How to Clean a Handgun Like a Professional
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- Опубліковано 27 сер 2024
- It takes a relatively small investment in tools and supplies to make gun cleaning fast and almost effortless. With a simple parts washer with odorless mineral spirits (OMS), a cleaning rod, some simple brushes, bore solvent, a light oil, and grease it’s not hard to make a pistol look like-new in a few minutes and have it ready for the range. Especially if you have multiple pistol to clean, this is really effective at getting a lot of work done fast.
Today I was cleaning a Canik TP9 SF Elite in 9mm, but this works with all manner of handguns really well. If you have a sufficiently large parts washer, it can also be used to clean rifles.
The OMS does a great job keeping your brushes clean so they can be used for years. The OMS just washes away the old oil and debris with ease.
It also works exceptionally well at removing grime from checkered wood, and does a fair job of cutting through grease and cosmoline that is sometimes soaked into wood. It’s low odor, low cost, and safe on almost all finishes and materials.
This is essentially the exact technique I used to clean customers’ handguns and some rifles/shotguns back when I worked in a gunsmith shop, and still use today when I really want to have a thorough cleaning job on my own stuff. It’s not necessarily what I do every time, but if I want a spotless clean this is a way to do it fast and easy.
Good tip on the mineral spirits, my go to has always been brake cleaner. I'm gonna give the spirits a shot.
Brake cleaner definitely has its place. For rental M16s that were just thoroughly caked up with fouling and sludge a can of brake cleaner to hose out the worst of the gunk did wonders to cut through the grime and limit the amount of mess that would end up in the OMS washer.
I like the OMS because it tends to be very forgiving with things like night sights, which I’ve seen quite a few ruined by things like ultrasonic cleaners. The OMS also does a nice job on wood stocks that have been saturated with cosmoline or other products. Really help rejuvenate tired old wood.
Good vid. Mineral spirits are a cheap effective solvent. Used in about every parts washer in the world for a reason. I'm a proponent of grease for lube too. It doesn't migrate away from where it needs to be the way oil does. I've pulled the bolt out of a weapon that hasn't been fired in several months; still slick with a light film of grease like when I stored it. Pull the bolt out of an identical weapon that was oiled before storage, and it's dry as a bone. Oiled has all migrated down into the lowest point it can get to via gravity. Just my observations, some folks will give you 1000 reasons why grease shouldn't be used, but I've never had any issues. A lot of the "super-special" gun oils out there are just gimmicks to make the manufacturers a ton of profit from selling little bitty bottles of plain motor oil for $10.
I like grease and oil depending on application. Light oil is good for a general coating for corrosion resistance, but on actual bearing surfaces in a handgun grease is much better at not migrating or drying out and does well to protect against wear.
I’m not very particular about exactly which oil or grease I use- and as silly as it might sound my decisions on which product to use often come down to how convenient the packaging is in regards to applying the product rather than any perceived advantage of the oil/grease itself.
One thing I like that seems to be out of favor is LSA on an AR15. Semi-fluid grease like LSA does a decent job of staying in place and not burning off, while still keeping fouling in suspension for easy cleaning. A bunch of grease in an AR can make kind of a gunky mess.
I've watched this video so much. Wish I had space for a parts washer, I'd use ed's red minus the atf. Just solvents.
I just keep mine under my work bench and get it out occasionally when I need to do a lot of cleaning.
Excellent video. I have honestly never even thought about using mineral spirits. I have heard of people using a lot of different things, but not that. Very interesting. I doubt I will switch methods, as I love Ballistol and use it both as a cleaner and lube, but I could see where that method would save time if you had a bunch to do at one time. Great job as always.
Ballistol is fantastic stuff. Very versatile. The real appeal of the OMS is not so much that it’s the best cleaner on its own- but that it is so cheap that you can just flood parts with it. It just rinses the old grease, oil, and fouling out by sheer volume.
If you have many pistols to clean, it’s also nice to set up a drying rack to let the parts of one drip off for a while and beginning work on the next pistol. Then the compressed air just blows dry the spots where it accumulates.
Gun Blue 940 uses it a lot.
Were you recycling the used mineral spirit that went to the drain with that pump? Or did you just keep running new liquid?? Thanks
It recycles. There is a basic filter in the pump that removes some particulate. For a casual user there’s probably no need to ever replace it, just top it off periodically so the pump doesn’t run dry. Even in a professional setting where we were cleaning maybe a dozen or more pistols per day using this system we only changed the spirits out rarely when it was looking really dark.
