Works for me

[Minihuntur]

Yesterday I sighted in my .243 (If I wouldnt have choked on the last shot the group would have been less than 3/4 in.) and after running a dozen rounds or so out of it I clean it. But I was out of bore solvent so I tried the best all-around solvent/penetrant/lubricant I knew of... WD-40. I took the bolt out and put a cleaning patch in the throat of the bore and tilted the muzzle up slightly. I sprayed WD-40 down the muzzle and waited about a minute. Then I put some cardboard down to catch the drips and pushed the patch through the bore. It worked great, it cleaned twice as well as the other stuff. Also to save money on patches, I buy cheap, disposable jaycloths and cut them to fit the different calibers of my guns.
Minihuntur

[Rocky Raab]

WD-40 may make a decent bore solvent, but it makes a VERY poor lube. After the solvent evaporates, it leaves behind a very sticky, gummy residue that attracts and holds grit.

The effect? Think sandpaper. Grit glued to a base is all sandpaper is, and that's what WD-40 creates inside your gun.

But not in mine! I might use WD-40 or some similar stuff as an in-field emergency cleaner, but my guns will otherwise never see it.

As an anecdote, when I worked in a gun shop, the absolute number one most common "gunsmith" job we did was flushing the tar-like residue of WD-40 and powder fouling out of Marlin M-60 .22 rifles. Some of them came in so caked that the bolt would hardly move. After a complete cleaning, we'd tell the owner to never oil his gun again. I doubt that many listened to that, but it's true that the waxy lube on .22LR bullets is all the lube a .22 semi-auto ever needs.

[Minihuntur]

Really ??!!
Minihuntur

[Jack]

Minihunter, I'll take a different tack, and encourage you to continue using Wd-40 to clean rifle bores.
Won't be very long before your barrel is 'shot out' and won't shoot well any more, and you'll want to sell it- cheap.
When you do, call me. I can't tell you the number of rifles that 'won't shoot' suddenly do when the bore is properly cleaned.
I always look for bargains like that.

[scalerman]

My Dad's .270 was "shot out". My brother was never going to use it again. I cleaned it with a proper bore solvent and it was back putting two bullets in the same hole in no time. I don't think you need to do that every time you clean it but probably an annual or bi- annual cleaning with that stuff would suffice. I'm not an expert in this whole thing- others know more than I do- this has been my experience.

[Adam Helmer]

Rocky,

Your "gummy residue" definition of WD-40 on guns caused me reflective thinking.

About 20 years ago I was the firearms instructor for 100 field agents in New England. I instituted a new policy of having all agents fire off their "street loads" in the first stage of qualification fire to be rid of 6-month old ammo. Prior to that policy change, agents would carefully pocket their street loads, shoot the wadcutters and then load up the OLD ammo and go back on duty.

I had 15 agents per day to run through the semi-annual qualification. One day we all went to the line, put up targets and prepared to fire stage 1: 12 rounds in 30 seconds from a DA Smith or Colt .38 Special revolver. I blew the whistle to commence fire and started the stop watch. Fourteen agents got off 12 rounds and one agent get off NONE. The "none" guy could not fire his gun. The action was sluggish and he had 6 primer hits, but no boom!

I examined his gun and finally got his cylinder out and extracted the rounds. Everything was gummy. I asked what gives and the agent said, "Occasionally I take my gun out of the holster, hold it by the grips and spray it all over with WD-40, paper towel it off and reholster." The WD-40 "killed" all 6 primers in the cylinder and gunked up the works overall.

Adam

[BILLY D.]

Originally posted by Minihuntur
Really ??!!
Minihuntur

YES!

We at the Gunshop where I worked used to relish the thought of customers who used WD-40 on their firearms.

As a down and dirty method to clean these disasters we would remove the actions from the stock and sprary the action with Brake Kleen and stand back and watch as the sludge would be washed in the parts tank.

We would then re-spray and blow it dry with compressed air. All the crud was now removed, so we could now clean it properly and lubrcate.

Improper cleaning and lubrication of firearms causes undue wear and also causes misfires and sticky actions. In cold weather it will cause actions to slow to a crawl.

Depending on time involved the cleaning job price goes up exponentially when a customer ie: expert, cleans his own firearm.

Definition of expert. Ex= has been and a spurt is a drip under pressure.

One word of warning. If you use Brake Kleen, don't use it on any plastic parts. Otherwise you can do your David Copperfield imitation and watch the parts disappear right before your eyes.

Follow your manual for cleaning, or if you have a reading comprehension problem it's better yet to seek the help of a pro.

Best wishes, Bill