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A Correct Barrel Cleaning Method

9K views 19 replies 10 participants last post by  SiliconeSword 
#1 ·
To start this off, I was talking to some guys recently, and they were trying to convince me to clean my barrels with silicone oil and a loose cleaning patch on a loop style cleaning rod, then putting a couple drops down the barrel after.
I was sort of pissed that this "myth" thing has been passed along this long, so I may as well post a short guide on cleaning a barrel a correct way.
When I say A, I mean A, as there's like a billion ways to skin a cat, and mine is definitely the best I've come to so far, but it doesn't mean it's the absolute best.
Also, I've tried tons of stuff, even silicone oil or Vaseline I am sad to say, so I do have adequate experience to have a valid opinion.

If your barrel is incredibly dirty or coated in a very thick layer of BB residue, I suggest that you start with one of these copper bore brushes.
They are easily available for cleaning firearms.
Mine is 6.35mm/.25 Cal, which I have found works best.
To use, simply ram through with a scavenged cleaning rod, or a purchased one.
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Here's a barrel I polished with wax based polish and some rubbing alcohol, so it is probably dirtier than you will regularly come across.
I will be starting with the copper brush.
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Give it a couple passes with the copper brush if you desire, and then cut some paper towel or similar strips of about this size
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Wrap around a thin metal rod such as a blowdart like I used.
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Once you have done this, remove the towel spliff and soak in a bit of acetone and insert into the barrel.
Rubbing alcohol or gasoline are also options, but don't really work as well.

Then put a BB in the other end of the barrel and place that end vertically on a hard surface, preferably softer than your barrel.
Then ram a cleaning rod down the barrel very hard, compacting the paper towel into a dense rod.
Once this has been completed, push it out from the other direction, and repeat until the paper towel rod is completely white, or whatever the original color may be.
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Tip #1
Always have a plastic cleaning rod (they usually come with an airsoft gun)
Tip #2
It's also good to have a stainless rod of sorts
Tip #3
Clean the cleaning rod before cleaning the barrel
Tip #4
You really don't have to do this often, just when performance is sucking or your barrel is visibly dirty and more than you would like
 
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#9 ·
Silicone: I understand that you are very knowledgeable about airsoft, but this is a plain out bad idea. Most airsoft gun barrels are made out of aluminum, so a gun cleaning brush will scratch the living heck out of your poor barrel, making the bb fly in unpredictable ways. Using a brass or copper cleaning rod will also increase the diameter of your barrel. And acetone will melt your cleaning rod into a unusable fashion in a matter of 30 seconds, not to mention that acetone is highly corrosive. Alcohol is the same, as it is corrosive, but will likely take longer to melt your cleaning rod. Now if your barrel is made of steel, you're screwed as well for a couple reasons, 1), The copper brush would slowly erode flecks of steel from your barrel, making it fly in unpredictable ways because you widened the barrel. 2) After the brush has scratched the coated surface of your steel barrel, rust will set in and now you have a rusty airsoft gun barrel. 3) The acetone will eat away even more of the steel, causing more air to be exposed to the un-treated steel, resluting in even more rust, which is never a good thing. Not to mention that is you spill but a drop of acetone on the plastic stock or handle on your gun, causing it to look like you put it in the oven for 5 minutes. I don't know where you go to play airsoft to get so much gunk in your barrel that you would even consider doing one of these counterproductive steps.

The most I would ever do to clean and lubricate my barrel would be to is get a cotton patch or a small piece of a paper towel, wet it, squeeze out the extra water, and repeat this step a few more times before I run a piece of dry paper towel down the barrel to dry it out. Now I know somebody in the comments is going to tell me that water would rust my barrel, but my barrel is aluminum and aluminum doesn't rust. If my barrel was steel, water still probably wouldn't hurt it, as steel barrels have a corrosion resistant coating so things like this don't happen. Then once my barrel was dry, I'd take a clean patch and put a little bit of olive oil on it, then send that down my barrel.

