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I need to do some serious cleaning on one of my AR's. I recently had a marathon shooting session with some friends. We shot who knows how many rounds. I had a ton of .223 that was assorted unmarked, brass, steel, polymer coated and otherwise. The barrel was pretty hot, then we finished off the day with about 300 rounds of steel cased Monarch with the shelac looking coating on it. I'd heard before that when a chamber gets hot it can cause the shelac to melt, come off, and gum up the chamber of a rifle. Honestly, I wasn't even thinking about that. Towards the end of the day, I started having FTE's from the AR. Still being oblivious, I didn't think about the ammo. Fast forward to this afternoon. I decided to pull some guns out and do a scrubbing on them because I left work early. In the chamber of my AR, I have gunk. I'm not positive, but I wonder if it's shelac residue. It so far has not come off well with #9. I have some brake cleaner handy, but haven't tried that yet. I've read that Gun Scrubber is pretty close to brake cleaner. Will brake cleaner harm the gun? Any suggestions on cleaning the bujeezus out of this thing? Has anyone tried a slim nylon brush to scrub out their AR? I usually take my cleaning kit with me and clean up on site, but I forgot, then got busy, and put the cleaning aside till now, so I've got quite a cleaning day ahead of me. LT, you can pick on me if you want! It'll be paybacks for picking on you about the insurance pics!

Gun Scrubber is good. Brake cleaner is a little better, but will damage or discolor plastic parts.

A trick my Drill Sergeants taught me that I later passed on to my soldiers once I got my hard stripes is to soak the rifle down with Break Free once you come off the range. Just pour generous amounts of it down the barrel. When we got back, we would scrub our rifles out in a solvent tank and the carbon would practically melt off.

Carb cleaner works great, too, but I prefer not to use it as it destroys the teflon film that Break Free impregnates the metal with. If you use something like that, be sure to lube the rifle up thoroughly aftarwards or it will be vulnerable to surface rust.

A decent Platoon Sergeant wouldn't let you go home until you turned in your weapon and a decent armorer wouldn't let you turn in a dirty weapon!

Friend of mine used to shoot a lot of Wolf in his .45 . . . said after around 700 rounds, there was enough lacquer or shellac or whatever that coating is built up in his chamber to induce malfunctions. he got a quart of regular lacquer thinner from Lowe's or Home Depot and started using that to swab out the chamber - he said it worked better than any of the commercial gun cleaning solvents.

Had something similar happen to my Ruger. I got one of those brass wire brushes that fit on a Dremmel and using the low speed setting, cleaned it right out. The shellac in mine was so hard, it was almost like plastic. I used some WD-40 to soften it up some, then the Dremmel to finish it. I dont know if the steel brush would have damaged anything, so I used the brass thinking it had to be softer than the chamber.

My barrel wasnt affected with the shellac. Was yours?

I'm just starting to learn about the care and feeding of my AR, although I haven't put as many rounds through mine as you have through yours. Also, so far I've only shot higher quality match and hunting ammo through mine. But, one thing I was specifically warned about by a gunsmith is getting some long pipe cleaners and always cleaning the gas tube thoroughly. If your gas tube is really fouled from shooting a ton of rounds, it would seem to me that your bolt might not cycle completely, and perhaps that might have contributed to your FTE's, particularly if your chamber was getting a bit sticky with shellac.

Just a thought.

Make sure your extractor and it's spring are very clean. I would suggest blasting them with some Aero-Kroil or other penetrating lube.



When i was in the Army this was probably the biggest cause of failures to eject. Reason being is that when this part gets gummed up it can't "sling" the case out like it's supposed to.

Thanks. I'll probably try a combination of those things when I get home today. I guarantee my gas tube has been neglected. I'll get some pipe cleaners for sure. The hard plastic like stuff is for sure what I have in my chamber. The bolt and extractor are clean. I scrubbed the heck out of them yesterday. I also keep a supply of tiny rubber "O" rings on hand. I don't remember what size they are, but they work just as well as the "D-fender" D shaped ring for MUCH less money. I think it just needs an extreme cleaning. I'll let you guys know how it goes.

Acetone or mineral spirits

Just make DANG sure that you remove ALL plastic components before exposing to such harsh cleaners..otherwise it can melt/discolor them

Anything that can soften the lacquer where it can be removed is pretty harsh on a firearms finish..but if you clean the chamber/bore then oil with your favorite oil all should be well...heck we used parts cleaner solution (I think its kerosene or something) and it never really hurt the finish, other than making the matte black handguards shiny, but a few hours in the dirt and it was well again.

It wasn't until we started putting the rifle in the sonic cleaner did we start noticing the electroplating/powder coating of the aluminum receiver start to fade.

Pull all the plastic stuff off the receiver and chuck it in a bucket and let it soak, chamber down of course so anything that dissolves will fall to the bottom of the bucket.

I've got a Predator free float on the upper, so no plastic on there at all, only on the lower. I think I'm going to pull the upper completely off the lower and soak it for awhile. Then get to scrubbin'. Thanks for all the advice.

I remember reading about "Ed's Red" on here before. I did a quick search and found the recipie. I'm considering mixing up a big batch of that stuff to soak it in. Can you store that in a plastic bucket or will it disolve the bucket after awhile? I'd hate to have the bucket deteriorate and spill that all over.

The acetone in Ed's Red will dissolve the plastic bucket use metal or glass to store. You might want to try loosely stuffing your chamber with cotton patches and then pouring some acetone into the chamber let it sit for an hour or so then clean the gunk out. Oily fingernail polish remover is a mixture of acetone and mineral oil and makes a great substitute for straight acetone. Keep the acetone off any plastic or fiberglass parts they will be ruined.

Tactical_Texan_CHL wrote:I remember reading about "Ed's Red" on here before. I did a quick search and found the recipie. I'm considering mixing up a big batch of that stuff to soak it in. Can you store that in a plastic bucket or will it disolve the bucket after awhile? I'd hate to have the bucket deteriorate and spill that all over.

How about a link?

Found here:

http://www.kuci.org/~dany/firearms/eds_red.html