Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Everyone-Kroil & JB paste-advice needed

I just broke out my Kroil & JB paste for my fifty year owned 8 x 57 JS that needs a good cleaning. How long should I leave the Kroil in before I start the JB bore cleaner? I really, really like the JB paste. The 8mm has been my accurate trash/loaner rifle to keep kin folk, friends, and new hunters from ruining/stealing my much loved nicer firearms. Still, it is accurate and gets the job done. Also, I've read here the JB paste slicks up the barrel and one gets more velocity. Anyone noticed this increased velocity? Come warm weather I will do some testing of my guns. Finn Aagaard also used the same idea of the loaner rifle....thought I was original with this idea but Finn was also doing it.

I usually use a wet patch with Kroil and JB the patch and go to work.

If I remember right, instructions are on the can.

I start with the JB paste then a dry patch then a copper solvent then the Kroil to neutralize the decopper agent then more dry patches.

Straight Kroil is slow. I usually let it soak the bore for 4-8 hours to allow time to work. Kroil will get under the fouling and cause a greenish tinge for copper. After that its Kroil/Butchs mix till mostly clean. JB only for the tough stuff.
Again this is when theres no rush.
If in a rush Kroil/Butchs for 2 patchs sit for 30 min patch out then hit it with Patch Out and Accelorator and Iosso nylon brush till it foams let sit 15 min then patch it out. No JB needed.

Will add that if you really want to see what works and what doesnt, spend ~55 bucks for a Teslong borescope.

Were I needing to do a deep clean on a rifle, here's what I would do:

I would mop in Ed's Red. It's equal parts Kerosene, ATF, Mineral Spirits, and Acetone. Most cleanings I give a rifle leave out the Acetone. It's just not necessary. In this case, I'd give it an extra shot of Acetone, and let it sit for a week. The magic I've found in Ed's Red is that it keeps working on deposits without shirking. 1 week is better than right now. 6 months is better than one month.

I'd come back in about a week and clean as normal.

Next, I would use Flitz instead of JB. I would clean the barrel per Dyna Products' Bore Coat Instructions:

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbt.../dyna-tek-bore-coat-instructions-revised

DBC's deep clean instructions are the schizz. I've helped out guys with badly gunked-up bores.

Copper? If copper buildup is an issue and your patch keeps coming up blue, I'd go all the way:


I felt like a Mad Scientist


This actually was fairly simple. I would not hesitate to use it again.

Yep, Ed's Red is the sh*t! Ed Harris (the inventor) assured me what seems like a lifetime ago now that I'll never stoop to using any other bore solvents again, and he was right. It's actually a slight variation of a powder solvent formula that was cooked up by some fellas in gov't service at Frankford Arsenal back in the 20's. They used sperm whale oil whereas Ed's Red employs ATF. (Historically, sperm whale oil was the lubricant for the first automatic transmissions back in the 1940's. ATF was developed soon after that as a synthetic substitute.)

Definitely leave the acetone in if you're cleaning shotgun barrels too. It cuts the plastic wad buildup. I just mix it in regardless, and store in a gallon-size brown glass jug. I only recently had to mix up the second gallon of it when the first gallon from 20+ years ago finally got used up.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^THIS^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^


HS 58

If using kroil, use sparingly, remove action from stock first and be sure to use a bore guide. If letting barrel sit and soak, place barrel muzzle down on a rag or something. The kroil will migrate into your stock, action and trigger.

Even with a good fitting 'o' ring bore guide like the Lucas that's chamber specific, Kroil and many other light oils like Marvel Mystery Oil will wick their way out...it's what they're designed to do. On any receiver that has exposed action screw threads behind the chamber area (700's, etc.) I always use a bit of sealer on the action screw threads.

Good shootin' -Al

Those are basically the same instructions I worked up for installing DBC around 20 years ago, and have still found them the quickest, most effective way to get a bore down to bare steel. I worked them up with my Gradient Lens Hawkeye bore-scope, purchased not too long before, and as I've written a number of times since, the best use of a bore-scope is to "test" the effectiveness of bore-cleaning products and techniques.