Silicone: I hope you were able to learn something from this, because all that writing up above was just short of nonsense. I would have to side with the buddy who ticked you off because at the end of the day he will have an accurate barrel and you probably won't even have a barrel any more. Or if you do, it will have rust holes going through it, sending your bbs a mile away from where you were aiming.
 
#17 ·
Whoo boy, where to start!

Silicone: I understand that you are very knowledgeable about airsoft, but this is a plain out bad idea. Most airsoft gun barrels are made out of aluminum, so a gun cleaning brush will scratch the living heck out of your poor barrel, making the bb fly in unpredictable ways. Using a brass or copper cleaning rod will also increase the diameter of your barrel. And acetone will melt your cleaning rod into a unusable fashion in a matter of 30 seconds, not to mention that acetone is highly corrosive. Alcohol is the same, as it is corrosive, but will likely take longer to melt your cleaning rod. Now if your barrel is made of steel, you're screwed as well for a couple reasons, 1), The copper brush would slowly erode flecks of steel from your barrel, making it fly in unpredictable ways because you widened the barrel. 2) After the brush has scratched the coated surface of your steel barrel, rust will set in and now you have a rusty airsoft gun barrel. 3) The acetone will eat away even more of the steel, causing more air to be exposed to the un-treated steel, resluting in even more rust, which is never a good thing. Not to mention that is you spill but a drop of acetone on the plastic stock or handle on your gun, causing it to look like you put it in the oven for 5 minutes. I don't know where you go to play airsoft to get so much gunk in your barrel that you would even consider doing one of these counterproductive steps.

The most I would ever do to clean and lubricate my barrel would be to is get a cotton patch or a small piece of a paper towel, wet it, squeeze out the extra water, and repeat this step a few more times before I run a piece of dry paper towel down the barrel to dry it out. Now I know somebody in the comments is going to tell me that water would rust my barrel, but my barrel is aluminum and aluminum doesn't rust. If my barrel was steel, water still probably wouldn't hurt it, as steel barrels have a corrosion resistant coating so things like this don't happen. Then once my barrel was dry, I'd take a clean patch and put a little bit of olive oil on it, then send that down my barrel.

Silicone: I hope you were able to learn something from this, because all that writing up above was just short of nonsense. I would have to side with the buddy who ticked you off because at the end of the day he will have an accurate barrel and you probably won't even have a barrel any more. Or if you do, it will have rust holes going through it, sending your bbs a mile away from where you were aiming.
NO! NO! NO!
Yes if you go fast maybe nothing will happen to your rod if you go fast, but you'll screl up your barrel with freaking acetone!
And you'll splash acetone all over your gun, making the plastic stock melt pretty darn quick.
Yes but gun barrels are different than airsoft barrels. I own several real guns and I know that copper brushes are commonly used to clean these barrels, but airsoft barrels are much thinner and cheaper steal. I have worked with quite a bit of acetone in my day and I have seen pieces of plastic disintegrated in a matter of minutes. I guess it depends what strength of acetone you use and the gun barrel you clean with it. I would just recomend that you run a water wetted patch through the barrel after you're done with the acetone or whatever.
Most airsoft guns do not have aluminum inner barrels. They are usually brass, upgraded barrels are also usually brass, a plated brass, or stainless steel. I still wouldnt use a copper brush though, I use a nylon brush. Usually its just a .223 mop though. Most aluminum inner barrels are pretty trash as they are not very well made and coated with something that wears off pretty quick.

Alcohol and acetone and what not, are not that corrosive so to say. They do dissolve some plastics, acetone for example will dissolve PLA and ABS. In 3d printing acetone is used to smooth out ABS prints and give them a shine. Its also used to make a bed adhesion agent using dissolved ABS. So yes it will eat/melt some plastics. However most plastics used in airsoft today are acetals and nylons, which acetone will not phase. Not to say that PLA and ABS are not used, PLA is the main plastic used for bio bbs. Acetone typically doesnt do anything to airsoft components.

