Just wondering if anybody ever does this? has need to do this? and how?
Not sure if right or wrong, but I just give mine a good spray with carb cleaner and let it drain.
I've only got one and it comes apart. I scrub it out with eds red every couple of hundred rounds.
A friend of mine uses acid in his sealed unit.
Ase Utra recommends spraying oil into their sealed units after use. When the weight has increased by around 100 gram (I think), to clean it in an ultrasonic cleaner. That apparently only happens after multiple thousands of rounds.
Its carbon, what's going to remove it ? There ain't no usable soap or acid that does anything.
The next question is why and if ever needed. If you run a brush to keep the line of bore clear, what more would you need on the silencer and why.
The carbon build up will only be weight and that weight would only be measure able after a few thousand rounds.
So why do we want to clean the silencer?
I once cleaned a silencer, and after a long many things tried I found one method that worked, one method only and ever.
I took beach gravel(crushed sea shells) put some in the silencer and then put a threaded rod through silencer and tightened it up. I put the rod in a drill and lay it sideways on low speed for a few hours.
Lots and lots came out.
The odd one out is .22LR silencers. Apparently they get very dirty very quickly. Probably because of all the lubricant used and the low pressure cartridge do not burn the powder as efficient as others. The soot is said to contain a lot of lead residue as well.
Second the point on 22 cans. They do get dirty very fast.
Re why you'd want to clean them, main reason is that the muck takes up space/reduces internal volume thereby making them less effective.
In another thread, someone said that supressed rifles should be stored upside down, because the carbon can fall into the barrel.
If that is true, it only makes sense to clean a suppressor.
Given that it is carbon, one should be able to clean it with peroxide or any other chemical which can clean a barrel.
Problem when using vinegar/peroxide mix is than it also reacts with any lead residue creating a skin-absorbable lead compound. It is also extremely hazardous to the environment. Dumping the used solution down the drain or in the garden is environmentally irresponsible.
Just makes sense to remove the silencer from the rifle after use, preferably when it is still warm, let it air out and then give a spray of oil down the middle.
Quote from: janfred on Jan 20, 2024, 09:44 PMProblem when using vinegar/peroxide mix is than it also reacts with any lead residue creating a skin-absorbable lead compound. It is also extremely hazardous to the environment. Dumping the used solution down the drain or in the garden is environmentally irresponsible.
Just makes sense to remove the silencer from the rifle after use, preferably when it is still warm, let it air out and then give a spray of oil down the middle.
Thanks for this, I have only done it once or maybe twice and will keep this in mind for the future.
Which type of oil would you recommend? Q5 or Q10 - penetrating oils?
Q20 would probably work fine. The idea is just to get a light coating on the inside parts. I've used Balistol as well.
Some solvent type spray oil actually loosens carbon. I once used Herschel's Gun cleaning spray. When I picked up the unit 3 months later, pieces of carbon fell out.
The big thing is to not leave it on the rifle. Nitrocellulose decomposes into NO/NO2, CO/CO2 gasses as well as water vapour. As silencers are designed to restrict and retard flow of gasses through it, some water vapour stays inside the silencer. Leaving it on the rifle the moisture can migrate down (or up) into the barrel. To make matters worse, NO dissolves in water to make HNO3 (also known as nitric acid) and that is not very good for steel.
The only think that works on carbon is mechanical action, be it abrasive, impact or shock waves, carbon is an almost inert, non reactive material. It doesn't give any F******s
There are impractical ways, not applicable ways possibly - like heating object to glowing and dropping into ice water (mechanical actually). Carbon literally jumps off.
Prove me wrong - no apparently, no "I heard", just personal experience.
Deleted because I was being a smartass and could be misconstrued.
Quote from: Treeman on Jan 21, 2024, 07:43 PMThe only think that works on carbon is mechanical action, be it abrasive, impact or shock waves, carbon is an almost inert, non reactive material. It doesn't give any F******s
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Practically you are correct.
There is a thing called "Piranha solution"; hydrogen peroxide and sulphuric acid. It dissolves organic material including carbon.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piranha_solution
It is not particularly healthy or safe for barrel steel or human skin.
Another solution that is reported to work for silencers is "the dip". 50/50 vinegar and hydrogen peroxide. Doesn't do much for carbon; just lead. Please don't.
https://www.silencercentral.com/blog/suppressor-dip-should-you-use-it-or-avoid-it/
Quote from: janfred on Jan 22, 2024, 05:23 AMQuote from: Treeman on Jan 21, 2024, 07:43 PMThe only think that works on carbon is mechanical action, be it abrasive, impact or shock waves, carbon is an almost inert, non reactive material. It doesn't give any F******s
...
