Urine is 95% water and a temperature of 98.6°F (37°C). If you have no access to water or water based solution then go ahead and piss down your barrel.
A strange way to clean rifle after shooting corrosive ammo?
- Thread starter ryroru
- Start date
Urine is 95% water and a temperature of 98.6°F (37°C). If you have no access to water or water based solution then go ahead and piss down your barrel.
Replace the KCl salt with NaCl salt. Seems reasonable...
I couldn't find a tongue-in-cheek emoticon.
GunsNotPuns
CGN frequent flyer
Urine is 95% water and a temperature of 98.6°F (37°C). If you have no access to water or water based solution then go ahead and piss down your barrel.
Which undoubtedly someone will quote a primary source as having happened for cleaning.
Organic matter makes up 65-85% of urine dry solids. Leave a bucket of urine out in the sun, and see what is there when it dries out.
Normal urine is mildly acidic.
I love to osmoregulate all over my firearms, don't let me hold you back, but you might need to clean them after you have covered the innards with urine.
Fresh urine doesn't contain much ammonia, you have to let it ripen, so the urea breaks down to ammonia over time. So I bring a 4l milk jug to the range.
I do not disclose this in my EE ads, yes I am a bad person.
"Lant" or aged urine was also used for whitening teeth in Ancient Rome.
Normal urine is mildly acidic.
I love to osmoregulate all over my firearms, don't let me hold you back, but you might need to clean them after you have covered the innards with urine.
Fresh urine doesn't contain much ammonia, you have to let it ripen, so the urea breaks down to ammonia over time. So I bring a 4l milk jug to the range.
I do not disclose this in my EE ads, yes I am a bad person.
"Lant" or aged urine was also used for whitening teeth in Ancient Rome.
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I pissed down the bore more than once.Worked great especially when shooting BP loaded cartridges.I also used antifreeze from car radiator.Worked even better.
Diesel fuel is my standard cleaner/lubricant.Works far better than many other oils and cleaners sold around and it's under a dollar per liter.
Diesel fuel is my standard cleaner/lubricant.Works far better than many other oils and cleaners sold around and it's under a dollar per liter.
JDForBrkFst
CGN frequent flyer
- Location
- Roughly North Central AB
Great read, especially thanks to Tootall for your contribution. I used windex for a time but low and behold a patch would come out orange after a few months storage. Gave up on that, did some research and had the fortune of crossing paths with an ex Czech soldier and asked him about how how they dealt with "the corrosion problem". After all that I came to the only logical conclusion. Water, lots of it, hot, followed by oiled patches. Never a problem since. I'll leave it at that as my hands are freezing up and I should probably pay more attention to my arcs as deer don't hunt themselves.
VinceDrake
Member
- Location
- Sunny South Sask.
I'm probably that annoying guy at the range in Saskatchewan, dosing SKS's with windex.
It's not a chemical thing. Straight hot water works awesome, soapy water works awesome, Hot soapy water is even better. I don't claim that ammonia (of which there is pathetically little in Windex) is any better or worse at removing corrosive salts than anything else.
It's purely a logistical thing.
It's portable, doesn't leave nasty residue, like antifreeze, or a gallon of your favourite gun oil. It comes in a convenient spray bottle, costs about a buck at the dollar store, and resists freezing better than water. And it works. Helps dissolve carbon too. Also works nicely if you find a smear of cosmo after heating the rifle up. Smells nice to boot. And if you spill it in the truck, Oh well, it evaporates, and smells like clean truck for a while.
Plus! While I'm waiting for the wife, I can clean the windshield on my truck, clean the steering wheel after driving home after a particularly oily day at work. Clean the coffee stains out of the cupholder in the centre console etc. All for a buck and some shop towels, that I carry anyways.
Sure, I could bring a portable generator to the range, or rig a 1500 watt invertor to the truck, and a kettle, or a esbit stove, thermos, whatever. But a bottle of Windex-like substance does it good enough to buy me time until the next proper cleaning, and I don't have to tow a trailer full of "range-gear."
