Best Way To Remove Cosmoline from my P-64 ?

[jski]

Mineral spirits or hot boiling water?

 

[Jack B.]

Mineral spirits or hot boiling water?

Both. I used to clean cosmoline off of VW's . They came coated with it for shipping overseas. I used a steam sprayer with kerosene injected into the sprayer. Worked great for big job's like cars.

 

[FL-NC]

WD40, rag, toothbrush. Then lube it with something better after you clean all that gunk off.

 

[sarge83]

I have used mineral water to strip cosmo, but the best way I found is to remove grips if rubber and get a clothes steamer and a five gallon bucket and some distilled water. I have used this method on metal and wood stocks as well. You hit it with that hot steam and the cosmo bubbles up and drips into the bucket or you can just wipe it off. Then just a good cleaning and oiling.

 

[BSA1]

Gun Scrubber.

Take the grips off of the gun and field strip it.

Put on a pair of latex rubber gloves.

Take the gun outside, choose a place where you don't want grass and flowers to grow and liberally hose the gun parts with Gun Scrubber letting the gunk run onto the ground. It has been a while since I have handled my P64 so I don't recall off hand how hard it is to remove the firing pin. However I would remove it and blast out the firing pin channel.

I figure on using 1/2 can of Gun Scrubber per gun.

 

[wally]

Boiling water.
Everything else is not any better and costs more.

 

[GBExpat]

I have a gallon tin of MS (handle marked COSMOLENE) in the garage for just such a purpose.

Whether actual cosmo on a milsurp or shipping oil on, say, a new stripped AR15 receiver half, I first treat them to a nice, relaxing soak/dip/scrub in the MS from that tin.

My next step is detail-strip (if applicable) for close inspection and cleaning.

S'just my method ...

 

[First4Freedom]

I went the mineral spirits way, had an aluminum tray, field stripped my Bulgarian Makarov dropped it in the tray (completely submerged) and left it for 2+hrs. The cosmoline came off easily and I had such a positive experience with this method that I'll definitely use it in future.

 

[ArchAngelCD]

Gasoline works very well but could be dangerous. Mineral Spirits works too.

 

[jski]

Sounds like my best bet is to remove the scales and disassemble the action and soak in mineral spirits.

 

[CoalTrain49]

I cleaned up about 30 M1 carbines mags that had been stored for 50 years. The cosmoline was thick and there was lots of it. I bought a gallon of mineral spirits and soaked them over night. Blew everything out with compressed air the next day. Clean as a whistle.

 

[ArchAngelCD]

I cleaned up about 30 M1 carbines mags that had been stored for 50 years. The cosmoline was thick and there was lots of it. I bought a gallon of mineral spirits and soaked them over night. Blew everything out with compressed air the next day. Clean as a whistle.

There ya go...

 

[ShadowsInSnow]

Try a heat gun (on low) or a (hair) blow dryer. It heats the cosmoline for easy removal.

 

[Snowdog]

WD40, rag, toothbrush. Then lube it with something better after you clean all that gunk off.

That's the route I've taken for all my C&R handguns, followed up by Breakfree CLP-5.
My P64 did have some cosmo, but not much compared to others. Both my Yugoslavian M57s take the cake so far. Those took some time.

They cleaned up nice though.

 

[GBExpat]

This Thread brings to mind the cosmoline that came slathered onto&into&above&below&beside&behind&around the Albanian SKSs.

Someone over at Gunboards (IIRC) named it Sticky-Snot cosmoline. It was some tough, persistent stuff.

Some of us utilize the hairdryer/heatgun approach to "pre-clean" heavily-cosmolined firearms, longguns especially (the cosmo melts and pours off), and this S-Sc was impervious to heat and mineral spirits required a long soak to dissolve it.

As I recall, I finally wiped-off (fought-off) as much as I could with old newspaper and then treated the components to a long soak in MS followed by a thorough scrubbing. On that job I could not save & reuse the MS.

Nasty stuff ... but possibly none better for the purpose.

 

[MedWheeler]

GBExpat writes:

Someone over at Gunboards (IIRC) named it Sticky-Snot cosmoline.

"Devil's Snot" is how I heard it called.

 

[Dr.Rob]

Diesel fuel in a bucket outdoors is how we always did it.

 

[donkee]

Complete detail strip. place on cookie tray, spray with Simple Green, scrub parts with a brush, run under very hot water to flash dry and blow off parts with air compressor. Reassemble with lube and replace any suspect parts like springs if you can get them.

 

[bgw45]

In 68 my army hospital was about to ship out to VN. We were required to turn in all out dated equipment. Our NCOs broke open abou 100 194? Stoves covered with cosmo. They had us "remove" the cosmo with diesel fuel. The diesel was perfect at smearing the cosmo, not so much at removing it.

Other than raking leaves with sticks that was one of my most memorable army experiences. Part of my training as a medic.

 

[dh1633pm]

Your pistol is small. Whenever I remove the cosmo, I use degreaser in my ultrasonic cleaner with hot water. To make clean up easier I do a complete disassembly.

 

[Rubber_Duck]

Cleaning the firing pin and its channel is critical with these mil-surps that have floating firing pins.

 

[Dibbs]

If you have a private area, field strip it, and leave it in the hot sun on a newspaper. Then wipe it down with a
clean rag. Go after the rest with MS or brush solvent. Do not soak wood or plastic with any -ene. Use
hot water and Simple Green or Murphy's Oil Soap, instead.