Can Hoppes and Gun Oil be used on Airguns?

[19Sheridan57]

He earned it. He acted like he wanted to be banned from the beginning.

[avator]

Yes, he did. And almost in record time.

But back to the original question... Does Hoppes really hurt an airgun?

[Back_Roads]

Yes, he did. And almost in record time.

But back to the original question... Does Hoppes really hurt an airgun?

I remove the barrel from the gun action remove any orings and scrub away.

[Hoosier Daddy]

I seem to remember a thread on this before...
 Somebody actually took the time to soak o-rings in Hoppes #9 for an extended period and found no effects what-so-ever.

[chutesnreloads]

Been a while since reading this thread.
So, what's with my Benji 392?
Only shot enough crosman pellets to see it didn't like them. RWS wadcutters seems its favorite.
Accuracy SEEMED a little off so used a little hoppes in the bore.
It was always a bit pellet fussy. Now it shoots patterns with everything.
Is there any hope bringing it back from the Hoppes treatment?

[mikeyb]

Been a while since reading this thread.
So, what's with my Benji 392?
Only shot enough crosman pellets to see it didn't like them. RWS wadcutters seems its favorite.
Accuracy SEEMED a little off so used a little hoppes in the bore.
It was always a bit pellet fussy. Now it shoots patterns with everything.
Is there any hope bringing it back from the Hoppes treatment?

I think you may need to chronograph your shots. It is possible some seals are damaged (maybe from the Hoppes or simply age?). If velocity is varying a lot (high ES and SD) then getting good consistent accuracy will be difficult to impossible.

[nced]

Gentlemen...

I have cleaning accessories for my .22 Rimfire, .223, .30-30, .30-06, and .357 magnum.  Can the cleaning solvent, cleaning rods, bore brushes, jags, patches, and gun oil be used on my new Airguns?

Thanks,
HAL

Years ago I was wondering the same thing with my brothers' .177 R9 when his bore scope showed leading at the factory choke after shooting unlubed hard lead Crosman Premier pellets. His grouping went from "nice tight clusters" at 30 yards to patterns and no amount of pulled patches restored the accuracy.

He ignored the "never use powder burner chemicals" and used Hoppes #9 (normally used for removing powder burner fouling from his rifles). After the Hoppes sat in the R9 bore for about 1/2 hour he brushed the bore with a .177 cal bronze brush, wiped out the bore with several dry pulled patches (Hoppes #9 will diesel under pressure), then re-tested the accuracy and found that it had returned. Here are a couple groups my brother shot at one sitting with the clean bore and a few "seasoning shots". He was only shooting "3 shot groups" at that time but I figured that two 3 shot groups at one sitting was at least as good as one 5 shot group ...........


Since the die lot marked and dated boxed Crosman Premiers were the most accurate pellets from our .177 R9 we started searching for a suitable pellet lube to prevent "Crosman lead fouling" and after testing a couple lubes we settled on a thin film of aerosol Slick50 One Lube applied only to the rifling surfaces of the pellet and I've been lubing my die lot marked and dated 7.9 grain CPLs till they have become "un-obtanium".  LOL, lubing the CPLs extended the time needed to pull some patches and only patches are needed for the bore clean. Here are a couple pics of "lubed CPL groups" from my .177 HW95.......


OK...... back to the "powder burner chemicals for airguns" topic. The reason many "airgun gurus" warned about using "powder burner lubes" was the possibility that the "non-airgun lubes" would degrade the "rubber" sealing components used and that can diesel in the bore of "piston guns". Well, I dis a test decades ago by soaking some HW95 breach seals and some orings I used for my home rolled oring sealed piston caps with this result............
Test started 12/24/2015............


Three days later the HW breech seal was still pliable so I added one of the orings I used for oring sealed piston caps and all was still good  after soaking in straight Hopper #9 for over an hour.........


After 5 days the seals that were soaked were inspected and still appeared to be in good shape.........


Bottom line...........
I never soak my HW breech seals in Hoppes #9 for over an hour so I personally don't believe that a bit of the "Hoppes solvent" getting on a breech seal for a few seconds is an issue and "Hoppes" would matter be used inside the receiver.

[chutesnreloads]

Been a while since reading this thread.
So, what's with my Benji 392?
Only shot enough crosman pellets to see it didn't like them. RWS wadcutters seems its favorite.
Accuracy SEEMED a little off so used a little hoppes in the bore.
It was always a bit pellet fussy. Now it shoots patterns with everything.
Is there any hope bringing it back from the Hoppes treatment?

I think you may need to chronograph your shots. It is possible some seals are damaged (maybe from the Hoppes or simply age?). If velocity is varying a lot (high ES and SD) then getting good consistent accuracy will be difficult to impossible.

Doubt it. I'm thinking the brass is damaged. Remember these Benjis are built with brass. With the light right you can see the pellets fly down range.
It's like watching a good baseball pitcher pitch. Generally the pellets make a large spiral with many flying up and right or down and left.
Can't see it being anythig other than the bore damaged

[mikeyb]

Hoppes shouldn't eat brass. Seems more like damaged crown. I had a Crosman and a Beeman with muzzle burrs. Pellets shotgun all over. Caught some pellets in HPDE plastic shopping bags and noticed pellets had partial rifling on one side and a gouge on the other side. Then pushed a few pellets through bore. HARD stop at muzzle, much harder than any normal choke.. Removed muzzle breaks and bad crowns were obvious. Really sloppy factory QC! Recrowned both and it made a big difference. My barrels were steel. Not certain how to recrown brass.

