Cleaning carbon from barrel with CLR

[Longshot4]

I watched a Erik Cortina video on cleaning stainless barrel with a CLR. Check it out. he claims for stainless it is fantastic. Although he also recommends you test it before you use it on carbon steel. Well stainless has more carbon in it than a standard steel barrel. Doesn't it?

Anny how The guy seams to be well known as a F-Class shooter... Is there any one out there to vouch for the CLR as a Bore cleaner?

 

[jaguarxk120]

Remember that CLR is a acid based product, so it should be OK on stainless steel.

BUT not on a regular blued gun, it will remove bluing in a instant.

 

[44 AMP]

Stainless steel can have less, the same, or more carbon in it than regular "carbon steel". It all depends on which alloys you are comparing.

It is the other trace elements in stainless that make it "stainless".

Nitric acid does not eat stainless steel. It does eat carbon steel, rather rapidly.

Nitric eats brass almost instantly!

HF (Hydrofluoric acid) WILL eat stainless steel.

I've never used CLR for a bore cleaner, so I have no idea about it.

 

[dahermit]

...Well stainless has more carbon in it than a standard steel barrel.

Not necessarily. There are three general types of stainless steels (Ferritic, Austenitic, and Martensitic) with more than thirty individual alloys as listed in "Metals and How to Weld Them" (textbook) from the early eighties...there logically would be way more now.

https://markforged.com/resources/blog/carbon-steel-vs-stainless-steel#:~:text=Stainless%20steels%20are%20united%20around,%3C1.2%25%20by%20mass).

 

[hounddawg]

I used it for a couple of years on non blued barrels for carbon removal, it works but never really got the tough stuff down in the grooves and you stil had the copper to deal with. A few months back I switched to Iosso paste

https://iosso.com/clean/products/bore-cleaner/

works much better

 

[Mike38]

CLR in a stainless kitchen sink made it darker, kind of a light matte grey color. Don't ask me how I know this. And don't ask me how much a new sink cost me.

 

[Nick_C_S]

There's no way I would expose any of my firearms to such a product.

Hoppes #9 will break down carbon.

 

[hounddawg]

Most centerfire barrels made today are either type 416 stainless steel or type 4140 chrome-moly steel

Never seemed to hurt my barrels but then I probably burn out and swap them more than most. I rarely have a barrel last more than 18 - 24 months, only exception is a .223 that refuses to die with over 4K of hot rounds down it now. And that one was probably been cleaned a dozen or more times with CLR. Biggest issue I had with CLR was that after cleaning I could still find carbon in the grooves with a borescope. Hoppes, Pro Shot, or Iosso seem to work better in my opinion

 

[Geezerbiker]

Do a search of for Ed's Red home mixed gun cleaner. It's cheap, works great and easy to make.

Tony

 

[5whiskey]

I’ve used CLR to remove rust from a nasty looking flintlock bore once. It worked like a charm on the rust but there was still BP residue in there, which is a less stubborn form of carbon fouling.

 

[HiBC]

You can do whatever makes you happy with your barrel.
I see no connection between being a recognized F-Class Shooter (if you say so)and knowing what chemical experiment of the day will be harmful to barrel steel.
More barrel damage is done by misguided cleaning efforts than by shooting.
I do not claim to be an expert on this topic,but there is no way I'd put CLR in any barrel.....
Unless maybe a top barrelmaker told me it was a good idea and another top barrelmaker agreed.

Try asking Krieger or Bartlein or Lilja etc what they think about you using CLR in one of their barrels.

 

[buddyd157]

no thank you very much. i have more respect for the money i spent/spend on my guns, ammo, and REAL gun cleaning chemicals and lubes, to even think to try and use anything else BUT APPROVED products for MY guns.

ya'll else can be "mad scientists" and muck up your stuff.

i'll play it safe on my end.

 

[Unclenick]

Matweb.com is a good resource for information on materials and their composition.

Stainless steel gets its corrosion resistance primarily from chromium, which it has in the range of about 11% to 30% by weight, depending on the alloy, so it is much more than a trace quantity. Like aluminum, chromium forms an oxide layer upon contact with air, and it is this chromium oxide protects the iron in the steel from corrosion. The austenitic stainless steels, like 302 and 316, also have about 10%-20% nickel and are the most corrosion-resistant types and are often used for medical instruments because they tolerate harsh sterilizing regimens. However, they are not heat-treatable for hardness but can only be hardened by cold working, limiting their range of application. Gun stainless steels are usually something like 416, which is about 13% chromium. It also has up to about 0.15% carbon, which helps with its hardness, but interferes with corrosion resistance, which is why a "stainless" gun can still pick up rust spots (the other is that it was shaped with steel tools that left some free iron behind on the surface which can be rusted; that free iron is what "passivating" in nitric or citric acid eliminates by etching it out).