As for the copper brush eroding steel, not likely going to happen, unless its in an electrified bath or exposed to an oxidizer, or you manage to embed copper into the steel. What will happen though is the copper will cut away your protective coating exposing the steel to the elements and rusting. However if your messing with mild steel, it could, however you do not typically find mild steel on airsoft guns aside from screws. Given if your acetone has any acidic impurities in it from the factory, which is typical for industrial applications. Off the shelf acetone is generally acid free for the most part due to a huge amount of reasons. Though dont get it on anything zinc it will corrode that some. Though most of this is for soaking parts, not quick passes with a patch or swab. It evaporates entirely too quickly for that damage to occur.

Nylons do not do well with isopropyl alcohol though. Makes them brittle.

The only thing I would worry about is the possibility of bimetallic corrosion. But that is not really a huge thing either due to paints and such.

I could go on, but that is enough out of me.
 
#12 ·
Acetone really isn't as gnarly as you may think, it actually takes a good amount of time to ruin stuff.

I've never had an issue with this method for over 2 years, but I guess your results may vary as I've only cleaned an aluminum barrel once, from an M40A3 I gave to my friend.
Also, the copper brush us for very extreme scenarios as I may have mentioned earlier, so only use it if there is a really thick coating of BB residue and whatnot in your barrel.

I picked a copper brush for this as they are extremely popular in the firearms world, even among the guys that have rifles worth more than some cars that shoot a mile or more consistently, so I doubt that they will really screw up your barrel unless the brush is saturated in sand or something lol.

Anyways, I've never had issues, but in airsoft everybody has minor variations that can make significant impacts on things, so maybe my method isn't perfect for everybody.
Also, I ONLY clean my barrels when they are completely removed, I don't want acetone dripping around inside my gun or hop chamber.
 
#15 ·
Yes but gun barrels are different than airsoft barrels. I own several real guns and I know that copper brushes are commonly used to clean these barrels, but airsoft barrels are much thinner and cheaper steal. I have worked with quite a bit of acetone in my day and I have seen pieces of plastic disintegrated in a matter of minutes. I guess it depends what strength of acetone you use and the gun barrel you clean with it. I would just recomend that you run a water wetted patch through the barrel after you're done with the acetone or whatever.
 
#13 ·
When I notice hooking that I'm certain is not wind from use in a rental or a primary I will disassembly completely down to the barrel and remove any bucking and set that stuff aside, then soak a small piece of a cottonball with MEK or acetone and push it down the barrel with a nylon rod. Usually two time is enough to dissolve bb residue. Then I will do 2 dry passes of cotton ball pieces, then finish with either denatured alcohol or silicone oil or MOS2 gear oil which "plates" the inner barrel metal. But this advice is worth what you paid for it. I clean my rental fleet's barrels about once a year.
 
#14 ·
For a while I used that Pledge surface wax stuff to coat barrels after hearing about it from the dart blaster community, but it never really did much that I could tell.
I also tried paste finishing wax and cold weather ski wax, but I ended up not even bothering with that.

With wax, you fill in any voids or scratches, and get an extremely good finish, but with Pledge those Nerf guys spent like a month doing it and it all gets rubbed off in a day or two of hard gameplay.
Interestingly, it improves FPS significantly, either by creating a tighter bore or by reducing friction.

I will probably try waxing barrels again at some point when I feel like it, but I'll probably try PTFE spray before that, as it won't encourage dust accumulation and may help with accuracy or FPS.
Still, probably doesn't matter at all unless you've maxed out everything on your gun with custom CNC parts and ceramic ammo.
 
#16 ·
All I do is use a wad of cloth on a cleaning rod and spin it in a bench press drill. I do not use solvents of any type. If I do use something, it will only be turpentine. The heat caused from the friction is normally enough to help melt any plastic and then it all comes off. I would also presume that some of the plastic will move and fill up any defects in the barrel.
 
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