Practically you are correct.
There is a thing called "Piranha solution"; hydrogen peroxide and sulphuric acid. It dissolves organic material including carbon.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piranha_solution
It is not particularly healthy or safe for barrel steel or human skin.
Another solution that is reported to work for silencers is "the dip". 50/50 vinegar and hydrogen peroxide. Doesn't do much for carbon; just lead. Please don't.
https://www.silencercentral.com/blog/suppressor-dip-should-you-use-it-or-avoid-it/
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As I said, " nothing practical or applicable"
Since nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin decomposes completely into gas, have any of you wondered where the "carbon" actually comes from?
Under which circumstances do they dissolve or decompose completely?
Candles leave soot, diesel leaves smoke and soot, etc.
Candles and diesel need added oxygen to burn. If there isn't enough, then you get smoke and soot.
Nitrocellulose on the other hand has all the needed oxygen included in the molecule. Hence no need for extra oxygen.
When detonated, the nitrocellulose decomposes rapidly, and exothermically:
2 [C6H7O11N3]n = 9n CO (g) + 3n CO2 (g) + 7n H2O (g) + 3n N2 (g)
Since moving to S121 for my 9mm sport fodder and 12g bird seed my guns are filthy caked in black residue within as little as 50 rounds.
This wasn't the case with MS or MP. What gives?
This is the cleaning instructions that came with my silencer.Silencer.jpg
Quote from: janfred on Jan 23, 2024, 01:32 AMSince nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin decomposes completely into gas, have any of you wondered where the "carbon" actually comes from?
No combustion is ever complete ?, but yea! where does the carbon come from ?
Quote from: Treeman on Jan 24, 2024, 09:18 PMQuote from: janfred on Jan 23, 2024, 01:32 AMSince nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin decomposes completely into gas, have any of you wondered where the "carbon" actually comes from?
No combustion is ever complete ?, but yea! where does the carbon come from ?
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Primer residue, graphite and other retardant coatings and incomplete combustion ?
Most of the black carbon we see is just that; the graphite coating of the powder granules. Because there is very little free oxygen in the case when the powder burns, the graphite (like the retardant coatings) has nothing to react with so it blows out the barrel as smoke. Graphite itself is quite soft and easy to remove.
Nitrocellulose deflagrate quite completely. But the process making nitrocellulose is not as efficient and depends a lot on the quality of the raw materials. Not all the cellulose treated is converted to nitrocellulose and stays in the mixture as an impurity.
For those unfamiliar, cellulose is a natural polymer, i.e. plastic, with a melting point around 265C. Melted plastic sticks very nicely to solids like barrel steel and silencer baffles where it acts as a glue for other particles following it. Who wanted to know how a carbon ring forms?
So, while it is impractical to use a carbon solvent, the search for a faster cellulose solvent continues.
******************cellulose is a natural polymer, i.e. plastic, with a melting point around 265C. Melted plastic sticks very nicely to solids like barrel steel and silencer baffles where it acts as a glue for other particles following it******************************* the search for a faster cellulose solvent continues.
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THIS - This has been a valuable enlightenment to me, this may be some of what I needed to know. I always thought it was just carbon, thats all.
If this is the case why would a soak in acetone not melt the residue ?
Acetone does not dissolve cellulose. Search for liquids that disolve nitrocellulose. The most efficient solvent I found was "ethylene glycol ethyl ether", a.k.a. Oxitol, Ethyl Cellosolve.
Another one is Amyl Acetate. This is the solvent that gave the smell to the original Hoppes No 9. No longer used due to long term health risks. Difficult to get hold of in Cape Town.
Even using these solvents, you have to keep agitating to get the cellulose to disolve. Apparently the hydrogen bonds between the molecules are very strong. Because of this, the outside layer may become soft, but does not come off the surface very quickly. To clean a silencer or barrel, you have to keep wiping off the softened layer for the solvent to get to the rest. Using a brush accelerates this.
I do not know of any other cleaning chemicals or solvents that work faster.
At the cost of the solvents and the time and effort required to use them, it is just cheaper to get an ultrasonic cleaner for your silencer.
Cheapest is drill - rod and abrasive matter. IE : dry tumbling.