Longshot4,

A number of the top shooters historically have had their own formulas for cheaper cleaning products they like. But my general experience has been they all have drawbacks or are inferior to some of the specially developed stuff. For example, you will find the additives in Mobil 1 synthetic motor oil do a pretty good job of removing carbon just as they do in an engine, and the cost per quart is low compared to gun cleaners. But is it as good at softening hard carbon Carbon Killer? No. As a bore cleaner, does it attack and remove copper fouling like Bore Tech Eliminator? Not at all. Does going to ammonia solution make up for it? No. It's slower and activates and rusts non-stainless steels if you leave it too long.

You can probably save some money grabbing copper with CLR and its surfactants may get some carbon and its lubricant may help prevent corrosion after it micro-etches the surface of a non-stainless bore, but it's still doing something it wasn't designed for and therefore caution is indicated to ferret out any issues it may have rather carefully. In the process, you can compare it to the other products I mentioned and see if the cost saving is worth the extra time you need to get done? The thing I like about Eliminator, in particular, is I can put some in the bore at the range at the end of a session (I use a small pump sprayer) and plug then ends and go home. I then run a wet patch through it followed by a dry patch five minutes later, and generally that's all that's needed. No brushes or abrasives or anything else. The gun's ready for the next range session.

This article is old but good information.

 

[Geezerbiker]

Ed's Red was formulated by Ed Harris the former QC manager at Ruger. Saying he knew his stuff is about as big of an understatement as one can make. I've been making and using it for years but I make the simple version without the lanolin for water displacing. It works as well and I don't need that feature.

Tony

 

[Unclenick]

I spoke with Ed very briefly last year. It seems he is retired, but still kicking, and he confirmed there is such a thing as life after the gun-industry.

Ed's Red is still a good basic non-copper-attacking gun cleaner and I've made and used a good bit of it in the past shooting lead bullets, especially for doing something like soaking a severely caked-up pistol for a month. But the newer water-based corrosion inhibited chemistries like the Bore Tech line really do work a good deal faster and are less toxic and fume-free.

I should make mention of Gunzilla, too. It's a vegetable-based chemistry that is a remarkable hard carbon solvent if you give it time to act. I used it before Eliminator as my squirt-in-at-the-range solvent, but I always let it sit overnight to completely disolve all traces of carbon, which it gradually turns into a sort of tarry black sludge, and I still had to use a separate copper solvent afterward. They now make a copper dissolving version, but I haven't hasd an opportunity to try it. I've had it remove decades-old hard carbon cake deposits glazing pits in a bore by letting it sit for several weeks.

 

[603Country]

If I want to remove copper and carbon, I use Boretech Eliminator. But often I just want the carbon gone and the copper left alone (depends on the rifle and my perception of how much cleaning is needed), so will use Shooter’s Choice or something similar. And if the accuracy isn’t restored by the carbon removal, I’ll use the Boretech and get the copper.

 

[wbbh]

I watched Erik Cortina's video. Before using CLR I used it on some brass cases and a razor scraper blade. I even sanded the blade before applying CLT and left it there several days, nothing happened. I also did a Ph test of CLR, it has a Ph of 7, neutral.

I used it on a Bergara 6.5 CM barrel I "thought" was clean. I got a lot of carbon and started using a bore scope to examine results. Multiple shoots lay down multiple layers or carbon and copper. I also used CLR on a Glock 42 barrel, no problem at all with the barrel finish.

Update: CLR did remove some bluing on the end of my Howa barrel.

 

[Geezerbiker]

I spoke with Ed very briefly last year. It seems he is retired, but still kicking, and he confirmed there is such a thing as life after the gun-industry.

It's good to hear that Ed's still around. Back in the FidoNet days he was like the uncle I never had. Always willing to dispense wisdom and was very tolerant of stupid questions. I feel that 90% of what I know about reloading came from reading Ed's posts on FidoNet.

Tony

 

[Unclenick]

Yes, FidoNet is missed along with several of the old Usenet groups. I may be biased by fond memories, but communication seemed more oriented toward helpfulness and sharing of useful information then. Of course, it was a lot slower going.


603 Country,

Have you tried Bore Tech C4? It is carbon-only solvent and is significantly more aggressive than Eliminator's carbon removal. Someone who does a lot of black powder shooting said it was the most effective at loosening and cleaning BP residue that he's tried. He also tried Eliminator but wasn't as impressed by it in his smoke poles

 

[AzShooter]

Ed's Red is a great cleaner but do now use it in the house or your wife will throw you out. The only problem with it is the initial cost of the supplies. Once you have it made it will last you forevery.

Probably the best cleaner I've come across.

If you don't want any tell tail smell I'd buy some MPro-7. It's the best commercial cleaner I've used and have been using since they first came out. I've tested it against almost every cleaner by having people bring me their clean gun and then I'd use MPro-7 and get more fouling on clean patches. ( I did this because I was sponsored by them years ago) Although I'm no longer sponsored...get too old for that kind of work...I still swear by their product.