Can I Clean 9mm Bore w A .38/357 Brush?

[eldon519]

Old brushes wear down too. After awhile they won't be a tight fit anymore and I'll often move them down in caliber. A worn .45 brush can become a .40 or 9mm brush. A worn 9mm brush can become a .30 cal brush, etc.

 

[HOOfan_1]

and if you are cleaning a 9mm revolver.. also put the brush in from the NON muzzle end. OH WAIT!

You could do that with and Otis kit

 

[rcmodel]

Do you think the brass bristles will wear the hardened steel barrel if you reverse direction mid-stroke?

No, but a new brush can sure get stuck tighter then a gnats south end if you do try to reverse it in the bore.

The bristles are bent over the way it is being pushed through the bore.

Then to pull it back, and they are bent over the wrong way, and there is no room for them to change directions and go the other way!!!

rc

 

[eldon519]

Reversing mid-stroke will definitely wear out the brush faster if nothing else, bending bristles and whatnot.

 

[Potatohead]

Hey thanks for the advice everyone. Never really had any instruction on how to clean my guns. Someone just told me be careful what I stick in the barrel, you dont want to scratch it.

FYI I ALWAYS clean after shooting Ive just always used a rod, patch, and solvent. Ive probably never shot more than 120 rds (jacketed) per session so I figured patches would handle it. (Judging by the amount of fouling that I ended up getting out yesterday, I dont think the patches were handling it)

The patches were still coming out with fouling on them when I quit. Do I need to keep on until they come out spotless? They got better, but not pristine.

 

[Redlg155]

Never ...ever...take a stainless steel tornado brush and run it on a cleaning rod attached to a power drill!!

I had a buddy of mine to do that with dark milsurp barrels. Make the bore shiny and shellac the stock=double the markup to uneducated buyers.

 

[Potatohead]

Oh my.
I saw one of those tornado brushes. What exactly are they for?

 

[Sam1911]

Shouldn't ever be any need for power tools in cleaning a modern firearm shot with modern ammo.

The tornado brushes are just soft stainless steel wire, still a lot softer than your barrel, and wound in a specific way. I don't have any use for them but they might be a little more aggressive on heavy fouling.

I clean pistols every 500-1,000 rounds whether they need it or not. That involves wiping out all the sooty goop out of the action and running patches down the bore. I usually also run a bronze brush down the bore a handful of times as well, just to knock loose any carbon bits or stray lead that might have accumulated. (I only shoot lead through my pistols 97% of the time. Copper jacketed ammo should require LESS cleaning than this.) Then a wet patch and a dry patch or two and give it a visual check held up to a light. If I can see what appears to be a clean bore with nice sharp rifling clearly visible and no streaks or deposits, it's clean enough.

Endless patches and scrubbing trying to get a patch to come out white is far more effort than I've ever seen any practical benefit from. I can clean the bore of any of my handguns to my satisfaction in 5 minutes or less every time...usually 2 minutes or less.

I'm much more concerned about getting the black gunk out of the action where it might actually cause a problem, than I am about getting the bore spotless.

 

[Potatohead]

Thanks Sam.

 

[hdbiker]

Bore brushes

When my .30 cal., brushes get worn and don't fit right, they go in the .270 box, and when they get loose in the .270, go in they .243 box. Get it ? hdbiker

 

[jrdolall]

Do they make a cleaning kit that takes into account the fact that I can't see worth a darn anymore?
I can pretty much tell by looking but sometimes I have to get a magnifying glass to tell what caliber the darned brush says.
For that matter do they make a fish hook that I can thread?

 

[Jim Watson]

A .40 bore brush is a good .38 revolver cylinder brush.

 

[bluetopper]

Cast lead bullets and patches soaked in diesel are the only things that ever pass through my handgun barrels. They stay shiney and polished looking.

 

[JTQ]

Here is another viewpoint on barrel cleaning from Schuemann Barrels. http://schuemann.com/Portals/0/Documentation/Webfile_Barrel_Cleaning.pdf

 

[HOOfan_1]

If I can see what appears to be a clean bore with nice sharp rifling clearly visible and no streaks or deposits, it's clean enough.

I can never see sharp rifling in my Glock barrel

 

[Sam1911]

Keep cleaning. You've obviously got a lot of lead fouling in there. Scrub, scrub, scrub.


Might take you all night. Better make a pot of coffee. Let me know tomorrow if you found that rifling yet...

 

[Potatohead]

Do they make a cleaning kit that takes into account the fact that I can't see worth a darn anymore?
I can pretty much tell by looking but sometimes I have to get a magnifying glass to tell what caliber the darned brush says.
For that matter do they make a fish hook that I can thread?

LOL. BTW that made me think...they sure do have lots of cleaning equipment out now. My dad told me all they used to use was an old pair of tightey whiteys!

 

[Potatohead]

Thanks for the link JTQ. Maybe I don't want to be sticking cleaner and brushes down in it!

 

[Granby140]

Of course. Justdont try and fire a 356 out of it lol

 

[GBExpat]

Of course. Justdont try and fire a 356 out of it lol

 

[jrdolall]

LOL. BTW that made me think...they sure do have lots of cleaning equipment out now. My dad told me all they used to use was an old pair of tightey whiteys!

I really don't remember the first time I saw a cleaning kit. I always kept an old rag, usually part of a shirt, that had some kind of oil, didn't matter what kind, and used it to wipe down my guns. I had a 12g, 30-06, 20g and a 357 when I was growing up. I bet I ran thousands of rounds down these guns without ever running a brush through them and certainly never took them apart to clean the action. All were family heirlooms and I still have them all. No rust but a lot of holster wear on the pistol.

 

[jim243]

In case we all forgot the OP's question:

Is the bore brush interchangeable between 9mm and 38/357? Im trying not to have to make the cross city trek back to Gander

The answer is yes you can.

But, any excuse we can get to go wandering through our favorite toy store like a 10 year old the week before Christmas will be a good one. So go get yourself one of those new fangeled 9 mm bore brushes made out of nylon, soak it up with Hoppe's #9 and run the daylights out of it through your bore (both directions) till you can see your reflection in the bore of the barrel, then go out and make it dirty again just for the hell of it.

Remember it was Dupont that gave us "Better life through chemistry". There are solvents for both lead and copper.

Jim