Soaking degreaser?

ssapach

ssapach

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I wonder if anyone has a suggestion for a degreasing agent I can soak an entire rifle in? The rifle is in good shape, just needs lots of gummed up areas cleared out and re-lubed.

Part of me is trying to avoid unnecessary disassembly, part of me doesn't want to spend hours scrubbing with q-tips and a toothbrush to clean all the gunk out.

For what it's worth, I'll definitely remove the wood before soaking. No plastic or painted bits to worry about either. Probably end up removing the wood no matter what cleaning method I end up going with, actually.

So, any particular product to soak in? Something that won't harm bluing? I'll need about a gallon to get enough depth in the tank to cover the whole rifle.

Thanks in advance.
 
If the part or assembly isn't too fiddly I hit it with Simple Green diluted with equal parts of hot water. I basically get the water at or close to boiling and mix it in a plastic tub and drop the parts in. By the time the mixture gets to working temperature half the work is already done. On smaller, more complex stuff (i.e. on a sub-assembly that I don't want to completely strip down to the last part) I tend to still use a traditional solvent or cleaner.
 
If you are too lazy to take it apart, empty a few cans of brake clean into it, blow it out with compressed air. Then liberally apply some silicone spray or g96 into the internals and once more blow it out really well with compressed air. Run a few pull patches through it and function test and give it a try.

Too much lube can be bad so blow it out really well with compressed air.
 
I really hate degreasing old firearms and even milsurps. Degreasing can and often does cause finish blemishes right down to bare metal or fades it out.

I finally had enough of it and picked up a 1 meter long 12 x 12 cm stainless tank. I made up a burner that is attached to the bottom out of a couple of old BBQ burners. This gets hooked up to a propane cylinder.

I boil up enough water to dip the rifle, sans stock, in until the grease floats on top, then scoop it off before pulling out the rifle. Takes less than half an hour to do two SKSs.

I tried steamers, pressure washers etc. This tank is the cat's meow.

Soaking in Varsol/Diesel/brake clean etc just takes to long and still requires a lot of cleaning up afterwards. Pressure washers and compressed air will often send tiny loose parts into some unknown hole, never to be seen again.
 
Looks like brake cleaner will be the winner. If it doesn't work well enough, I'll try boiling it too.....seeing as how I have the setup.
 
I got annoyed and took the darn thing apart. Was full of some dried up varnish like crap and the brake cleaner just wasn't dissolving it very well.

The plus side is the action looks like it's hardly been cycled.

Thanks everyone for the responses anyways!
 
I mostly use diesel fuel, both for guns and for machinery parts. Its advantage is that it's cheap enough that I can afford to fill a tub (especially since I usually have equipment with expired or contaminated fuel that needs to be drained anyway) and leave parts immersed, sometimes for weeks if I'm not in a hurry. As well as dissolving petrified grease, it also loosens rust. It may not be the best solvent or the best penetrating oil, but being able to leave parts immersed, as opposed to just spraying on the expensive stuff, gives it a major advantage. It also has low volatility, so it doesn't evaporate too quickly and it's less toxic than most. If you don't have access to free contaminated fuel and have to buy it, it may be worth buying a drum of the purple (non-road taxed) stuff. It's a little cheaper and you won't be using in road-going equipment anyway.
 
ssapach said:
I got annoyed and took the darn thing apart. Was full of some dried up varnish like crap and the brake cleaner just wasn't dissolving it very well.

The plus side is the action looks like it's hardly been cycled.

Thanks everyone for the responses anyways!
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Dried up varnish like crap, sounds like very old cosmoline to me? Am I correct?
 
Sniper_485 said:
Dried up varnish like crap, sounds like very old cosmoline to me? Am I correct?
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Winchester 94 that hardly has any wear marks from use. Just thought it was some crappy, dried up grease/oil combo. Serial number places it somewhere in the 80's, if that helps determine what it could have been.

Anyways, all cleaned up and back together. On the plus side, I forced myself to learn how to disassemble and assemble the action.
 
ssapach said:
Winchester 94 that hardly has any wear marks from use. Just thought it was some crappy, dried up grease/oil combo. Serial number places it somewhere in the 80's, if that helps determine what it could have been.

Anyways, all cleaned up and back together. On the plus side, I forced myself to learn how to disassemble and assemble the action.
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An 80's Win 94 shouldn't have cosmoline on it. I wonder if it was WD-40, that stuff leaves a varnish/heavy film behind. Glad you got it figured out at any rate, have a good one.
 
Doesn't take that long (a year) for a lot of commercial oils to dry up. Interesting you mentioned an 1894 as I have seen that before. They are a little more involved in disassembly than say a Marlin resulting in some folks giving it a good soak in both solvents and oil. Drip dry and put away only to find the oil has gummed up the inside. Most solvents will take care of it. When oiling, less is usually more.
And yes, diesel fuel works really well.
 
gunnut870 said:
So what do you do with the diesel or other solvent afterwards?
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Use it for fire starter at a bush party?


Anyone use grease instead of oil for lubrication? Was watching a video for assembly and the guy was using grease on a few moving parts for his 94.
 
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