Best cleaner for cosmoline...

[41magsnub]

Pine tar soap works for both me and the rifles. For more serious problems where the goop has gotten into the grain, there are a lot of home remedies. I prefer putting the wood in a plastic bag with kitty litter in the hot sun and letting the stuff come out on its own.

Harsh chemical treatments will bleach the wood and may also damage it.

Not high road, but given your name is cosmoline and taking what you said entirely out of context it brings up some very disturbing imagery.

 

[strangelittleman]

"I prefer putting the wood in a plastic bag with kitty litter in the hot sun and letting the stuff come out on its own."
HAHAHAHA!!!!
You're one sick puppy, 41magsnub.....and people call me strange.....My side hurts now and I've got tears streaming down my face!!!!!

 

[280shooter]

dont use oven cleaner

oven cleaner will take any finish off of any thing, use the min, sprits,get a big bucket and take a stiff paint brush and and just do like your painting,take all the part off the gun put them all in the ,bucket i did this for all them oel stinky guns with all that junk being grease or what ever it is, then take the min, spirts and put it back in the cantainer that it came in,all the crap will go to the bottom,and u can use it over abd over again,and u can use it on woood too, it wont hurt anything,and the min,sprits will melt that grease like butter on a hot grill.

 

[TheGunGuru]

carburetor cleaner works great

 

[Oohrah]

Issued brand new in the cosmoline M1 Garands in June of 58. Plain
old gasoline with a paint bush and tooth brush. It did not seem much
of a struggle other gas was not particular good on the bare hands.

 

[Ivy Mike]

heat works the best. I left my Mosin M44 in the back of my car during a day in July. Luckily, I had left some paper under it. When I grabbed it the next day, there was a small puddle of cosmoline from the heat in the car.

This may not work in all locales though. Vegas has really hot summers where the temps get above 110 on a regular basis. In-car temps of more than 170 are the norm.

 

[jcwit]

Oven cleaner & the local car wash. Oven cleaner will clean the stock so you can refinish it with linseed oil. After the car wash go home and oil things up. Best part is you have no mess to clean up, and you don't use up your "t" shirt collection.

 

[nwilliams]

+1 on oven cleaner

A few cans of heavy duty oven cleaner on a cosmoline soaked stock will suck the cosmoline right out and leave it dry as a bone with no cracking, it will also raise most dents and dings. A few coats of linseed oil will bring back the natrual color of the wood.

Its messy and should be done outside but I've restored many stocks this way, right now I'm restoring an Israeli Mauser I'll be posting the results soon.

 

[Poprivit]

At auto parts stores is a chemical cleaner called "Super Green". It took all the cosmoline off my CMP M1 in very short order. It's biodegradable and non-flammable, plus it will take the oil out of the stock chop-chop. Get a coat of good gun oil on all the metal parts and some linseed oil (boiled) on the stock right away.