Have scope-tested many of the other products mentioned here by others, which I did NOT find nearly as effective, sometimes to the point where they never removed all the copper even after reapplications over several days.

Will also mention that while JB Bore Cleaner is very effective, if used repeatedly in a typical bore it can make it so smooth the barrel actually copper-fouls worse, due to too much contact between bullet and steel. Which is why barrel-makers who "lap" barrels don't use a really fine grit, which has the same results. Instead they use a more medium-sized grit, leaving tiny striations in the bore to reduce bullet contact.

John: Your instructions are posted on the wall of the Shamanic Secret Underground Reloading Facility (SSURF). Other lesser documents such as the Magna Carta and the Charter of the United Nations are not.

To all: A mention about the de-coppering method I posted earlier. I screwed up the link. It's edited now. Here it is again.

I Felt Like a Mad Scientist


When I did this, I had never played around with electro-plating. As it turned out, I later got a job where the factory had a hefty plating operation, and had quite a bit of exposure (literally.)

Hanging out near the plating room I found out how wickedly simple this really all is. 2 D-batteries, some alligator clips, the proper sized rubber stopper, some household ammonia and some willpower is all it takes. I would not flinch to try it again. Actually this is de-plating. You're trying to get copper off something. That's much easier than trying to put copper or another metal on. In the latter, you have all sorts of variables to control to keep the plating done evenly. This is just trying to suck copper ions off the inside of the barrel. Also, you don't have to mess with nasty stuff that turns your backyard into a Superfund site. What's left out of this process you can pour down the toilet.

Still got one of these that’s functional. Doesn’t work on stainless. Never really liked having fluid in the bore 8-10 hours either. ~1990’s

Read through the link I gave. The method I used only lasts an hour.

Another plus to the method I detailed is that I used a 3/16" rod in a .32 cal barrel. That's a lot more surface area than what I see in the Outer's package.

I love the formula you have listed. However, what is the ATF? Surely it not a secret from the federal Alcohol Tobacco Firearms division of the Fed. Govt.(kidding/joke). The reason I am asking is I plan to make myself some of this solution.

Automatic Transmission Fluid

If you don't have a borescope to know the extent of the fouling, start with KG-12 and run a few wet patches through, let sit for 20-30 minutes, use a nylon brush (20 passes or so) then patch out. Rinse and repeat if necessary.

KG-12 quickly and safely removes any fouling that I've ever encountered and you don't have to scrub the bore to death.

I do basically the same thing with Montana X-Treme. If not in a hurry I use the standard stuff, leaving it on overnight. If I want it out quicker use the Copper Killer, which generally does the job in half an hour at most.

I just take an older bronze brush. Wrap a patch and gobbler jb around the patch, I then put a few drops of kroil on it. 30 ish in and out passes. Pull the patch off. Then redo it with a new patch more jb and kroil another 30 in n out trips. Then jag and patch a few kroil only patches ro remove the jb. Usually that will get the barrel shined up again.

JB is a must for cutting carbon deposits. Put 3-500 rounds through a gun and you’re going to need to address the carbon. Abrasive cleaners are the only way I know to break that down. It’s not talked about more because of how few people actually shoot 1 gun that much.

Take 1 ATF agent. Grind course. Add 1 gallon of nitric acid per 10lbs of agent. Place in barrel. Seal Barrel. Allow to stand for 1 year. Strain through coffee filter. Keep in sealed container.














Automatic Transmission Fluid. It's the closest thing Ed could find to Sperm Oil. The early automatic transmissions used Sperm Oil for lube, but the supply of whales quickly ran out. ATF was designed to come as close to the natural product.


Here's the skinny on Ed's Red:

http://www.frfrogspad.com/homemade.htm



I keep the 3-component version (without Acetone) pre-mixed. 90% of my cleaning does not require acetone. However, I keep it handy and just add it to the patch when I do. Acetone is not required for getting up smokeless residue. Acetone is the penetrant. It's highly carcinogenic, and I'm already missing a testicle. I'm running low on spare parts.

