugstore Hydrogen Peroxide) for about ten years now to clean my guns after a CAS match. The beauty of Murphy's Mix is it can be used cold, does not need to be heated. So cleaning can be done anywhere, at the range, or at home. The other beauty is, as stated, when the alcohol and water evaporate, the Murphy's Oil Soap leaves behind an oily residue that coats the steel preventing corrosion. When cleaning my revolvers, rifle, and shotgun after a match I always squirt a liberal amount of M Mix down inside the mechanism of the guns. I do not tear the guns apart completely to remove every speck of BP fouling. BP fouling remaining down inside the lockwork gets coated with M Mix, and when it dries the oily coating prevents atmospheric oxygen from reaching the steel. Every year or two I tear down my pistols, rifle and shotgun to remove all the black, oily guck down inside. There is always plenty of guck, but there is no rust because the oil protected the steel.
Regarding Per Oxide causing steel to corrode, of course it will in sufficient concentration. But the concentration of H2O2 in drugstore Hydrogen Per Oxide is very low, usually only 3%. On top of that, when it is mixed in equal quantities with the other two ingredients, the concentration goes down to about 1%. That is not going to corrode anything. I have been using this stuff for ten years, and I would have seen it by now if it was going to corrode anything. As a matter of fact, a bunch of years ago I did a little test. I submerged a piece of steel in a dish of M Mix and left it there a few days until the M Mix had completely evaporated. There was no rust on the steel. In fact, all the Peroxide does is create a little bit of fizzing action to help lift any stubborn fouling.
Everybody knows that hot water is a great way to remove BP fouling. In fact, it is the water in the Per Oxide and the Alcohol in M Mix that does the dissolving of BP fouling. The alcohol makes the water evaporate more quickly, the Per Oxide provides a little fizz, and the oil soap leaves the oil coating behind.
One more beauty of M Mix. You don't have to remove it. Just leave it in there. Back when I used to shoot a lot of Cap & Ball I tried everything under the sun to get the water out again. Q-Tips in the nooks and crannies of a C&B cylinder was a pain in the neck. Yes, I tried heating the guns in a low oven, and yes, I tried using scalding hot water, to heat the steel so the water would evaporate quickly. In both cases I got flash rust.
Murphy's Mix is so simple. You don't need to be a chemist, you buy the ingredients at the super market. You swab the gun off liberally inside and out, and you make no effort at all to remove the stuff from inside. A couple of patches through the bore and the chambers will remove the Mix, then I follow up with a patch soaked with Ballistol to leave a nice coating of oil in the bore and chambers. Takes about five minutes to do a cartridge revolver.