Ed's Red

[Jeff H]

I just use the kerosene and ATF, still works.

"Still works" is key. If it doesn't do for me what I want, I could always squirt it on various Jeep parts because I'm always running out of PB-Blaster.

I think I'm going to try Turpentine and ATF for a while and see how it goes only because I'm not crazy about the smell of kerosene as compared to turpentine. Maybe a dumb reason but, what the heck.

 

[Ian]

OK, here's a thought. Mix two parts TCW3 two-cycle premix oil with one part kerosene and one part acetone. The TCW3 is diluted considerably so it will mix with fuel easily, and IIRC it's naptha used for the dilution. The oil contains dispersants and surfacants which help lift and carry carbon into suspension, and it also contains anti-rust agents.

 

[Bass Ackward]

I was given some Ed’s Red. Used very little. I didn’t care for it. I use so little solvent that cost just isn’t a factor. A pint of solvent will last me almost a decade so I ignore cost to a large degree.

I was just thinking I was going to have to replace my Hoppies #9 that I bought when I got out the Army 20 years ago this year. I use it for lead only. And when I asked about cleaning guns before being placed in storage, the responses were rather .... emotional in the belief we should N E V E R clean a lead gun. So, based upon THAT logic, I can’t imagine measuring / mixing Ed’s Red in proportions to work in that 5 oz Hoppies bottle. Being that the next one will probably last me till I’m cooked to prevent the smell. (Wife said she wants to see if “ I “ will harden when heat treated.) (Wonderful woman)

 

[JonB]

SNIP...

Ed's original recipe called for turpentine instead of mineral spirits.
Has anyone ever made it with turpentine?

I had an old can of Turpentine on the shelf when I made my first batch of Ed's Red...So I used it instead of Mineral spirits. So, I've used Turpentine instead of MS ever since. I like it. I can't say I prefer it, since I've never tried it with MS. My SIL likes my mix as well.

As to adding to tumbler media, I use two things added 'regularly' to my corn cob media. liquid car wax thinned with 91% Iso Alc and paste polishing compound thinned with 91% Iso Alc. I add 5 to 10 drops of each, when needed, which is usually every other large batch of dirty range brass, I usually run the tumbler for 4 hours each batch.

 

[Ian]

There's always this: https://www.brownells.com/gun-clean...solvents/ed-s-red-bore-cleaner-prod19936.aspx

I don't know if CA will even let an ORM-D package across the state line. I do know that the bottle cap sucks and you should transfer contents to a good glass container as soon as the foil seal is broken on the bottle.

 

[462]

"I don't know if CA will even let an ORM-D package across the state line."

Amazon has shipped me stuff containing "known cancer causing agents" that local retailers can't obtain and sell.

 

[Jeff H]

I was just thinking I was going to have to replace my Hoppies #9 that I bought when I got out the Army 20 years ago this year......................................

That's about my usage rate for Break-Free, Hoppes or Ed's Red. It takes about two drops (1 drop = .05ml) to wet a patch and I run one wet patch of each down the bore each time I'm done shooting because I have no idea when I'll get to shoot again, or even peep down the bore. Since I'm not a match shooter, I don't think it's hurting me too much. Also, as will happen here in a couple days, we'll go from below zero to +50F over night, and EVERYTHING not in the heated part of the house sweats badly. Guns I keep "handy" tend to be exposed to a significant range of those swings.

I also waste a lot more than I USE of either, especially Break-Free, because of the wasteful dispensers on the bottles. I recently bought two tiny Pro-Shot bottles of bore cleaner with needle-like spouts, emptied the contents into a waste-oil jug, rinsed and filled one with Break-Free and one with Ed's Red. I'll likely never have to ever buy either again now that I have an efficient delivery system.

I have a 20 year-old, unopened quart of Hoppes which will likely make it into my estate sale - unopened. I'm using out of a 4-ounce bottle and can't remember when I bought it.

 

[fiver]

I wouldn't get too worked up about removing wad plastic from a barrel.
the last time I even heard about that happening to any extent was with some really early aftermarket wads.
they long ago fixed that formulation, and fixed it right quick.
shot shell reloaders are for the most part a bunch of crotchety codgers and will complain and bicker worse than a bunch of old women at a church supper.

 

[Ole_270]

I mixed a gallon per directions over 20 years ago, minus the lanolin. Store it in a gallon metal can with a small screw on lid. I use the can the acetone came in for keeping the smaller portion I use for cleaning. Still works great, some of the newer carbon specific solvents are a bit faster, but not much. I use it till patches come out clean, then switch to a copper solvent. Always run a patch of Eds Red through before putting a gun back in the safe.

 

[Ole_270]

I wouldn't get too worked up about removing wad plastic from a barrel.
the last time I even heard about that happening to any extent was with some really early aftermarket wads.
they long ago fixed that formulation, and fixed it right quick.
shot shell reloaders are for the most part a bunch of crotchety codgers and will complain and bicker worse than a bunch of old women at a church supper.

Hey, I resemble that remark! Long ago settled on a trick put forth by Ralph Walker in his Shotgun Gunsmithing manual. Wrap 0000 steel wool around a rod and chuck it in a drill motor. Run it through the barrel dry, just tight enough to heat up the barrel as it passes through. It'll make the bore shine like nobodys business. I run mine in reverse to keep from unscrewing the choke tubes.

