Cleaning up after Wolves and Bears--Put some Windex on it!

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Sir Galahad

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My Big Fat Greek Gun Cleaning Tip:


Yes, lots of us shoot Wolf and Silver Bear ammo. It can be hard to clean up after. Hoppes seems to take forever. Especially if the firearm you shot the stuff out of doesn't ave a chrome-lined bore. Well, there's hope! Use regular old ammonia-based window cleaner first. It'll clean that Wolf and Bear doo-doo out of your bore in nothing flat! It dissolves the powder residue better than Hoppes does (and also cleans up any corrosive salts that Hoppes might leave behind if you used Hoppes only.) At $2 for the store-brand super size bottle, you cannot beat it. Follow it up with Hoppes and bingo! You're done in half the time! Another tip is to save money on gun cleaning patches. Go to your local used clothing store and head over to where they keep the bedsheets. Check the tags and get you sheets that are 100% cotton (100% cotton won't be affected by solvents the way some fabrics can.) You can get months worth of cleaning patches out of one sheet. But buy several if you find plenty of 100% cotton sheets. That way, you can make small rags for cleaning the bolt, etc. You can cut the patches for all calibers and also to fit better than some name-brand cleaning patches that might say ".30 caliber" but hardly touch the bore and seem more like .22 caliber. Save your old coffee cans and cut your patches while watching TV (make you a template of the exact size and put a ziploc bag with it in there and tape that to the lid.) Mark the coffee can by caliber.
 
cleaning patches

Howdy
My wife buys me a reminent of "T" shirt material when it is on sale at her favorite fabric store. Does not lint and unravel. May be a funny color or shape but who cares. A $1.oo piece of material makes a lot of patches.
Wyo
 
I've been using Windex with Ammonia when firing surplus ammo out of my M44. Good stuff.

Windex immediately followed by a good cleaning at home using regular solvents. I've also been using the Birchwood Casey cleaner. That stuff has a super high ammonia content. On whiff will tell you all you need to know! :D

Good Shooting
Red
 
I used glass cleaner after I shot the Mosin the first time. Patches (all old bedsheets or t-shirts BTW) came out pretty dirty. Repeated until they started coming out lighter. Then I followed up with MPro7. Patches went back to solid black. I guess the ammonia is good for some things (the salts in the corrosive primers) and the oil-based cleaner is good for other things.

Edited to add I was shooting Wolf FMJ.
 
Minor clarification: It ain't the AMMONIA that dissolves corrosive salts, it's the WATER. Ammonia may work on copper jacket fouling but it don't cut the corrosive priming residue.
 
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