Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Hoppes 9

Mule Deer if it is just A powder remover what up with all the green on the patches after it sits in the barrel for awhile.I also have used the bench rest stuff and it seems to be almost less aggressive. I like bench rest cleaner because it is one that you can let it sit over night but it sounds like there are others out there to they just do not say it on the bottle.Does Hoppes 9 not play well with any other bore cleaner? Thanks...

Why don't they just invent a bore cleaning cartridge, so you can just shoot your gun clean?

Hoppe's #9 is Aftershave, right?

I've used it as a scent trailer on muskie baits...........

This is an update of a post I made about 20 months ago in this gunwriter's forum.

The original formulations of Hoppe's No. 9 from about a century ago contained nitrobenzene as one of the solvents. It had an odor the chemists call "almond-like". Certainly the odor of Hoppe's changed when the nitrobenzene was eliminated (in the 1960s?). The change is pretty obvious if you can find an old bottle to sniff alongside a current bottle. I don't know whether the change occurred when the original Philadelphia company was bought out by Penguin Industries of Coatesville, PA. Don't inhale the earlier product too deeply, because nitrobenzene can cause real respiratory problems by messing with your blood hemoglobin. As noted above, it's also carcinogenic to humans.

No. 9 is made and bottled in by Tri Pak Inc (www.tri-pak.us), in Vandalia in south-westeren Michigan. Hoppe's is a part of Bushnell, with main offices in Overland Park, Kansas.

The current MSDS posted on hoppes.com is dated 2012. The listed components are:

• Ethanol
• Kerosine
• Oleic Acid
• Amyl Acetate
• Ammonium Hydroxide

The MSDS dated 2010 had the same list, except that the first listed ingredient used the alternate and more common spelling "kerosene".

The oleic acid almost certainly reacts quickly with the ammonium hydroxide, producing ammonium oleate, which is a common component of many household soaps and cleaners. The ammonium ion reacts with copper fouling to produce the greenish goo that can be patched out of the barrel. I recall having read that earlier formulations used ammonium stearate. Both are 18-carbon compounds, with the oleate being a mono-unsaturated carboxylic ion, and the stearate being saturated. Both are somewhat soluble in kerosene. I've observed the ammonium salts precipitating in Hoppe's Benchrest No. 9 when my basement cleaning area gets chilly. I presume the Benchrest product has in it the maxium dissolvable amount of the ammonium compound.

Amyl acetate is banana oil, and combined with the kerosene constitutes much of the familiar Hoppe's odor, as noted in a post above,.

In 2003, when Hoppe's was made in Idaho by Michael's of Oregon, the MSDS showed some secret ingredients:

• Ethyl Alcohol
• Kerosene
• Trade Secret Ingredient(s)
• Organic Ester Trade Secret
• Ammonia, aqueous

Whether the more recent forumulation of Hoppe's No. 9 is as effective as those that preceded it is an open question. Nothing in it will harm steel, unlike the solvents that contain aqueous ammonia.
--Bob

I thought you were supposed to put it on your cereal.

I use hoppe's 9 just for the smell

Bob,

Thanks for running all that down. I basically quit using Hoppe's for anything except powder fouling back when the major changes were first made, which as I recall was in the 1970's. Before then it worked OK for copper removal, but at that point other products worked far better--and since then even better products have appeared.

I can remember that same smell back when I was 4yrs old. It reminds me of the good ole dayz. Luv that stuff.

How about getting test copies in school that were still cool and wet with ditto fluid?

I run foaming bore cleaner now but will always run a patch of hoppe's 9 dwn the bore for good luck.

Yes, but doesn't come close to sniffin hoppe's 9

Odd man out -- Hoppe's stinks to this nose.

I'll test it out as a marinade on an elk steak - sometime in the future.

John,

I love your term, "geologic bore fouling". I have certainly encountered that on a few used rifles that had been shot quite a bit and probably never cleaned well, if at all.

For the benefit of newer shooters, or anyone who has never tackled badly layered fouling before, here is the procedure I have used many times to improve or even save used rifles coming into my possession:

Some rifles get sold because they have lost their accuracy, when the problem is just serious fouling. After a good cleaning the accuracy returns.

For geologic fouling the best cure I have found is JB Bore Paste. Even so, it still takes dozens of strokes each, with several repetitions of a smeared patch wrapped around an undersized bore brush to get it all out. About 30 double strokes per patch, repeated with anywhere from three or four patches, to a dozen or more depending on how bad the bore is.

When you think you might have all the fouling out, switch to something like Sweets 7.62 copper solvent to get the JB paste and mud out, with about three patches, and then see if you are getting blue on the patch. If so, copper is still present and I would go back to the JB paste for a while longer.

Once the Sweet's patch comes out grey, but no blue, dry patch it out and then finish with Montana Extreme, or any other solvent to make sure all the ammonia from the Sweets is eliminated.

For anyone facing a case of geologic layered fouling who isn't familiar with the product, here it is. Nothing I know of works better.

J-B® NON-EMBEDDING BORE CLEANING COMPOUND;

http://www.brownells.com/gun-cleani...ing-bore-cleaning-compound-prod1160.aspx ,

When acquiring a used rifle, it is pointless to start load testing if you don't know that the barrel is free of any serious fouling. Unless I can see with my borescope that a barrel is really free of fouling and copper, I will always run at least an abbreviated version of the above proceedure, to make the rifle "mine" and to know what I am starting with.

This is also the thorough cleaning proceedure that I use before applying Dyna Bore Coat to one of my rifle barrels.

As our Canadian friend says, I hope this information is of some use to someone, and to all, an enjoyable week ahead.

Even for the in-betweens of a JB compound cleaning session, I'll take Montana Xtreme over the old school stuff that isn't safe to leave in a bore.

The one advantage of Sweets for the in-between check for copper, is that if any copper is still present, the surface has been exposed bright and fresh (as viewed with the borescope), and the patch comes out of the bore very bright blue.

The Sweets leaves no doubt if there is still copper in the barrel, where many other solvents are sometimes too subtle to tell.

If the barrel is quite pitted there is no point trying to get all the copper out of the pits. The rest of the barrel surface may be bright and shiny, but the copper in the pits still turns the Sweets patch bright blue.

This is where the bore scope is a great aid to knowing when to quit and call it good enough.

I agree that the Montana Extreme solvent is very good stuff and the fact that it can be safely left in the bore indefinitely is a great advantage over products like Sweets which must be used with care.

This isn't subtle:

Mathman,

I use Montana Extreme solvent, but honestly haven't yet tried the "Copper Killer", as I have partial bottles of several other copper solvents on my bench.

Does "Copper Killer" turn bright blue like Sweets? And is it safe to leave in the bore indefinitely, also?

If so, it is the best of both worlds and I will get some and just throw out my old bottle of Sweets. Thanks.

Both the Montanas show me clear blue indications when there's copper. Has the regular one not done that for you?

I should say I don't have as much experience with the copper killer as with the regular. But when I bummed some it was pretty good.