Suggest shooting into plastic bags and/or push pellet through bore. It should be pretty clear if there is bore/crown damage or not.

[Back_Roads]

 Choice of pellets may also be the cause of spiraling.

[mobilemail]

Generally speaking, I think Hoppes 9 is best reserved for firearms….

        …..and occasionally as a nice cologne…..

[Methuselah]

Hoppe's is mostly kerosene. I use it first cleaning with a bronze brush to knock down any machining left-overs, then follow up with dry patches, then alcohol wet patches, then dry again, then Remoil so the bore doesn't rust, then dry patches until I get the oil out.

I don't recall ever needing to clean an airgun barrel a second time, but I suppose if I did it would just be Hoppe's followed by dry patches.

If you have one that just doesn't want to group with anything and the crown is good, I'd definitely try the JB non-embedding bore paste. I've only used JB paste once and group went from not quite being sure standing behind the rifle was safe to literally one hole group at 25 yards.

[rsterne]

I seem to remember a thread on this before...
Somebody actually took the time to soak o-rings in Hoppes #9 for an extended period and found no effects what-so-ever.

That would be me, and after a 24 hour soak the O-rings absorbed a small amount and swelled a tiny bit.... but after removing them from the Hoppe's #9 they returned to normal after a short time.... with no permanent effects.... I don't worry about using Hoppe's #9 on any of my PCPs....

Bob

[buellm2]

I'm relieved that PB cleaning solvents don't harm AGs.   I don't want to have to keep track of chemical sensitivities.   Maybe once a year I will run a slightly damp patch with ballistol down an AG barrel just to see what's in there.   There's never anything unusual in there.  I'll do the same whenever I get a new AG or a new used AG.   Sometimes there's a lot of &^^& in those barrels and I'll have to do some scrubbing with ballistol.   I'll use light machine oil which could be gun oil or 3 in 1 oil to lube some moving parts on AGs.   I'll also very occasionally run a lightly oiled patch down the barrel of guns that I shoot all the time.  That oiled patch seems to keep the barrel clean.     After I had about 20,000 pellets thru my IZH46M I sprayed some ballistol thru the action.   Very little dirt came out so maybe I wont do that again for at least 30,000 more pellets.   I don't have any powerful AGs so detonation is not a problem.

[nced]

Funny thing, since I stopped using Crosman pellets I haven't had to clean my barrels. Hmm?

I have a theory for the rapid barrel fouling I had consisting of a combination of issues, however the main issue was actually shooting dry undersized CPLs rather than sorting them out.

Over the years I found that the CPL had "seasons of inconsistencies" (especially the cases of die #7) with undersized pellets in the mix, however the "good fitters" were good enough that I took the time to presort the CPs before dropping them into the pellet pouch. Presorting was simply done by dropping them into the leade of a cocked R9 or HW95 barrel and visually noting how high they sat in the leade. If a pellet fell visually "too deep" into the leade it was shaken out and another substituted. If the substitution sat visually at the appropriate height if was pressed into the leade and shot. Here are a couple "sorted by eye" CPL vs other brands comparison targets fro "back in the day".............


I used "hard lead Crosman Premiers" from the 1250 count cardboard boxes for a couple decades till they became "unobtanium" because a good fitting CP was the most accurate pellet from my HW springers. When I first started using die lot marked and dated Crosman Premiers I also had "rapid bore fouling" from the hard lead "Crosman pellet alloy" (or so I read) and while this may be part of the issue I often wondered is there were other "pellet issues" such as the parting compound used by crosman (appeared to be powdered graphite) and traces of swarf in the boxes since I dumped CPLs directly in my pellet pouch and shot the "loose fitters" along with the rest of the box. Later when testing out some Crosman Premiers from the 500 count tins my "loadin' fingers" looked like this.......

I also tested out another "Crosman factory offering" with the 750 count Benjamin pellets from the tin and the tins were exceptionally "dirty" with a lot of swarf in the tins like this........

Seemed that Crosman "got their act together" and last couple cases of die lot marked and dated Premiers I received were very good without swarf, more than a half dozen "peewees" or excess parting compond so I stocked up on a few extra cases in 2014, and marked the boxes with manufacturing date and and date received........


Anywhoo, I learned that lubing my hard lead CPLs with aerosol Slick50 OneLube eliminated the "soldered to bore fouling" when using CPLs and all it took to clean the bore and restore accuracy after shooting about a 1000 pellets was pulling through a patch moistened with RemOil followed by a few dry patches to restore accuracy.

Since the boxed CPLs are no longer offered by Crosman I'm finishing up my remaining CPLs and testing other brands, notably Air Arms and H&N domes and for when my CPLs are depleted.

[Methuselah]

Wow Ed --- GREAT info!!!

[techted]

Ed, your enthusiasm, dedication and commitment are priceless for AG community in general, not to mention you documenting (almost) every single thing of your journey. Thank you! 

[buellm2]

I agree that Ed's detailed documentation is excellent.   I carefully read all his comments and should have thanked him a long time ago.   But now that I'm remembering it today---- THANKS ED.    Detail listing of the gun, sights, ammo, conditions, shooting position, group size with pictures and DISTANCE tells the whole story.  But hey, sometimes we're just plinking at a can that keeps moving making it impossible to determine the exact distance.

[nced]

Wow Ed --- GREAT info!!!

Thanks to all for the kind comments!