Quote:
Originally Posted by Rick Lee
Depends on the finish. Stainless steel, nickel, hard chrome, etc. I've heard can be damaged by Hoppes 9. I use a blend of Mobil 15W-50 motor and 75/90 gear oil on those finishes. For the black and blued stuff I use Hoppes 9. I generally clean after each range session and always if it's a carry or bedside gun.
|
I've heard that it's just nickel finishes can be damaged by Hoppe's, or any other copper solvent. I've never heard that it can attack stainless or hard chrome, though. That said, I've used Hoppe's on a nickel plated M29 for decades with no ill affect. I think it's such a mild copper solvent that, combined with modern nickel plating, there is probably no real risk.
I've used Mobil 1 as my "gun oil" for about the last decade. I picked up on its use from the air gun crowd. I have yet to find anything better.
Different guns require different cleaning. There is no "one size fits all". My handguns, all shot primarily with my own home cast bullets, clean up with just a couple of patches wet with Hoppe's. My cast bullet rifles get a similar cleaning, as do my mid velocity jacketed bullet rifles. My black powder guns only differ in that the initial cleaning is done with water, followed up with the Hoppe's.
The really high velocity stuff is another matter. Something must be done to remove the copper fouling. John Barsness recently published a great article in either
Rifle or
Handloader concerning the nature of this kind of fouling. It "layers" in the barrel, copper then carbon then copper then carbon and so on. It must be either chemically or electronically removed. I use Sweet's 7.62, a very strong ammonia based copper solvent. I'll clean with it until patches no longer come out blue, then switch to Hoppe's for the carbon, then go back to the Sweet's. It can be surprising how many times I have to go back and forth to get truly down to bare steel in the bore. Most folks stop well short, and bores can suffer when they do.