Nice video! Careful with an air compressor, the air coming out of these often is loaded with moisture!
Yeah, especially the canned air like I was using here I was trying to illustrate a concept. Didn’t work well. At home I usually only use short blasts of it to blow the OMS out of deep pockets.
In a shop setting when we were blowing off larger areas instead of just letting it drip dry, we emptied the tank drain regularly and had an in-line dryer so moisture wasn’t being introduced. I don’t have that setup the same way at home since I’m not cleaning at the commercial pace I had to back then.
Great video! I belong to a club that has many old timer NRA champions. Most of them use mineral oil and also WD40 for cleaning. I heard mineral oil is $0.15 cents an ounce and is the same as gun oil which is 1.35 oz. The grease seems to hold powder residue and gum up more than oil does. Just me observation.
The grease/oil situation I think varies depending on application and climate.
In the Texas heat, grease on a carried pistol is my preference and based on experience most customers prefer that. It stays in place well, and a carried pistol isn’t likely to see a sufficient round count to gun up much before it can be serviced again.
For an application most suitable to oil I prefer LSA. Semifluid grease like LSA is awesome for the AR15 in a hot climate, and I do use it on pistols if they’re going to be shot rather than carried prior to the next cleaning.
For general surface protection I like RemOil, but CLP is also fine. I’m not particularly brand loyal on that aspect.
Of course, I always keep a couple cans of Ballistol around for dealing with corrosive ammo, or treating leather, as an ointment for small cuts and burns, or just taking a harmless swig out of the bottle if I’m out of Jäegermeister and crave that licorice flavor.
Different products for different applications. I think folks who get too loyal to a certain brand are usually either inexperienced or being paid off by a company.
Never thought of paint brush though it makes sense
That’s a trick I picked up from a gunsmith who has now been retired for probably ten years. Doesn’t leave and lint behind, and gives that smooth coat of oil that really makes a gun look like new. It was primarily a means of achieving a great presentation when handing a repaired firearm back to a customer. People don’t want their cleaned and repaired gun to look all smudged up and covered in lint. It’s largely a customer service strategy that also just works well for ensuring all small crevices are oiled and protected.
You said also filter it and reuse it how exactly would you clean a batch of spirits to be reused again and what sink is that? Juat got mineral spirits and mineral oil to try out to cut back on using hoppes 9
The pump in the sink has a filter in it. If you ever notice low flow or a weird noise from the pump, check the filter. It can just be rinsed with OMS to remove the worst of the gunk and returned to service, or replaced. In use with firearms, it tends to stay useable for a long time. Much less trash compared to auto parts.
It filters itself continuously, basically. Also, it doesn’t have to be perfectly clean to work. A little dark tinge is fine.
The washer is just one from Amazon. The Big Red or something, I think? They’re all about the same.
Do you run straight mineral spirits or do you water it dow and dilute it a lil with water
Straight mineral spirits.
Which parts washer brand would you recommend for use with OMS?
This one is a BIG RED T10035 Torin.
Any common brand should be fine, though. OMS is, overall, fairly mundane stuff. Anything designed for an automotive application shouldn’t be bothered by OMS as far as damaging the paint or pump.
Is the liquid 100% oms or some combo with water?
100% OMS
Doesn’t the mineral spirits strip the paint off the slide?
The coating on Canik slides is, I think, either Cerakote or a similar product. It is very resilient.
@@ColterBrog thank you
Mineral spirits damage bluing
What do I do to clean a blued rifle?!
I had to go do some Googling- this is the first time I’ve ever heard that. I’ve cleaned hundreds of blued guns and parts with OMS. Maybe because I don’t let it soak? I’ve never seen a problem from it.
Alternatively Hoppe’s No. 9 is a good cleaner, but more expensive and with strong odor.
I think any good cleaner should be thoroughly dried off and the parts oiled after, of course.
What is the name and make of the cleaning bucket?
@@damrgee8279 This is a “Big Red” T10035 by “Jacks”. It’s the 3.5 gallon size.
@@ColterBrog Thank you buddy I found it on Amazon a lot of people say after chemical use it stops working what is your feedback
@@damrgee8279 Probably going to depend on what kind of chemicals. I’ve had this one for a couple years or so and it just stays full of OMS. Hasn’t stopped working yet. I used it just last week and it was fine.