Anyone have a home remedy for removing gun carbon? Looking for something other than automotive carb cleaner.?

Bound's hubby here:

Well ... when I clean the bolt and carrier on my match tuned AR, I use Hoppe's and cloth patches, and occassionally cleaner soaked 000 steel wool. Using your issue bore cleaner and the bronze bristle brush in the M16s cleaning kit, you should be able to clean all of the carbon off of your M16.

By the way, don't try short cuts to keep your weapon clean ... short cuts lead to more short cuts, and eventually your weapon will find a short cut to stop when you need it most. Clean your weapon thoroughly each day and you will not have a problem!

Try a bucket of mineral spirits mixed 60-40 with some transmission fluid. Use a brass-bristled brush on the carbon build up in the accessible places, and a scraper for the inside of the bolt carrier. Hoppe's Number 9 is also a good carbon remover, but you have to soak the parts for about 15-20 minutes. If your post has a motor pool, ask them if you can use their parts washers; it makes cleaning a lot easier and a lot less messy.

ETA: If you use the hot water trick, be sure and spray down with WD-40 afterwards; WD is a water displacer(it also works for chasing water out of electrical equipment). Do NOT use WD as your lube, because it evaporates within a few hours and leaves nothing behind to protect from rust.

If you want some good info, go to www.ar15.com. It's the best information clearing-house for M-16/M4/AR-15 type weapons on the web.

PS: Carb cleaner will not hurt your weapon, no matter what some REMF in HHC says.

Man, I so know where you're comming from! Are you being issued with CLP? if so, the stuff works wonders civy side when you're not putting 1000 rounds down the barrel a day, or worse yet 4 blanks lol.

I seriously recomend WD-40, but be careful with it! If you use too much and rub to hard, you can actually remove the blueing off the rifle! Also, make sure you don't get any WD on any of the non metalic rifle parts, it could melt the ****. Also, if get some compressed air, a bottle or two of it, and when buying Q-tips, make sure you don't actually get the Q-tip brand, make sure you get the cheap kind that aren't as fluffy, they're more compact and don't leave white fluff in you trigger mech lol. Use the compressed air to blow the really stubborn carbon out of those hard to reach places or to get sand out of the mechanisms and cubby holes. Note, the Compressed air will save you maybe hours of time if you're stationed in the desert.

Another thing you want, if you don't already have em, is Bore snakes, you know, the tubular cloth (I'm not trying to sound like a ninja turtle, they are in fact, tubular lol) with the rings of metal wrapped around it. Get two, the 5.56x45 and the 7.62x39, even if you rarely have to clean the GPMG, you're time will come. A bore snake will make your time cleaning a barrel go from 15 minutes to a half an hour down to 1 to 2 minutes. I kid you not. Make sure however, that you clean the barrel both ways, or they might be able to find a spec of carbon or fuzz, or in one guys case from my section, a pubic hair in the barrel. No one knows how he got pubic hair in the barrel, we know he loved his rifle, and he named is Jessica, but damn!

Another trick, take your rifle barrel over to the sink when there aren't any staff or CO's or anything like that around, and actually rinse it out with fast running super hot water. You can do the same with your trigger mech and all that good stuff too. Make damn sure you wipe it down within an inch of it's life after though, you can also bring your rifle into the shower. Of course, it goes without saying that if you get caught, you're going to be in a world of ****. Same goes for using WD, and BoreSnakes, you'll probably be OK with the compressed air though. You should only really need to actually wash your rifle out when you're firing lots of blanks, if you're fireing ball, you should be fine with BoreSnakes, WD and Compressed Air.

Good luck!!

WD 40 and fingernail polish remover. Use the fingernail polish remover to cut the carbon build up and the wd40 to clean off the residue. Do yourself a favor and put the fingernail polish remover in an empty gun oil bottle or can. The guys look at you funny sitting there with a bottle of it in your lap or beside you. I did it for 22 years.

I found a website for you that might help. It mainly contains household remedies for your problem. Check it out. Hope it helps.

WD-40

Kerosene..if you have some available. (Prime ingredient in Hoppe's Benchrest).