brake fluid for cleaning?

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sonier

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I have been using brake fluid to eat rust and disolve grime in a few tractor engines before, this fluid seems to eat all the unnatural material away and not screw the metal up, so I had a nice 30/30 leveraction that had horrible blackpowder grime build up and rust from shooting it, say 100 times? and not cleaning it for 6 months, BIGGEST MISTAKE EVER so I was out of blackpowder solvent and decided to give brake fluid a try, so i ran a patch saturated with this. I let it sit for 5 minutes, then scrubbed it 5 times with a bronze brush and ran patches till it was dry, I then did this process one more time, and sure as heck now I have a squeaky clean shiny bore, the easiest i have ever cleaned blackpowder out in my life.
I thought of some precautions like brake fluid will eat paint and dissolve a lot of stuff so i made sure non got on the stock or bluing, I dont know if this is a smart idea using brake fluid, but i dont think brake fluid will disolve metal, so another precaution was clean all the brake fluid out and run a patch of transmission fluid full synthetic to oil the bore. Im just wandering if anyone else has tryed this before me :)
 
I've thought about it... never tried it. I've also thought about carb cleaner and engine degreaser. They seem to be able to eat away anything but metal... Never tried it though.
 
Only i problem i see with that is leaving the inside bare metal. most guns are blued on the inside as well. now im sure after a period of time that bluing starts to come off. Running brake cleaner would for sure remove any bluing off. So you are going to have a shiney barrel that needs to be forever treated. This unless you get one of those cold bluing kits and run a couple of passes through to reblue the inside. otherwise you will need to make sure forever that you put some oil down the barrel. i would have for sure stayed away from brake cleaner with mine.
 
I don't think the bores are blued. The first 20 shots or so will wear that off pretty quick if it was. I would only use it on the bore, not any other parts, but I have never tried it.
 
looking down from the muzzle on almost all of my guns from the begining you see the same color as the outside. even on my 30-30 you see the same color. now not too sure how much it goes but its blued. now on my revolvers that i de blued there is no color but solid steel. 2 of these i have re blued the inside and i no longer see the rust spots on them as you did after cleaning them before. still best to lube but i just like the pre caution. my 30-30 probably has around 3000 rounds through it. and if i look down the muzzle end and see bluing at the end and what about an inch you can see down its good to me to assume there is some bluing.
 
only problem I can see it would be hard on the finish of the wood ...it would eat it off ...
and it might eat blueing off also ..
brake fulid is some stout stuff ...I would try it on a bad looking bore though when all else failed ...and I wasn`t worried about the blueing as much .
 
Just for clarification here.............. are we talking about brake FLUID or brake CLEANER? I have used brake cleaner before (in an aerosol spray can) and it is very quick to evaporate and really degreases & dries everything off leaving bare but still blued metal in need of oil. I've not used brake fluid yet but have made Ed's Red with transmission fluid.
 
Most brake cleaning chemicals involve Carbon Tetrachloride, which is just fine for degreasing most anything. Brake fluid on the other hand is relatively caustic and will absolutely cause rust. This is why brake lines are now almost universally stainless steel.
Brake cleaner on guns...yes. Brake fluid on guns...no.
 
Well, I have looked down the barrels of lot's of black powder firearms, plus 30-30's, .45-70's, .338 Win. Mags, M-16 and it's various designations, M-14's, M1's, M14 and M1 Carbines, .50 cal. machine guns, M-60 machine guns, .30 cal machine guns, .50 sniper rifles, and lot's and lo's of other kinds of rifles, shotguns, and revolvers, and semi auto pistols and whatnot, and I have yet to see one of them that was blued. I'vd seen them with the treatment and the finish where they had been rifled and they were coated to protect against rust while they were being shipped to some store to be sold but By God I'vd never seen one blued from the factory and even if they were stupid enough to do that the bluing would all burn right out of there with the first couple of shots. Damn! Just when I start to think there's some good common sense people on here someone will come up with some sort of dumb ignorant uneducated s*** like bluing the inside of a damned gun bore....
 
Just when I start to think there's some good common sense people on here someone will come up with some sort of dumb ignorant uneducated s*** like bluing the inside of a damned gun bore....
Click to expand...
I ALWAYS blue the bores of EVER gun I reblue. I doubt that it stays blued after a couple of shots but they ALL start out that way.
 
All my rifles are blued on the inside of my barrel.
Your Fang Face ammo will perform like it should if it is blued.
 
Brake fluid as in the thing that goes in the cylinder and lines, i used it in my 30/06 ran 150 rounds threw my rifle watched accuracy go from 3/4 moa to 2 moa then ran brake fluid one pass let sit for 5 min the 5 scrubs with bronze then wipe it out coat with lil tranny fluid and was shooting 1/2 moa and 3/4 moa groups. but yes it will kill the wood and kill the bluing.
 
I have a Pedersoli rifle with factory bluing inside the bore which is still completely intact after 100's of shots. That's probably because of the patches being lubed with bore butter which eliminates a lot of the friction.
Traditional muzzle loaders must be a different breed...:D
 
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It may depend on how the company blues its barrels. IF they are blued by being dipped, then the bore (assuming the bluing occurred after the cutting of the bore) would be blued. If the bluing is sprayed on, then the bore would be clean. If the bluing was applied before cutting the bore (why would you do that even... you'd run a high risk of marring the finish during the rest of finishing the barrel) then the bore would be clean.
 
Brake fluid huh?

Soo if you use brake fluid to clean a revolver- will you then be "firing on all cylinders?"

Sorry- couldn't resist

I'm in Iraq and a laugh is a laugh!
 
well not sure what you mean by firing on all cylinders, but i dont know if brake fluid is flammable and will cause a chain fire, theres a lot of safety and other precautions that need to be looked at before just anyone starts using any new fluid for any cause.
 
well i decided to checka nd see how flammable brake fluid is, and its not that flammable, maybe brake fluid vapors could be explosive so id still wipe any of it out of the barrel completely before firing.
 
Thanks for your service Benmathes. I got the ''firing on all cylinders" being a former mechanic. Sonier; that reference has nothing to do with flammability.
 
well i decided to checka nd see how flammable brake fluid is, and its not that flammable, maybe brake fluid vapors could be explosive so id still wipe any of it out of the barrel completely before firing.


Over here it is very flamable!

Ronson or similar lighter petrol breaks down BP crud and evpourates quickly!
 
]By God I'vd never seen one blued from the factory and even if they were stupid enough to do that the bluing would all burn right out of there with the first couple of shots. Damn! Just when I start to think there's some good common sense people on here someone will come up with some sort of dumb ignorant uneducated s*** like bluing the inside of a damned gun bore....
Click to expand...

Wow....just wow!

I'm no expert but it should be intuitively obvious to anyone with common sense that at least some barrels do have the inside blued. It is very typical that a complete barrel/assembly be submersed in the bluing solution without the ends capped. While the intent may not be to blue the inside of the barrel the end effect is to have the inside blued. Capping the ends of a barrel typically serves no purpose as the bluing does not have an appreciable thickness.
 
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