Has Anyone Tried This To Clean Barrels?

[Confederate]

While reading the thread on barrel cleaning in the Autoloaders section, I had a sudden thought. Has anyone tried using undiluted dishwashing detergent? Not dishwasher detegent, but the thick, gooey stuff you put in your pots and pans?

It's cheap, and it's a great cleaner, providing you get it all out -- but that's easy enough. Just use it in your stainless steel revolver or auto barrel. If you use it with a stainless steel brush and apply it to the entire brush, it should get out almost anything. After a good scrub, add water to the brush and then rinse out the barrel.

I've also wondered about toothpaste. It's a bit abrasive and should be an excellent cleaner. (Metal polishes like Semichrome also should work, but they're expensive. Toothpaste is cheap, and some brands have some sugar crystals as a gentle abrasive.) It also will give your guns great breath!

I'm not going shooting for awhile, but I think these things might be well worth trying. If it works on copper, lead and other bad stuff, it's a good, cheap solution.

 

[Jon_Snow]

While it probably won't hurt as long as you clean it all out I don't think it will work very well. Dish soap is meant to cut and lift grease and fat, not copper and lead fouling. The same goes for toothpaste. Gun solvents are purpose built to attack lead and copper. Not a lot of household cleaners will do that.

 

[rmfnla]

I agree. Dish detergent was made for dissolving food-based grease, not lead build-up, powder residue or copper fouling.

 

[Rodentman]

I don't like the idea of putting water in or on the gun. I'd rather have oil get into nooks and crannies, not water.

 

[Gik-tal]

For years now I use dawn dishwashing liquid and a little water to clean barrels after firing corrosive ammo. Use a nylon brush and some soaked patches. Once I think I've got the barrel clear of salts, I switch and use regular bore cleaner, which removes the soap. Doing this I've never had any problems with corrosive ammo.

 

[Shadow 7D]

The soft scrub type products are acid based, and that removes bluing
some abrasives could harm the bore, think lapping compounds or sand paper, you use them carefully, not for scrubbing some gunk out.

Liquid dishsoap and water is used for corrosive ammo to remove the salts, if you don't shoot corrosive ammo rodent, then you dont' worry, you don't understand.
Hell some people have was their glocks in the dishwasher....

 

[gofastman]

I use Simple Green Pro HD (NOT THE GREEN STUFF!)
Its an aircraft and precision parts cleaner that is approved by Boeing and Pratt and Whitney

It works great at removing powder and other residue and its fairly cheep,
Its got a million other uses too.
I get it at home depot.

 

[VA27]

Until the advent of smokeless powder all guns were cleaned with soap and water. Old guys (like me) still clean our blackpowder guns and guns that have fired corrosive ammo that way. You won't harm your semiauto barrel doing it. Ballistol is your friend.

 

[Don357]

Soap and water works great. I use it for my blackpowder guns and even my other revolvers, auto's and rifles. The trick is to use really HOT water, which heats the metal and aids in drying. I usually use Hoppes #9 solvent to loosen carbon deposits and then soap and water to clean out the oily solvent. Apply a light coat of oil and "voila" a clean gun and no rust. Of course you need to remove grips and stocks first.LOL

 

[Tilos]

Confederate:

Try it and let us know how it worked out

 

[Don357]

Oh Yeah, I forgot to mention that a friend of mine puts his BP pistols in the dishwasher. Can you say "SUPER CLEAN"?

 

[JHK94]

My dad raised me to clean shotguns in a bathtub of hot, dishsoapy water. I generally use dish soap and hot water to clean my Tokarev barrel (due to the corrosive ammo), as well as some of my milsurp rifles (same reason). I wash them well, then sit them in the hot hot sun to bake out all the moisture, then oil as necessary.

 

[postalnut25]

I remember putting soap & water in the washracks outside the squad bays at MCRD San Diego for our rifles. Worked fine. All you had to do was dry them real good.