Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Chemical to clean Cosmoline

Purchased a couple of Swede 6.5x55. What have you used to clean out the cosmoline packed into the action ? Thanks for the help.

Ken

WD40 or full strength Simple Green.

Have used Simple Green and it works Ok and is safe. In the old days used to go outside and spray some starting fluid on the parts and it worked great. Time has made me more conservative and I stay away from the flamable stuff.

spray can of carb cleaner

+1

Bucket of gasoline and a stiff brush. Cigarette dangling from lips is optional.

Cheapest and best is Break Cleaner from Wally World

Lit cigarette very optional.

Kerosene.

I use camp stove fuel, a naphtha-like blend of hydrocarbons. Cheap, available everywhere, and not as volatile/nasty as gasoline. Still it's outside or with all the garage doors open. I like it better than spray carb cleaner, camp stove fuel doesn't evaporate as quickly and you can use it in a can to soak small parts. You need to disassemble completely to do the job right.

Or mineral spirits

It's what I've always used.

I hope that's the Kerosine stuff, Because the Colman Fuel is White gas and the slightest spark will ignite it. Yeah it's a good cleaner but even a static spark can ignite it. that and it's smells horrible.

A cleaner method is to melt the cosmoline off. Either hot sun, up in the attic, or inside a black metal garbage can. Then do a final strip of the light film left over with brake cleaner.

Or boiling water, and a blast with WD40 to get rid of the water.

No, it's the white gas stuff. It's on the order of naptha you use in paint or lighter fluid or in rubber cement. Not as volatile as spray carb cleaner which contain acetone or MEK. Still it is dangerous as is any volatile hydrocarbon and you definitely want all the ventilation you can get. (I like the smell.)

Thanks everyone for the advice. Looks like I know what I'm doing this week-end. I thought about the brake clean and Kerosene. I might even try the simple green.

Ken

Stoddard solvent (mineral spirits) is what I use in my parts washer and it works well on cosmoline. It will burn but has one the highest flash points of any of the petroleum based solvents.

For the only one I have ever cleaned, I used an Engine Cleaner called Gunk.


The directions say to pour it on a warm car engine and let it set. I didn't want warm up the rifle, but I laid it out in the sun for an hour or so. I poured the Gunk on it, let it heat in the sun, then used a water hose to wash the Gunk and cosmolene off.

I had tried gas and also mineral spirits, but neither worked as good as the Gunk.

Best part of it was, I lay the rifle on the ground and hosed off the Gunk. That way, didn't get it all over my hands, shoes, pants, or in my hair or on my nose or anywhere else I get liquids when I clean something.

Read the MSDS and you will find the statement "On the order of Naphtha" means nothing.

Zippo fuel is Naphtha and is far less flammable then Coleman fuel, So is VM&P Naphtha.
Coleman fuel is a Naphtha product but it's extremely flammable and it with in a few degrees of Acetone's flash point and auto ignition temp. and i mean a few like Three degrees.

So we're all on the same page: "The flash point of a flammable liquid is the lowest temperature at which there will be enough flammable vapor to ignite when an ignition source is applied."

"Flammability limits refer to the fact that mixtures of gaseous fuels and air will only burn if the fuel concentration lies within well defined limits."

Lower flammable limit: The lowest concentration (percentage) of a gas or a vapor in air capable of producing a flash of fire in presence of an ignition source (arc, flame, heat). At a concentration in air lower than the lower flammability limit, gas mixtures are "too lean" to burn.

Assuming Googled data is accurate and flash point is measured using the same method, there are several:

Gasoline - about -45C flammability limits in air 1.4 - 7.6%
Colman Camp Fuel -18C Flammability limits 1.2 - 7.5%
Acetone -17C flammability limits 2.5 - 12.8%
Ronson lighter fluid 4C 0.9 - 8 %
VM&P Naphtha 10C flammability limits 0.9% - 6%
Xylene 27C flammability limits 1- 7%
Mineral spirits 77C 0.6 - 7%

You make a good point, no question the stuff is dangerous if not handled properly.

So, since flash point is related to vapor pressure a lower flash point indicates the product evaporates more quickly. And so the vapor concentration can reach the lower flammability limit more quickly. The thing is that you want enough ventilation so the vapor disburses before the vapor accumulates to the lower flammability limit. Which is easier to do with low flash point products because they produce vapor at a lower rate.

Maybe why we generally don't see flaming campers?

Anyway, there's some data to ponder in making a selection. In any case you don't want prolonged skin contact with any of it, wear gloves.

As a cadet, rather then marching penalty tours we could spend the week end cleaning Springfields.
Kerosene and boiling water, with brushes and cleaning rods. Then a tank of some sort of oil the armory guys put out.
I'd bet that some where on my hide I still got cosmoline from 1964.

Jim