The pistol took me the longest of all four to complete. I will admit, I as negligent in that I had not cleaned it after the last time I shot it; which was too long ago - I've got to get to the range soon. The pistol in question is my Remington R1 1911. I am none to familiar with cleaning it yet, I still have to use the manual to do it. I maybe could figure it out without the directions but I prefer using them for now instead of possibly screwing something up and not being able to use the pistol when I want to shoot it - which for sure will be next weekend at the Sixth Annual Northeast Bloggershoot, if not sooner at a local range. So, it took me a good hour to get it done. Not only because I had to follow the directions but more so because it was just that fouled from when I shot it last.
Next, I cleaned up the Marlin 25MN in .22 WMR. That one also looked like it had not been cleaned since it was last shot. I'll have to talk to my son about that since he was the one who shot it most recently; I don't want him to develop my bad habits of shooting a gun and putting it away dirty (not that I usually do that but I do it all too often in recent years). That was an easy and pretty quick clean and lubrication, even though it was fouled a bit, it was not that bad.
I pulled out the Yugoslavian 24/47 Mauser after the Marlin and gave it a good going over. That one was just about clean as a whistle, no rust from storage either. The desiccant packs I put in with the guns go a long way to prevent rust on the metal and mold on the wood - both of which can be a problem is areas with moderate to high humidity - especially in the warmer months as here in NY. I have to give some strong consideration to bringing this one with me to the Bloggershoot. I have more than enough milsurp ammo to burn through to have a very good time with it and to let others have fun shooting it too.
Then I fished around in the gun vault and came up with the Yugo SKS. I thought for sure there would be some rust on it or that the barrel would be fouled because I had forgotten to clean it after shooting it or that my son maybe shot I and conveniently forgot to clean it. I was pretty surprised to look down the bore and see only shiny chrome goodness. (I think the bore is chromed but if not it sure shines like it is when you illuminate it with a bore light.) Same for that one as with the Mauser, it was clean, but I gave it a quick once over anyway. I guess I did some regular maintenance on the rifles not all that long ago since these were so clean but not after my son took that Marlin to shoot at his girlfriend's place upstate a couple of months ago. Anyway, me having cleaned them before putting them away last time just made last night's work all that much easier for me.
Lately I have been using Gunzilla to clean all of my guns. I have got to give them a plug, the stuff works really well from what I can tell. For example, even though the Yugo SKS looked to be spotless with absolutely no fouling down the bore, a few quick passes with a patch soaked with Gunzilla had the patch come out slightly green. That means there was still some residual copper fouling in the bore. This stuff gets it out as opposed to my old standby Hoppes No. 9, which as far as I am aware did not remove copper fouling. I like Hoppe's products but have to say I cannot stand the odor of their copper solvent - Hoppe's Bench rest 9 Copper Cleaner. It works well enough but the odor is foul and the chemicals in it are harsher, I think, than those in Gunzilla. Of course, speaking of odors, their is nothing quite like the aroma of original Hoppe's No. 9, they even make an air freshener in that scent.
Once I finish up here, on the blog, I am going to pull out a few more and give them a cleaning too. Sooner or later I will get all of them done - probably tomorrow for the rifles anyway and who knows when for the pistols (which are probably all clean except maybe for the Ruger MKII). Oh well, no reason to fritter away the afternoon on the Internet - I have to get the lead out.
All the best,
Glenn B
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