How effective is Hoppe's

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I might need to look up some EEZOX and try it. I've found no personally favorite cleaner. For several years I've been using Schaeffers Blend motor oils in my cars. After each OCI I place the 'empty' oil bottles so the residue drains out and I collect it. I then use it to lube my guns and door hinges and other minor lube jobs around home. I also have some Castrol PAO on hand from way back before they changed over to group III petroleum oils. Either of these work very well and remain on the surfaces of my guns very well. I even use several drops of either on my lube pad to lube cartridge cases for resizing in preparation for reloading them even though I have carbide dies. Overkill? Yes, many times over. But I have it on hand and it works very well in all my applications. Call me unsophisticated??? Yes, you could do that, but, for me it's working well. I find either of these even clean well to my satisfaction. And, the Army taught me on cleaning guns like a fanatic. They were like fanatics on cleaning the M-1 Garand and the M-1 carbine and the .45 auto. I was on the competition team of my company. We also fired small bore (indoor) matches with Match .22 cal. rifles and they wouldn't let us touch the bore of that one. Being on the team and shooting lots of practices as well as many matches with the 30.06 Garand provided me many times the shooting the average soldier would ever do. All that shooting and I never had to buy a gun or any ammunition. Oh, did I have a good thing going there. I fired the Garand so much and with such concentration that I would NOT hear the muzzle blast. I would hear the metal on metal bolt slamming rearward and slamming another cartridge into the chamber and never hear the blast. I'd always hear the range officer. Couldn't afford to miss that call. But, I'm looking back into the '60s.

[ May 16, 2004, 03:44 PM: Message edited by: krholm ]
 
quote:
How effective is plain ol' Hoppe's gun cleaner? Is it as good as anything else on the market, including the expensive stuff?

And how effective is Hoppe's gun oil?
Click to expand...
Hoppe's gc is a harsh cleaner, IMHO.

I dislike the smell and toxicity of ammonia. You have to really wipe the bore clean and dry to avoid chlorine pitting.

I prefer a synthetic gun oil after using Hoppe's.
 
MolaKule, I have found Hoppes to be very miled and have read tests that have left Hoppes in the bore for months with no problems in the etching dept. It is not a strong cleaner and taked time to remove carbon. Can you explain a little on your thoughs/findings on Hoppes? Thanks!
 
I have used Hoppe's in the past and accidently left a film in a bore and on the surface of stainless steel guns and have had staining on the outside and pitting in the bore grooves.

Now I was distracted and should not have left any cleaner made with ammonium chloride in the barrel; that was my fault.

But it seemed the protection from corrosion and staining was left out of Hoppe's formula.

Now I will give them the benefit of a doubt as they may have improved their formula since then.
 
Are we talking regular Hoppes No. 9 iced-tea colored cleaner? Or Hoppes Bench Rest or other? Unfortunately I don't have any expendable stainless weapon parts to experiment with, but the No. 9 has not caused any problems for me on regular steel. However it has failed miserably at cleaning corrosive ammo residue (a long time ago-haven't done that again).
 
I was talking about #9. Maybe a while back it was bad to leave it in. Now it has right on the lable "prevents Rust/Protects against corrosion" or something along those lines. I hear some folks leave #9 on the gun for short term storage.
 
You can leave Hoppes #9 on as long as you want, no need to remove it from the bore. The only gun finish I know it will bother is nickel. Don't leave it on a nickel finish. I've run my own gun repair shop since 1978 and use #9 as my main cleaner/protector.
Bobby
 
I just had to wake this thread up since I use Hoppes #9 as well and always have. I usually run a brush with Hoppes #9 several times then "rinse" the barrel with G96 spray and then oil with Hoppes oil or G96 oil.

Clean patches are when I stop.
 
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Wipe-Out. Cleans copper and plastic extremely well, requires no brushing, and has a very, very slight smell. Not the best on carbon but, a couple follow up patches with FP-10 or similar CLP seems to easily take care of that after Wipe-Out has loosened it.

http://www.sharpshootr.com/wipe-out/

Hoppes is decent at removing powder fouling but, does nothing against copper. Butches, Shooters Choice, etc work on copper but have strong odors. Montana Extreme and a couple other cut copper and fouling but, will drive you from the house with extremely strong odor.

Nothing I am aware of removes carbon build up except abrasives like JB or Rem-Clean/40X. The abrasives are the quickest. most aggressive cleaners but, care is need when using them and I don't like to give my bore a steady diet of them if possible.
The CLPs are fair at removing powder fouling, and lubing/protecting your firearm but are not IMHO as good at really cleaning as a solvent type cleaner like Hoppes.

Hoppes "Elite" and Mpro-7 types cleaners IMO are no better then "Simple Green" or other soaps as a gun cleaner.
 
If you really want a good copper fouling remover, get yourself a bottle of this:

http://www.midwayusa.com/product/2093155799/bore-tech-eliminator-bore-cleaning-solvent-liquid

After you use it once you'll give or throw away all of your other copper removing solvents. This stuff is that good. Not only that, but it is completely odorless and biodegradable. And the stuff actually has rust inhibitors in it. It won't hurt your barrel no matter how long you leave it in because it contains zero Ammonia.

What sold me hands down on this stuff, is after I ran a patch of it down the bore of a rifle I thought I had spotless. THE PATCH CAME OUT BRIGHT GREEN! After that I recleaned all of my rifles with Bore Tech Eliminator, and the amount of added copper fouling I got out of the barrels was astounding. Just make sure you use a NYLON brush, and not a bronze brush. If you do it won't last long. This stuff hates copper.
 
But do you really want to remove all of the copper? It is a different story if you are using lead bullets and want to remove the lead, and there is a product that can remove the lead. But seriously, do you really want to remove all of the copper?