Wanna shoot in the snow? Alright, here's level 2. Refill that handy windex-like spray bottle with el-cheapo-crappo $3 a gallon Blue windshield washer fluid. It doesn't freeze, down to -35, does all the things Windex does, packaged conveniently, etc. Got the rear window of the truck to gross to back up to a trailer? No problem! You just happen to have a spray bottle of washer fluid and some shop towels! Happy meals for everybody!
So yeah, to sum up, Nope, chemically Windex isn't really all that exciting. But Logistically, it's better than most. And Ballistol is a crappy glass cleaner.
It's not a chemical thing. Straight hot water works awesome, soapy water works awesome, Hot soapy water is even better. I don't claim that ammonia (of which there is pathetically little in Windex) is any better or worse at removing corrosive salts than anything else.
It's purely a logistical thing.
It's portable, doesn't leave nasty residue, like antifreeze, or a gallon of your favourite gun oil. It comes in a convenient spray bottle, costs about a buck at the dollar store, and resists freezing better than water. And it works. Helps dissolve carbon too. Also works nicely if you find a smear of cosmo after heating the rifle up. Smells nice to boot. And if you spill it in the truck, Oh well, it evaporates, and smells like clean truck for a while.
Plus! While I'm waiting for the wife, I can clean the windshield on my truck, clean the steering wheel after driving home after a particularly oily day at work. Clean the coffee stains out of the cupholder in the centre console etc. All for a buck and some shop towels, that I carry anyways.
Sure, I could bring a portable generator to the range, or rig a 1500 watt invertor to the truck, and a kettle, or a esbit stove, thermos, whatever. But a bottle of Windex-like substance does it good enough to buy me time until the next proper cleaning, and I don't have to tow a trailer full of "range-gear."
Wanna shoot in the snow? Alright, here's level 2. Refill that handy windex-like spray bottle with el-cheapo-crappo $3 a gallon Blue windshield washer fluid. It doesn't freeze, down to -35, does all the things Windex does, packaged conveniently, etc. Got the rear window of the truck to gross to back up to a trailer? No problem! You just happen to have a spray bottle of washer fluid and some shop towels!
Happy meals for everybody!So yeah, to sum up, Nope, chemically Windex isn't really all that exciting. But Logistically, it's better than most. And Ballistol is a crappy glass cleaner.
gewehr76
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
This topic was discussed a lot before. Think of your salt covered car in the winter. What are you going to do to clean it? Piss on it? That won't make it clean. LOL. What you use at car wash? Soap and water, along with shammy or brush. Apply the same method to clean the barrel of rifle that is as dirty as your car outside. Simple as that.
I've been seriously thinking about trying this. If I trip over one in a store I'm gonna buy one, but it appears that they aren't so popular anymore.
Pretty sure that the only benefit that using windex has is that it is easily portable anywhere and the formula makes it evaporate quickly so you don't have moisture on the metal for very long. The water in windex does the job and the other chemicals in it make it evaporate and not leave the metal wet. I'm thinking boiling water, while almost free, washes it out very well and maybe a bit better as it causes the metal to expand and may help loosen up some of the crud. The heat of the water and then metal causes it to evaporate quickly as well. The only thing is that you have to have water and a heat source to do it this way.
Bull crap. The ammonia in Windex does nothing to dissolve/neutralize the salts
Two quick facts for yah. 1) the salts are not corrosive. They are hydrophilic, which means they attract water. They will pull H2O molecules out of the air and those molecules will condense into liquid water, which is what causes rust. Any talk of neutralizing the salts is horseshyte, you aren't neutralizing anything.
2) salts are water soluble. Windex is mostly water with a bit of ammonia. It's the water that dissolves and flushes the salts, not the ammonia.
So while Windex seems useful, its not because of the ammonia.
Hot water dissolves salt faster (hotter=more kinetic energy in the molecules=faster dissolving) so given the choice between hot water and cold windex, hot water wins every time.
