Post your cleaner and lubricant preferences

[at2000]

MPro-7 and Slipstream. MPro-7 gets things seriously clean and Slipstream has seriously slicked things up.

[Grizz12]

Frog lube

[pturner67]

mostly Breakfree CLP...sometimes Fireclean

[MaDMaXX]

I've heard good things about Mpro7 cleaner.


Rifleman, what on earth are you using WD40 on?

[wogpotter]

Which one?
There are 2 different M-pro 7 cleaners, one primarily for carbon, but with mild metal disolving abilities (M-Pro 7 gun cleaner), & one primarily for removing jacket fouling, (M-Pro 7 copper remover).

Neither contain ammonia & so both can be left in the bore for long periods without concerns. Because neither has ammonia some don't think its really "cleaning metal" due to the lack of blue/green patches, but that's just a side efffect of ammonia dissolving copper. As the M-Pro 7 uses different chemicals the dissolved metal is black in the patch, but its still copper solution, it just isn't green/blue copper solution!

The idea is that metal & carbon form a kind of layer cake of deposits. M-Pro 7's trick is to alternate the cleaner with the copper solvent to get at the next layer till its clean. Both are drain/septic safe & organic so the smell is minimal & you can clean your brushes & jags with tap water!

They also market their own brand of gun oil, but I haven't tried it yet.

[Method]

I've been using G96 CLP for most cleaning, supplemented by Hoppes Elite Gun Oil for my 1911 and on the BCG of my AR.

Given the extraordinary response in favor of Breakfree and FrogLube, I may start looking at those ones.

[MaDMaXX]

Went and spoke with the guy in my local (and *very* recently discovered) gunshop tonight.

Ended up grabbing another sample tube of Frogpaste, though free this time, and i splashed on the 4oz liquid as well. Too many good reports of seemingly sensible people trying and slowly switching over everything to it the more they use it.

I still don't think it'll be a good cleaner of a very dirty firearm, but once it's cleaned and protected, it think it'll all come off fine with the Froglube.


Wogpotter, i was referring to the general cleaner, which, from some tests i've seen, seems to have some copper removal ability as well, obviously not as good as their dedicated copper remover. I might see about grabbing a bottle of it for harder initial clean-up work that i don't particularly want to waste the Froglube on.

[dahermit]

...which, from some tests i've seen,...

It would be nice to have a web address for the tests inasmuch as questions like the O.P. posted bring un-substantiated responses, and are based on popularity without any research base.
Anyone have links to scientific comparisons of cleaners, lubes? One scientific test trumps personal preference and even popularity.

[Grizz12]

It would be nice to have a web address for the tests inasmuch as questions like the O.P. posted bring un-substantiated responses, and are based on popularity without any research base.
Anyone have links to scientific comparisons of cleaners, lubes? One scientific test trumps personal preference and even popularity.

there are a few side-by-side comparison test on youtube, start your search there

[wogpotter]

There was an excellent one which compared actual bore cleaning under controlled conditions and a copper soluability test. That was what convinced me to go with either the M-Pro 7 or the KG Big Bore, but I can't find the site immediately. I'll keep looking.

[wogpotter]

OK, found it!
http://www.frfrogspad.com/cleaners.htm
Scroll down for the patch comparisons.

[MaDMaXX]

Haha, you beat me too it, i was going to say it was FRFrogs, it's one of the reasons i just bought their cleaner, so i have an actual safe/effective straight cleaner to use before the froglube.

[foxytwo]

I use Hoppes #9 oil and solvent for cleaning and oiling the barrel but I use TW25 lube on the rails.

[MaDMaXX]

Interesting titbit i found on MPro's site:

MPro7 are their own company, they teamed up with Hoppe's when Hoppe's needed a non toxic offering. MPro7 make the Hoppe's Elite range for them (though the formula is slightly different to their own)

In a somewhat reciprocal deal, MPro7 now have a range of Boresnakes, licensed from Hoppe's

[jrobin3360]

Hoppe's #9 to clean & BreakFree for lube.
Used them both for 15+ years. They work like I need them to & I see no need to change.
Used to use Wilson's Gun Grease but found it collects dirt & grime so I quit using it.

[Pilot]

I switched to M-Pro 7 from a variety of cleaners and lubes a few years ago, and have been very satisfied. I use their regular gun cleaner, and the separate lube.

[skywag]

Brake cleaner
WD-40 (internet blaspheme duly noted)
LPS-2, sometimes LPS-3

No need for expensive "boutique" gun specific potions. A gun is only a machine.

[wogpotter]

I didn't know "FrFrog" had anything to do with "frog" products, like froglube?

The websites are listed from 2 different states, are you sure they're connected?

[chiefr]

Second generation Hoppes #9 user. IMHO, there is no other cleaner. I would not trust my firearms to anything but Hoppes. Besides, I love the smell.

