Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Bore cleaner

Probably been discussed many times, but here we go.

Being an inherently lazy old man, what is a good bore cleaner that is simple to use on my hunting rifles?

I will start from scratch and use a bore snake to get out the easy to remove stuff.

Any advice is much appreciated.

Boretech Eliminator

Hoppe's # 9, good and simple.

Boretech or Patch out/Wipe out.

Hoppes #9

Quit the bore snake years ago. Used hoppes till I ran out and tried Kroil a few years ago. Haven't bought anything else. It's good for a lot of stuff.

Have used all of the above over the years, and thanks to buying a bore-scope two decades eventually settled on either Montana X-Treme Copper Killer or Patch-Out.

Both can be applied to the bore, then just allowed to soak for less than an hour, and the copper will be removed. No reapplying every 15 minutes, or (usually) reapplying after an hour--which is generally long enough to get all the copper out of all but the most-fouled bores, with very little effort. (If the bore is so fouled they don't work, then there's something wrong with the barrel, and other fixes will help.)

Hoppes #9 mainly but Boretech Eliminator for copper fouling removal.

Thanks MD

I still use Hoppes #9 and Shooters Choice Copper cleaner and Bore cleaner. Had my bottles for years and I imagine they will last me until I don't need to clean bores any more...

Wipe Out

Gift the boresnake to someone you dislike.

I quit the Barnes CR-10 and switched to Montana X-Treme based on JB's ballyhooing it. I like it more now. I quit Hoppe's for general cleaning a long time ago when I tried Ed's Red (google it) - I feel it works better, but I do miss the smell of Hoppe's.

I was having lunch with Ed Harris one day years ago when the subject came up and he asked me if I had tried his homebrew Ed's Red formula yet. When I replied "no" he wrote out the formula on a napkin and told me he would haunt me if I didn't give it a whirl. Cuts powder fouling like nobody's business. I put about 100 rounds of a cast bullet load through my USMC M1941 '03 sniper last weekend without any intermittent cleaning (at a military rifle silhouette match) and when I cleaned it that evening two wet patches of ER followed by three dry ones left the bore sparkly clean as new.

What is the recipe?