"Technically, ammonia is a gas at room temperature and atmospheric pressure. When it is dissolved in water it is called ammonium hydroxide"
This is largely false. Ammonia is a gas at STP, but it can be dissolved in water. No different than the O2 dissolved in water that fish need to breathe, or the CO2 that is acidifying the oceans.
Also, only a very small amount (1.5% give or take) of aqueous ammonia (aqueous simply means in solution with water) turns into ammonium hydroxide. Wikipedia claims it's impossible to isolate NH4OH due to the very low concentrations (there is a citation but I'm not fact checking that on my phone) which would mean the windex people are being dishonest...
This is largely false. Ammonia is a gas at STP, but it can be dissolved in water. No different than the O2 dissolved in water that fish need to breathe, or the CO2 that is acidifying the oceans.
Also, only a very small amount (1.5% give or take) of aqueous ammonia (aqueous simply means in solution with water) turns into ammonium hydroxide. Wikipedia claims it's impossible to isolate NH4OH due to the very low concentrations (there is a citation but I'm not fact checking that on my phone) which would mean the windex people are being dishonest...
It didn't get much traction, but another member who was in an eastern bloc military did a write up on alkali/basic cleaning oil that is used over there (and coincidentally why all the eastern bloc cleaning bottles have two reservoirs, one marked for Alkali).
Seems upon firing corrosive ammo you initially get an acid which reacts with metal to form a salt. The alkali/basic oil neutralizes the acid, resulting in no corrosion, even though you haven't actually completely removed the residue. Ballistol markets the alkalinity of their oil as part of their cleaning benefits. Strong basic cleaning oils are still pretty common the further east you go, but don't seem to show up much here, mostly I suspect due to the fact that corrosive ammo hasn't been used here for a while AND militaries here usually just had their troops use water to scrub the barrels out.
Ammonia can be very mildly basic, (though can sometimes be acidic apparently?) so there's some truth to it acting as a slightly better cleaning agent. It sounds like the eastern bloc oil is very basic, and tuned for roughly an equal opposite PH of corrosive primed ammo. I suspect the fact that it's a strong base also makes it hard to get here, what with stronger H&S laws.... or maybe it's just lack of awareness and no one has bothered to import it....it's certainly dirt cheap there...
Seems upon firing corrosive ammo you initially get an acid which reacts with metal to form a salt. The alkali/basic oil neutralizes the acid, resulting in no corrosion, even though you haven't actually completely removed the residue. Ballistol markets the alkalinity of their oil as part of their cleaning benefits. Strong basic cleaning oils are still pretty common the further east you go, but don't seem to show up much here, mostly I suspect due to the fact that corrosive ammo hasn't been used here for a while AND militaries here usually just had their troops use water to scrub the barrels out.
Ammonia can be very mildly basic, (though can sometimes be acidic apparently?) so there's some truth to it acting as a slightly better cleaning agent. It sounds like the eastern bloc oil is very basic, and tuned for roughly an equal opposite PH of corrosive primed ammo. I suspect the fact that it's a strong base also makes it hard to get here, what with stronger H&S laws.... or maybe it's just lack of awareness and no one has bothered to import it....it's certainly dirt cheap there...
I don't know about Ballistol. Why would you go this route when you can get the desired effect with plain water? It sounds like buying an electric belly button lint remover when your finger works just fine.
I checked their website and see they recommend using a 10% Ballistol/90% water mix followed by straight Ballistol. Of course they're in the business of selling Ballistol.
Folks should use whatever they want. All I know is that applying oil over undissolved corrosive primer residue will allow the bore to rust UNDER the oil.
I checked their website and see they recommend using a 10% Ballistol/90% water mix followed by straight Ballistol. Of course they're in the business of selling Ballistol.
Folks should use whatever they want. All I know is that applying oil over undissolved corrosive primer residue will allow the bore to rust UNDER the oil.