 

[358156 hp]

I do recommend staying with ATF though. My latest batch of ER was made with Marvel Mystery Oil, and I seem to have lost the rust protection I was getting with ATF. MMO is really solventy, and I damn near ruined a rifle barrel because I didn't check it often enough while I wasn't using it. As mentioned above, ATF & a really good solvent are about all you really need.

 

[Bill]

I use Coleman fuel, mainly because it smells better than most of the other stuff, and I keep a can around for general cleaning fluid in the shop

Bill

 

[Jeff H]

I do recommend staying with ATF though.............and I damn near ruined a rifle barrel because I didn't check it often enough while I wasn't using it. As mentioned above, ATF & a really good solvent are about all you really need.

THAT, right there - I don't get to get back to my guns as often or regularly as I'd like and that's why I still run a patch with break-free on it through them even after using a patch with Ed's Red. Maybe overkill, but it's one patch. I have my 357 Mag carbine standing in a corner behind me right now. I shot it back in September (I think) and had planned on shooting more over Christmas break. Never happened. The contingency was to shoot a few weeks after school started and things settled down. Never happened. After I shot it this fall, I did one patch Ed's Red, let it sit a while. Then, on dry and then one wet with Break-Free. Let it sit a whole and one my dry patch. I cracked it open a few minutes ago and it's still bright and shiny looking longways through the bore but it's not bright and shiny looking into the muzzle at an angle - not really "clean" but not going to rust on me either.

I've always considered ATF the main ingredient in terms of importance in this concoction.

My mom lost a SAKO L461 barrel once because of rust suddenly and mysteriously developing from the muzzle to half way down the bore. We'd gotten away with shooting jacketed and setting a rifle up after popping a 'chuck or belligerent coon, as long as the gun was kept in the house. Never had a problem waiting to wipe the bore until after several shots over several weeks/months and wiping the bore only once or twice a year. That was a long time ago and I'm still paranoid about it. If I just said that in another post, my apologies. It seemed awfully familiar after I typed it.

 

[M3845708Bama]

"Still works" is key. If it doesn't do for me what I want, I could always squirt it on various Jeep parts because I'm always running out of PB-Blaster.

I think I'm going to try Turpentine and ATF for a while and see how it goes only because I'm not crazy about the smell of kerosene as compared to turpentine. Maybe a dumb reason but, what the heck.

Be careful with turpentine. In the gaseous form it does not just burn it detonates with a flame speed similar to dent cord. In paper industry a number os fatal accidents have occurred cutting rusty pipe from a turpentine decanter. It is not something to play with. Early in my career a contractor put on a demonstration using a four ft section of rusted pipe he had wet cut fron decanter piping. He placed the pipe at the end of dirt parking lot and rigged a cutting torch with a rope to lower it to pipe. As he lowered the torch to the pipe there was a loud bang and bright flash. The open ended. Four inch schedule 40 pipe was split end to end. There was enough turpentine in the rust. Prior to test there was only a very faint smell from the rusty pipe.

 

[Jeff H]

Be careful with turpentine.......

Duly noted. Thank you.

I haven't used it since seventh grade to clean artist brushes, but then we also made our own lead-acid batteries in science class and passed around little gobs of mercury to see how much was left by the time twelve kids had handled it and handed it off. Different world today.

I don't intend to have this small amount near any heat source but it's good to know all the same.

 

[RicinYakima]

MMO is really solventy, and I damn near ruined a rifle barrel because I didn't check it often enough while I wasn't using it. As mentioned above, ATF & a really good solvent are about all you really need.

MMO remember was made to put a pint in an engine that already six quarts of oil. No residual wetting at all that I could ever tell. But at least you can still buy it in WA. Last I made was one part acetone, two parts MMO and one part ATF (not synthetic). It has been working well the last three or four years for me.

 

[CZ93X62]

The mineral spirits prohibition has been fought over for years. It isn't "prohibited', per se--it is signature-controlled, in order to discourage distribution outside of bona-fide end-user consumption and waste-stream disposal routes. M/S makes a GREAT solvent for extracting methamphetamine in solutions from filtered reaction masses after the reflux or distillation step in clandestine manufacturing of methamphetamine. This is at least part of the reason for the restrictions being placed.

Coleman fuel makes a pretty good meth solvent as well. A new grocery store opened in the Temecula area of southwest Riverside County in the mid-1990s the two top-selling items by barcode tracking in that store were #1--Red Devil Lye, and #2--one gallon Coleman fuel. Both are essential to several methods of making meth. Most purchases were mass quantities of both, with a case of beer and a couple big bags of Doritos. Not joking. I did meth lab work from 1989 to 1993 almost to the exclusion of other narcotics venues, at least 500 labs or processing sites. The sitch got so bad in the mid-90s that I got pulled away from robbery-homicide for almost all of 1996 to work a task force TDY bit. In 10 months we did 275 lab cases. It was NUTS.

 

[fiver]

well that's a load off my mind.. whew.
good thing they got something to clean up the battery stuff and the sulpher to a more pure form.
I'd hate to see someone health be ruined along with their face, brain, skin, teeth, and other internal organs.

 

[358156 hp]

well that's a load off my mind.. whew.
good thing they got something to clean up the battery stuff and the sulpher to a more pure form.
I'd hate to see someone health be ruined along with their face, brain, skin, teeth, and other internal organs.

Yes. That would be too bad, wouldn't it?

 

[CZ93X62]

The typical governmental reaction to a problem--

1) Awareness of crisis/problem 2) Search for the guilty 3) Punish the innocent 4) Promote the marginally-involved.

ATF Dexron III is the key ingredient.