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I just bought a used XS Special Citori, that I was asking/talking about earlier in the week.
I was looking at the choke tubes and they are really dirty. I sprayed some Brake-kleen on them and used a tooth brush on the threads and inside. A lot of crud came out, but more is still in there.

What are you experienced O/U users using to clean the plastic from the choke tubes, and the chamber to, for that matter?
Any tips on maintaining the O/U would be appreciated as I want to start out right with the cleaning regiment.
I did buy some Birchwood Casey choke tube lubricant and applied that to the 2 IC tubes in the gun. I've got like 12 different choke tubes.

THANKS!

I shot a 21 with this gun, the first time on the field today! I was pretty happy about that.!

Carb cleaner!

carb/brake cleaner really works well, but use it outside - the fumes are nasty.....I have heard that some of the new orange-oil based cleaners do a great job as well without the nasty cancer-causing fumes

google edsred, make your own and it really works well.

http://www.slip2000.com/choketube.html

Slip2000 is what I have settled on. Tried a lot of the cleaners, Ed's Red and carb cleaners. I shoot Sporting 3000+ per year and clean after each shoot.

Slip2000, tubes soaked for an appropriate time and then use cordless drill with same gauge copper/bronze brush on short rod. Works very well and is easily wiped off, as 2000 is water based. I will not use anything else. But this is my opinion. Try several and settle on what works best for you. Keep shooting.

The solvents everyone mentioned work well. For scrubbing work I like a cleaning rod with a bronze brush chucked in a drill motor.

You could also do like my friend Stogie, take a bore snake and put the looped end over a fence post. Get your choke tube over the snake where the brushes are and, as Stogie said, "make like you were married to my ex-wife."

I've been thinking about this and I've come to a conclusion; I'm not going to use a drill. The whole purpose behind a solvent is to soften and loosen the offending dirt/plastic. If you need a drill, your solvent isn't working. I'll stick with the solvent and a little time. My chokes come clean easy enough.

I've had good results using Ballistol but I clean my tubes every time I shoot. the first boresnake i owned had the string break leaving about 12-14" so that became my choke tube snake. i also like the bronze brush with the "standard" shotgun cleaning kit. i don't get a lot of buildup shooting B&Ps.

As I've stated in other forums, use Simple Green. It is cheap, non toxic, non flammable and works great. Get a jar with a lid, like an old apple sauce jar. Fill it with Simple Green and put your tubes in. Let is sit for a few hours and the plastic wipes right off. I use the same jar full for a long time, and just decant off the clear liquid from the junk on the bottom.

Don't poison yourself, use Simple Green. Works great on guns too.

The absolute quickest is to take a sharp pocketknife, use as shallow an angle as you can, spin the tube around on the blade and peel out what you can. Then take a short rod chucked in a drill, a 20 gauge brush wrapped with a 1 1/2" X 2" piece of maroon scotchbrite, use a glove or a rag to hold the tube and clean/polish the tube up. There's no quicker than this, especially if you've put a thousand rounds plus and the tube has a huge relief from its mouth to the bore diameter.

The only product that I've tried that will eventually clean them "almost" as good as they say, is the Slip 2000 tube cleaner------it just won't do it in the time frame they suggest, not if they're really dirty/fouled.

I've left a set sitting in a can for 5 days, of Eds Red, Genuine Carb cleaner, every penetrating oil that can be purchased, and none of them removed any of the plastic in the mouth of the tube. None/zip/zero, not one tiny bit did it loosen or remove. The Slip stuff was the only one that did.

Now, if you happen to be lucky and have a perfectly matched (perfectly) set to the bore diameter, they won't get dirty, just like a fixed choke barrel, just a token 1/2 thousandth of opaque plastic will be there.

I'm old,retired and have time to do what I want when Momma ain't giving orders. I clean my guns after every outing. Spray bbls with W/D 40 then let them sit 15-20 min. Use a chamber brush for chamber area and a Outers bore brush that reads "10-12 ga bore brush" for the bbls and chokes. Both knock the plastic loose in just a few passes. Clean both with patches and W/D 40 followed by patch soaked with Rem Oil. Does not really take long and leaves guns looking really nice.

Acetone will desolve plastic pretty quickly, but I don't know that I would recommend using it on choke tubes. That being said, I did use it once on the bores of a 311 I picked up cheap. As nasty as it was, it did clean all the plastic out of the bores. But that was a extreme case, not cleaning up after a shoot.

Ballistol Lube works great!

Matt Woodson
www.scattergunstore.com

I have done the gun maintainance and repairs for a sporting clays range for the past 13 years. The absolute best choke cleaner I have found is a Walmart item called "Greased Lightning Blast" You find it in the automotive department. It's cheap, it works and you can use it for lots of other stuff.I keep an olive jar full for chokes, and a salsa jar full for gas pistons on my workbench all the time. Drop the chokes in the jar, pull them out the next evening and wipe the crud out with a paper towel. I use Ed's Red as a bore cleaner.
Chuck

WD40 and a bore brush 10ga works fast and easy.

Another vote for Ballistol: The stuff works well and it is also non-toxic. (Its smell can take some getting used to, though. I don't mind it. It smells like anise to me.)

When it is used as directed in bores (I.e. sprayed down the bore) I have actually seen plastic fouling run out the muzzle. In a choke tubed barrel, I always take the tubes out after this treatment and relube the tubes' threads. I am not sure that this precaution is absolutely necessary but I am the kind of guy who thinks that Murphy was an optimist!


"Unattached" choke tubes benefit from a brief soaking and a "decisive" use of a brass bore brush. Tornado brushes work fine, too, but I have had the things "spring" wires as the brushes became worn, scratching the tubes, a bit. This was probably only an aesthetic problem. but....

I found that soaking the choke tubes in a jar of WD-40 works well for removing the plastic residue. After the soak, I use a bore brush and a few dry patches to finish the job. However, I wouldn't use WD-40 for anything else on the gun. It does leave a waxy buildup over time.

Read the warnings on the back of a can of brake cleaner. Just be warned. Haven't read the warnings in a few years but the stuff tears ago used to cause central nervous system damage.

I try Simple Green.

vaherder