If you looked at the bore of the barrel under a powerful microscope you would see that it is not perfectly smooth. Under the microscope there would be hills and valleys. When you shoot copper jacketed bullets some of the copper comes off and helps to fill in those valleys.

And after a few hundred rounds have been fired, the gun can actually become more accurate.

I used to think a long time ago that a person needed to remove all of the copper from the bore of the barrel. But now I realize that is not really a good idea.

The average person has no need for some powerful product that will remove every trace of copper. Just like using a steel cleaning brush is not normally a good idea unless you have a really, really dirty bore.

You want the bore to be clean, but you need to think twice about trying to remove every trace of copper. That copper might be useful for better accuracy.
 
I saw some videos by this old police captain on YouTube. Watching those videos changed how I go about cleaning guns and lubricating guns. That old police captain, who maybe is not even still alive today, knew a lot. He knew about how gun barrels had been made in the past, and how they were made today. He knew about steel and he knew about cleaning products and gun oils.

He did not actually recommend any particular gun oil. And at the time when he made those videos Hoppes No. 9 Bore Cleaner was probably about the most common product being used to clean the bores of guns. That old police captain was okay with Breakfree or Hoppes gun oil or whatever good quality gun oil a person decided to use.

He said that all of the copper did not need to be removed from the bore of the barrel. He had seen what steel looks like under a microscope. He did stress that a gun needs to be cleaned well and proper lubrication.

Today there are a great many new products like FrogLube for example and there has been a lot of change.

But one thing that has not changed is that a person can probably get carried away trying to perfectly clean the bore of a gun barrel. The copper can actually make the gun more accurate. So unless you have an incredibly dirty gun you can probably leave all of the super strong products on the shelf.
 
Originally Posted By: Mystic
But do you really want to remove all of the copper?


If you are going to firelap, then YES. I had a Ruger Stainless Model 77 in .30-06 that I couldn't get to group worth a [censored]. Even after trying every handloading trick in the book. I got disgusted, and it sat in the back of the safe for several years.

Then one day I was shopping at Cabela's and found a box of the David Tubb Firelap Ammo. I figure for $20.00, what did I have to lose? The first thing it said was to remove every bit of copper fouling from the barrel. Otherwise you would be lapping copper, and not barrel steel.

I fired the 10 course grit rounds, then cleaned the barrel per the instructions. I then fired the 10 fine grit rounds and did the same thing. After the Firelap treatment the gun would consistently shoot MOA with my handloads seated .020 off the lands. The improvement was amazing, considering what I started out with. As to removing all of the copper, it depends on the quality of your barrel. Ruger barrels have a reputation of being worse than the surface of the Moon. After Firelapping my Ruger barrel glistens. From where I sit you're better off without copper fouling than you are with it. Barrels will smoothen out with age. As always YMMV.
 
Originally Posted By: Mystic
But do you really want to remove all of the copper? It is a different story if you are using lead bullets and want to remove the lead, and there is a product that can remove the lead. But seriously, do you really want to remove all of the copper?

If you looked at the bore of the barrel under a powerful microscope you would see that it is not perfectly smooth. Under the microscope there would be hills and valleys. When you shoot copper jacketed bullets some of the copper comes off and helps to fill in those valleys.

And after a few hundred rounds have been fired, the gun can actually become more accurate.

I used to think a long time ago that a person needed to remove all of the copper from the bore of the barrel. But now I realize that is not really a good idea.

The average person has no need for some powerful product that will remove every trace of copper. Just like using a steel cleaning brush is not normally a good idea unless you have a really, really dirty bore.

You want the bore to be clean, but you need to think twice about trying to remove every trace of copper. That copper might be useful for better accuracy.


Actually if you ask on the line at a top bench rest shoot how often the shooters clean, and how clean they want their barrels, they will say they clean after every meet and if possible even between relays at times. They find a clean barrel is a must to remain competitive. A fouling shot may be required with some barrels for the best accuracy, but a dirty bore is not going to be a help.

Not that it probably matters, but if you think about a dirty bore when shooting jacketed bullets the layers of copper separated by carbon in a slightly acidic environment doesn't sound good for the bore if left there either.

There are lead removing solvents as well as copper cutters, but the ones I have seen are very strong odored and not something you want to breath. Good ventilation is always something to strive for when using any solvents.
 
Originally Posted By: JohnBrowning
It is fine for removeing powder reside. The standard formula will not remove copper fouling or plastic fouling! If you want to remove copper fouling and plastic fouling I preffer stronger cleaners with higher concentrations of Amonia like Shooters Choice.


Good copper remover is aminoethanol......you will find that chemical in any decent owen cleaner.....german shooters swear on K2R owen cleaner (gel).....it is convenient to use because gel doesnt dip out of the barrel into other parts you dont want to...



while I was searching for cleaners with aminoethanol.....I`ve discovered another forum with that picture....and interesting formula:

151646_163555094_Photo-0309.jpg


Quote:
Kerosene 18-22%
Hydrotreated Light Napthenic Distillate 1-3%
Oxygenated Hydrocarbons 1-3%
Dipropylene Glycol Monomethyl Ether 55-60%
1,2-Propanediol 4-6%
2-Aminoethanol 2-5%
9-Octadecanoic Acid 9-11%


Maybe someone will find my thread usefull
 
Hoppes #9 is a trip down memory lane every time I use it. It was good enough for dad and grandpa goshdarnit it's good enough for these new guns.
 
Originally Posted By: bradepb
Hoppes #9 is a trip down memory lane every time I use it. It was good enough for dad and grandpa goshdarnit it's good enough for these new guns.


I still use it.

I even bought Hoppe's #9 air fresheners for my brother as a gift. He has them hanging in his Chevy Silverado.

The smell reminds me of good days long ago
 
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