I have the 2-component version (K1 / ATF) in a small container for use as gun oil

That's the joy of Ed's Red. You have 4 ingredients and you can use them any way you want.

That whole site is joy to read.

BTW: Guess what you've got if you take Ed's Red and drop in banana oil?

If you're making your own batch of Ed's red, you might want to try substituting Naptha for the Kerosene. Works the same without the funky kerosene odor.

Naptha is fine, but one reason I prefer Kerosene is it tends to work longer without evaporating. When I use Ed's Red, I like to leave it on as long as possible.

When I get done with my deer rifles, I give them a once-over with Ed's Red and then let them sit a week or two. Then I clean them until I get a clean patch and then put a little Ed's Red back in for storage. When I pull them out in the summer, there's always a bit of black residue that comes out with the clean patch I run through before shooting my test rounds.

There are a lot of bore cleaners out there that if left in for weeks work remarkably well.

You guys all seem to obsess more about bore cleaning than I do. I used to. Now it’s pretty much just run a wet brush through a few times, then a wet patch or two, then a few dry patches. If the rifle’s going to be put up for a while a couple patches with Eezox.

Acetone might be hazardous, but it is not yet classified as a carcinogen.


https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxfaqs/tfacts21.pdf

Well, I don't obsess over cleaning very much.

When the big deal about cleaning after so many rounds started around 30-35 years ago, primarily due to benchrest shooting techniques starting to become with group-obsessed hunters. One loading manual even included "cleaning intervals" for the best accuracy in various cartridges, which was unrealistic because it can vary not only due to individual barrels but the powder used.

But it did cause me to start recording how many shots my rifles typically could be fired without cleaning, without the groups starting to open up. Of course, this varied considerably. One example is the most accurate factory rifle I've ever owned, a heavy-barreled Remington 700 .223 Remington, which when it had far less than the several thousand round it's fired since, would put five shots with 50-grain Nosler Ballistic Tips into an average of 1/4" at 100 yards. That was with the then-new Ramshot TAC powder, which is so cleaning-burning that the rifle would regularly go 500 rounds without cleaning and still shoot the same-size groups. The only thing cleaning did was open up groups for 10-15 shots, until the bore "fouled" again.

So I only clean barrels when they need it, which means when groups open up. Which is why I quit cleaning my CZ 452 .17 HMR years ago. All cleaning ever did was open up groups for 10-15 rounds, just like that .223. But I also know a local guy, a little older than me, who cleans all his rifles after every time he fires them. I doubt he's ever tested whether it made any difference in accuracy....

It's also why after first experimenting with Dyna Bore-Coat I recorded how many shots were fired before groups started growing. The rifle was my .338 Winchester Magnum, which before DBC tended to start shooting larger groups after only 15 rounds. After installing DBC it would around 75-80 rounds....

Interesting.
It's also weird. Acetone was a major constituent of nail polish remover.
When I was a little kid, Mom and Grandma used to go to a beauty shop near their old neighborhood.
When I was too small to care or do anything about it, they'd take me along.
After a time, after I was in school, they stopped going. They said that cancer had taken all the women that ran it.
They blamed it on the nail polish remover.

I just always took it as gospel.




Mr. Mule Deer:
It used to be that I was told never to go to sleep on a dirty gun. I suppose folks did it that way in the days before things got less corrosive. I finally got the message 20 years ago when I started hunting deer multiple days in a row. Now, I wipe my gun off with a oily rag after use, but don't clean the barrels from the time the my deer rifles come out of storage for the summer, until after the end of season. These are rifles that see less than a dozen rounds through them over 4 months.

Here is my question: Do you recommend that end of season cleaning or would you suggest I stop cleaning and wait for a reduction in accuracy.

If you heard it at the beauty parlor, it must be true.

Well, it is not the only time I've heard acetone is bad stuff.

Nail polish remover is still acetone.

Another thing about acetone in Ed's Red: If you have any rubber parts on a synthetic stock or rubber grips on a pistol, do not get any on it as it will attack the rubber. So, either remove the stock or grips if rubber before cleaning, or leave the acetone out of the mixture.