Firearm Cleaning?

My cleaning rod/brush is out of commission, and I was wondering if Hatcher’s had one I might use if I brought in my Remington and all my own consumables (solvent, gun oil, etc)? Would this be acceptable?

Any training or sign off required? Any special rules to consider about bringing in a (non loaded) firearm into the space?

Thanks in advance!

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@thatguy, @nick, don’t we have/provide a fully supplied cleaning capability within Hatcher’s, i.e. all one need do is bring in their firearm – unloaded and otherwise made safe – and they would be good to go?

I don’t know about if it is a rule, but I would strongly advise transporting in a case into and out of the building. Just makes everyone feel safer. Seeing someone walk in with a rifle or pistol might invoke a reaction whether the breach is open or not.

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As far as I know there are cleaning rods to use unless they have disappeared.

I think we are a little short of cleaning rods that will fit a .22 cal bore size, .223, 22-250 and such. I know the short pistol rods will not fit a .22 cal pistol. I don’t remember if the long rods will fit the .22 cal.

Hi @Pseudonym01 (Jake),

We have a full set of Jags, brushes, clothe patches, and hoppes in a clear shoe box on the shelf. There are pistol cleaning rods on the wall and rifle/shotgun cleaning rods on the shelf. There is no required training to clean your firearm, but if you are new to the firearms, disassembly or cleaning please say so and I’ll try to arrange for someone to pop by and help you. We have some neoprene mats in the room as well, please lay them on the table to catch any solvent spilled, @TBJK and I worked hard building that table and we haven’t sealed it yet.

Bring oil and grease, we only have 1 kind and I’m not a super fan of it.

It is practice at the space to bring firearms in a case. I hope it doesn’t need to be said, but please be respectful when handling your firearm around people.

I’ll still say it… bring weapons inside of a case and unloaded. Even if they are unloaded, be mindful of where the barrel points. Treat every weapon as if they are loaded and keep them pointed in a safe direction and fingers off triggers.

In other words, do your best to let the folks who aren’t comfortable around weapons see that you’re doing things with the utmost safety in mind and be the best steward of our hobby as you can.

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Understood, thanks for the info everyone. I appreciate the offers of help, I should be alright as this isn’t my first time working on this particular firearm.

@Nick, I was also planning on bringing my own spill mat, no worries I’ll leave the place as clean or cleaner than I left it.

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Every time I’m in automotive, I see what looks like a solvent tank with a sprayer.

One of my units back in the day had a high pressure water sprayer like that and it tore the carbon off a chamber and barrel in seconds. It’s way faster than running a christmas tree and q-tip through a thousand times.

Are you talking about the parts washer?

I personally wouldn’t use that as my guns don’t tend to be dirty enough to require the amount of disassembly needed to use it. Also, anything that gets water on it will need to be oiled to keep from getting oxidized. This is very important with the parts washer as it will strip all oil and grease from the parts with it’s water based cleaner.

The only thing I’d ever be tempted to use that parts washer on would be an old milsurp rifle that is packed in cosmoline. It would be much much faster than hand cleaning, but you have to make sure you dry and oil every millimeter of that rifle when done or you’ll get rust.

The rifle cleaning rods fit .22 cal bores. The fact that the grip is movable makes these work well for 22 pistols.
This is what the cleaning rod looks like.

Yep, the parts washer. When I clean a weapon, I take everything off and
then apply a coat of CLP (or other protectant).

I’ve used stations like that before and the cleaning goes pretty fast. Just
make sure to get ALL water out of the weapon. That’s what the compressed
air hose is for. :wink:

To each his own. I baby my weapons and try to keep water as far away as possible.

Anyone who has ever shot old surplus ammo with mercury fulminate primers will tell you that the corrosives left behind really aren’t soluble in much other than water, and a good wet cleaning was absolutely part of the process.

You can also use the parts washer as a control area for washing the parts
in solvent and not using the sprayer.

Some people are scared to use water because they think their gun will rust.
Think of it as a piece of metal. Wash it and then dry it. Simple.

After 15 years in the Corps and after cleaning a weapon likely hundreds of
times, I can say that cleaning with something wet beats dry wiping 10/10
times. I’ll get off the soapbox and step away slowly. Thanks for hearing me
out. :slight_smile:

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I’m not too confident in disassembling my 12 gauge, but if someone wanted to point me at the parts washer (with my luck I’ll end up using something completely different) I could give it a go, nothing builds confidence like being forced to get it right!

Every thing has it’s place. I try to stay away from water because it is very corrosive to metal and hard to make sure it is gone in fine parts of the firearm like rifling or tigger parts. I know properly cleaned, dried and oiled metal is safe.

But, @pterodactyl you considered using our compressed air guns as a proper form of drying. Spraying a barrel or action out with compressed air doesn’t always leave it actually dry, especially when you have seen how wet our air supply can be at DMS. Ask @TBJK, he has seen me use and air gun as a squirt gun at the space before. Our air supply is dry enough to use in oiled tools, but I wouldn’t trust it for drying parts.

Again to each their own, we all come at this from differing points of view with differing goals and results wanted.

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Perhaps a simple hair dryer with high output like a Conair 1400 watt would be perfect for Hatcher’s.

That will make short work out of drying trigger parts

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I’m with Nick. I never clean my rifles any rougher than I clean my gun.

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