Spring cleaning the collection and decided it was time for new bore mops for the shotguns. My assortment of bore mops and brushes included some absolutely black, nasty-looking mops that had found there way to the bottom of the tackle box where I store such items, some there I would bet for many years. There were also putrid, green mops that had been used for coper fouling of rifles, and some sorry-looking bronze brushes, too.
As I was gathering these to throw them away and see what I needed to order, I decided to search on line about cleaning bore mops. I ran across references to using liquid automatic dishwasher detergent, un-diluted, to soak and clean such items, along with anecdotal stories of the risks of then using either the dishwasher or washing machine to finish the process.
Having recently purchased a used Lortone tumbler and stainless steel media for brass, I thought "why not?". Dumped the tumbler media out. Drenched the mops in liquid Cascade in a bowl, then dumped them in the tumbler, rinsing the bowl several times with hot water and using that to fill the tumbler about 2/3 full. Added a good shot of Dawn liquid detergent and tumbled about an hour. While that was ongoing, I though, for good measure, I'd take the brushes and put them in the now obsolete (at least for brass) ultrasonic cleaner in a solution of warm Citrinox and a shot of Dawn. Let those go two cycles of 480 seconds.
I repeated the mop tumble a second time with just Dawn, then rinsed and squeeze dried the mops. and put them in the dehydrator/dryer I use for drying brass. Leaping lizards! These came out looking almost new. Wish I had taken a photo to show just how bad they were before.
Impressive.
The bronze brushes cleaned up pretty well, too, but needed some cotton picking to remove embeded patch remnants on several.
As I was gathering these to throw them away and see what I needed to order, I decided to search on line about cleaning bore mops. I ran across references to using liquid automatic dishwasher detergent, un-diluted, to soak and clean such items, along with anecdotal stories of the risks of then using either the dishwasher or washing machine to finish the process.
Having recently purchased a used Lortone tumbler and stainless steel media for brass, I thought "why not?". Dumped the tumbler media out. Drenched the mops in liquid Cascade in a bowl, then dumped them in the tumbler, rinsing the bowl several times with hot water and using that to fill the tumbler about 2/3 full. Added a good shot of Dawn liquid detergent and tumbled about an hour. While that was ongoing, I though, for good measure, I'd take the brushes and put them in the now obsolete (at least for brass) ultrasonic cleaner in a solution of warm Citrinox and a shot of Dawn. Let those go two cycles of 480 seconds.
I repeated the mop tumble a second time with just Dawn, then rinsed and squeeze dried the mops. and put them in the dehydrator/dryer I use for drying brass. Leaping lizards! These came out looking almost new. Wish I had taken a photo to show just how bad they were before.
Impressive.
The bronze brushes cleaned up pretty well, too, but needed some cotton picking to remove embeded patch remnants on several.
