DIY Micro Cleaning Kit

[Dave Markowitz]

My defensive carbine is a Mini-14. I wanted to get a basic cleaning kit that would allow me to keep the bore clean and the rifle lubed in the field. I came up with the following.

First, here's a pic of it assembled, ready to go into my LBE:

 

[Dave Markowitz]

And here's a pic what's inside:

It includes some cleaning patches, a few cut-down swabs, and one of those pots of Lubriplate grease meant for the butt trap of M1s and M14s. There's a pull-through which I made from two of the conductors from a length of CAT5 network cabling. I put a big loop on one end to pull with, and a small loop on the other to hold patches. I tried it out and it works fine. When uncoiled, the wire is stiff enough to push down the bore, although you can't clean an obstruction with it. This is mainly to run an patch wet with FP-10 through the bore.

All of the above fits inside a 35mm film canister. Along with that, I have a small bottle with FP-10 CLP (it originally contained Tri-Flow, but I dumped the last of that in favor of FP-10).

Both parts of the kit fit into one of the small pouches on the Chicom chest rig that I use along with the Mini-14.