Chicken Grease Guns

[GunnyUSMC]

Have you ever heard of a Chicken Grease Gun?
These are guns that someone had used cooking oil to coat and protect while hiding them. Sometimes they don't use fresh oil and the guns smell like fried chicken.
Here is a Rock River AR15 that I had the joy of playing with this morning. It was picked up from a street level drug dealer.
My job is to test fire the gun and then enter the cartridge cases into the NIBIN database and try to match the breach face markings to cartridge cases that have been picked up from shootings.
This is what I pulled out of the Evidence bag.

It was pretty nasty and the buffer tube was broken. The old grease gets very thick and is almost like glue.


The first thing is to get it apart without causing any more damage. I had to use a hammer and punch to get the BCG back into the rifle so that I could remove the lower. I also had to use a hammer and punch to move the takedown pins.

 

[GunnyUSMC]

I started off with Break Cleaner to get rid of some of the gunk then start scrubbing everything with gun oil and brushes. It took about two hours to get everything cleaned up. Boy was that barrel dirty, had a lot of trash in it.



To save time I used the lower from a Bushmaster AR to fire the gun. Here are the test fires that I recovered from the tank. The ones marked 1/2 are reduced loads I fire into a water trap so that the bullets don't get deformed . You can see that the bullets are pretty ruff due to the condition of the barrel.

 

[il_10]

Interesting, sort of a low-rent cosmoline, I've never heard of this before. Thanks for sharing Gunny!

 

[BigBore44]

That’s really interesting. I hadn’t heard of it before. Think if I become a drug dealer I’ll just splerge on some Polyethylene pipe and a couple gallons of Mobil 1.

 

[scaatylobo]

Very interesting,never had that pleasure.

Most of the stuff I tested just required LOTS of protection to be sure it did not damage me when fired.

But in your case,I would have gone with either LOTS of boiling water,or the more dangerous way they used to get cosmoline off the new Garands = gasoline.

Looks like you had " your hands full" to try a hand at humor.

 

[jmace57]

I was going to say boiling water too...

 

[Tommygunn]

I like to think I treat my ARS better than that .....

 

[Danoobie]

Looks like a great way to keep a spare firing pin for another rifle clean...

 

[MistWolf]

I was going to say boiling water too...

...and dish soap.

 

[CLP]

I'm very impressed that these criminals are so environmentally-minded by re-purposing used cooking oil. Proof positive that every one of us can recycle.

I wonder, when Mama is frying up some chicken, does the aroma cause their mind to relive those drive-bys and hold-ups?

 

[ilbob]

soak it for a few days in diesel fuel or kerosene.

 

[GunnyUSMC]

Well, I work in a Crime Lab, no place for working with hot soapy water.

 

[LiveLife]

Microwave oven to boil water and large plastic trash bags to soak?

You should have access to microwave oven/hot water from coffee maker in staff break room and trash bags from the janitor/housekeeper?

Dish soap like Dawn, well ... you may have to bring that in if staff break room doesn't have it.

 

[FL-NC]

I have seen this in afg. The bad guys weapons often smelled like their chow, which smells like poo.

 

[Corpral_Agarn]

That's really interesting.

Glad you are the one who has to clean it, not me!

Thanks for posting!

 

[AlexanderA]

This reminds me of a story my father told me about hiding a revolver during the German occupation of Greece, in WW2. He wrapped it in some oily rags and buried it in the back garden. He didn't have the luxury of preservatives or airtight containers. (If the Germans caught you with a gun, it meant instant death.) When he dug it up after the war, it had turned to solid rust.

In September 1943, some Italian soldiers, whom my father had been tutoring in ancient Greek, on the run from the Germans, showed up at his house and offered to trade their weapons and their truck for civilian clothes. (The Italians had just surrendered to the Allies and the Germans had been ordered to take them all prisoners.) My father wisely declined the offer but gave them civilian clothes and sent them on their way.

 

[NIGHTLORD40K]

Well, I work in a Crime Lab, no place for working with hot soapy water.

Forget drug dealing......the court will just slap him on the wrist and give him a "Kamala Harris 2020!" pin as they turn him loose- the real felony is what he did to that poor innocent rifle!

 

[Jim Watson]

Bear fat. All the best pastry cooks like bear fat. As a frontier gun lube, bear tallow and oil were less likely to go rancid.

 

[Dr.Rob]

Wow as rusty as the outside was I'd be afraid to fire it. Unless I tied it to a tree or something.

 

[GunnyUSMC]

Wow as rusty as the outside was I'd be afraid to fire it. Unless I tied it to a tree or something.

After I cleaned the barrel the bore looked pretty good except for a inch or so at the muzzle. The chamber came out very clean. I didn’t think it would cycle but the gun functioned fine.
Here are two screenshots from the video I took.


I do have to say, the first shot spit out some trash.

 

[bbqreloader]

thats a steel set of cajones to even think of pulling the trigger on that thing...

 

[primalmu]

I'm surprised a drug dealer would go through that much trouble to "preserve" an AR. Is this common?

 

[GunnyUSMC]

thats a steel set of cajones to even think of pulling the trigger on that thing...

The outside of the barrel looked a lot worse then it was. The inside of the rifle had been coated very good with the grease. Once the gummed up grease was removed and oil applied, the action was very nice, almost smooth.
The only pitting inside the action was on the lower right rail of the bolt carrier, and that was not much.
I sprayed break cleaner through the gas tube and it passed with no trouble.
With some extra cleaning and a new buffer tube, the rifle would be fully functional.

 

[GunnyUSMC]

I'm surprised a drug dealer would go through that much trouble to "preserve" an AR. Is this common?

I get about 6 to 8 Chicken Grease Guns a year. Most often they are stashed away after being used in a homicide.
Most of the guns I get are in very good shape, but there a few that have seen better days.

 

[1976B.L.Johns.]

Gunny, you have a very interesting job, or career.