[MaDMaXX]

Wogpotter, there is no link, i was referring to FRfrogs mpro7 cleaner testing.

Skywag, i know what you're saying, but WD40 is a very very think lube and not suitable, pick another non specific oil if you don't want to use gun boutique stuff

[KenL]

Shooter's Choice for the barrels and small parts, CLP for some small parts and for lube, except for spots I'm not able to reach with CLP I use Rem Oil with the long needle. I haven't needed anything else.

[jclayto]

I recently picked up Brian Enos slide glide. I've been pretty happy with it so far but would like to try Frog Lube.

[Unclenick]

In 1996, Precision Shooting magazine published a test of bore cleaners with the intention of ranking them. In the end, the author only recommended Bortech Eliminator and Slip2000 Carbon Killer (current name). He said they had worked so much better than anything else tested that the others he was going to rank didn't even bear mention. Eliminator's copper removing is so much faster than ammonia-based copper solvents, you won't believe the difference. I can't even use a brass jag with it, because the jag turns the patch blue in the time it takes to push it through the bore, giving a false positive for copper.

There's a copy of the article on Boretech's site.

Slip2000 Carbon Killer will take off hard crusted carbon in addition to common stuff, like from M14 gas pistons. I'll warn you that if you leave Parkerizing exposed to it for an extended period, it can begin to etch it. I left the end of a heavily carbon caked Garand op-rod sitting in it for half a day, when the recommended 15 minute application only got the surface of the carbon softened, and while I was able to brush all the carbon out of the rust pits under it afterward, the high water mark left by the soak was permanently apparent, and I wound up adding some Oxpho-blue to the cleaned area to darken it.

That said, Eliminator does pretty well with carbon itself. These days I take a pump spray bottle with the stuff in it to the range. At the end of shooting, and before carbon has begun to harden, I pump a squirt into the chamber and watch it run down the bore from the breech. With the bore coated, I plug the muzzle and chamber, then take the gun home. By the time I get home forty minutes later, the bore is basically clean. I run a wet patch through to patch out the carbon and dissolved copper, and that's usually all that's needed to finish. No brushes or other effort needed. The corrosion inhibitors are strong enough that you can leave a bore wet with it until it dries out and it doesn't hurt anything.

Since that 2006 article, additional, specialized products have come out from Boretech and from others. Boretech now has a larger line of cleaners. One I like is their C4 Carbon Remover. I sent some to a BP shooter one time who said he cleaned his bronze cap nipples with it and saw the bronze color again for the first time since he'd installed them.

KG products also has two very good products in the form of their KG-1 Carbon Remover and their KG-12 Copper Remover. The latter is probably the single most aggressive copper remover out there. The only problem is it doesn't turn blue as it etches copper, but rather turns sort of orangy-tan. So you can't tell be color when its' done. But 15 minutes left in the bore normally takes care of it all.

Another product I like for different purposes is Gunzilla. It is an amazing carbon remover if you have time for it to act. Leaving it overnight will usually loosen carbon that resists a bronze brush, but I have left it in a bore up to six weeks and had it pull carbon and rust out of barrel pits and flow it down to the bottom of the barrel.

But in the main, Boretech Eliminator is my go-to, removing both carbon and copper. I only address stubborn or special problems with the other products I mentioned now.

[603Country]

Based on Unclenick's comments some time back, I bought the Slip 2000 and Boretech Eliminator and found that he was very right. I got copper out of the barrel with the Boretech that I didn't know I had. Amazing. Over the past year or so of using that and the Slip 2000, I've gone to mostly using the Boretech only. And for light cleaning, when I know I haven't laid down a 4 lane highway of copper, I just use Shooter's Choice. And in the process of all this, I found (or at least think I found) that some of my rifles shoot better if I don't take all the copper out, and I'll mostly use Shooter's Choice on them.

Over the years I've bought and used many bore cleaner chemicals of various chemical compositions. The copper removal of the Boretech is easily the best I've seen. And if you are still a believer that ammonia based copper removal chemicals are the best, my experience suggests that you are misinformed.

[wogpotter]

Not to pick on the Slip2000 Carbon Killer, it is AFAIK the best carbon remover I've found & I use it for the really baked on crusties on the head of my gas piston when all else fails.

Unfortunately I like a copper remover too & it doesn't do that at all, you have to scrape it out with a brush.

I'd be a much bigger fan of the KG Big Bore as it does remove both carbon & copper but for me it had one thing that made me go with the M-Pro 7 products when I did a run off of the 2 types. It won't "flow" into a patch, it just beads up & rolls off. Why they dont use a wetting agent or sufesecant to drop the surface tension is a mystery to me.

It came down to one or the other after I did some up-front research & neither is perfect (Hey, what is?) but I'd use it instead of the 2-solution M-Pro if it would just flow better.