Ronsonol

Makes a good barrel cleaning aid.

For me I use a loose patch with accelerator and a loose patch of wipe out/patch out. After the required wait time I take a tight patch and squirt a smidgen of Ronsonol on it and push it through. Repeat with a second tight patch. Repeat the process until clean. My last patch is a dry patch. Ronsonol is just hexane and/or its isomers. Good for cleaning sticker glue off of desirable objects.

Have fun with your guns.

 

In the olden days before the accelerator, Wipe Out recommended lighter fluid before using the Wipe Out.

 

Have you bore scoped your barrel after this process?

 

I will try it next time I clean. Was it supposed to remove powder residue? Any petroleum distillate solvent should work.

 

What should I be looking for? This most recent Hart barrel is the easiest one to clean that I've ever had. I quit using brushes some years ago when a member here sigged me onto the accelerator/wipeout cleaners.

 

As PB said, the only way you will know for sure how clean your barrel is to borrow a bore scope.
Ben

 

You're looking to see if there is anything in the barrel except shiny grooves & and lands. A clean patch does not always a shiney clean barrel make.

 

I now have one.

 

Let us what you find.

 

Is this Benicia talking or is it Sprague. Have you tried Ronsonol for cleaning?

 

It's an eye opener ain't it? I was shocked at just how rough a barrel can be and still shoot well.

 

I remember telling a gunsmith friend of mine that I'd bought a borescope. He said "oh, great" with a very sarcastic tone. He then told me I'd probably never be happy with a "clean" barrel again. He was pretty correct about that. I learned to accept what had been working even if the borescope didn't show perfect results.

 

Here tis. 2 Ronsonol patches down a dirty barrel first thing. The patch on the right is from a Wipe Out only treatment after 3 treatments with accelerator/Wipe Out. Not much copper. A subsequent treatment with Accelerator/Wipe Out was about the same so I called it good.

When the barrel was new I never tried an Accelerator/Wipe Out test to see if there was any residual copper. A hexane patch came out snow white as I recall.

 

Lighter fluid and very similar "VM&P naptha" are relatively mild petroleum distillates. They are good degreasers but not great degreasers. For example there are much better products to soak a wheel bearing in to dissolve away old caked grease. Naptha is mild enough that finicky restorers of sometimes very valuable vintage guitars use naptha to clean and degrease bare wood in preparation for gluing or refinishing, and to safely clean an old thin lacquer topcoat. It is absolutely harmless to wood including softwoods like spruce which may be up to 100 years old. As such, I use naptha and common lighter fluid around the house for general-purpose degreasing, but around firearms about the only thing I use it for is to clean triggers (as stipulated by Jewell, for one.) For cleaning rifle actions I prefer something stronger like Gun Scrubber. In the bore a final patch soaked in naptha would be fine, for me, after the bore is already clean.
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If you put a patch with a little soapy water down the barrel the first couple of patches you will get the same results with out the stink.

 

Stink of Ronsonol? Not unpleasant at all IMO.

 

When I use the Accelerator/Wipe Out I prefer to remove it with a patch with something on it like Ronsonol, 90% rubbing alcohol or even charcoal starter. I feel that it does a better job than a dry patch. Just the way I do it. FWIW Ronsonol is great for removing label glue, stickum, etc. For anyone here who might be a coin collector and get encapsulated/slabbed coins Ronsonol would be great for removing label residue from them.

 

"It's an eye opener ain't it? I was shocked at just how rough a barrel can be and still shoot well"

DON'T FIX IT IF IT AIN'T BROKE!!! Your target will tell you what you need to know. And, there IS a thing known as TOO CLEAN.

 

Let's all go back to making wheels outa rocks ...
Chemical science has come a long way fellows.

 

Right???