Using brake cleaner on AK gas tube (Read 3091 times)

causa mortis

Using brake cleaner on AK gas tube
« on: January 05, 2014, 07:24:10 PM »
Anyone try this? It's so much of a hassle to undo my quad rail, and figured this would be sufficient to clean the tube.

Sturmgeschutz

Re: Using brake cleaner on AK gas tube
« Reply #1 on: January 05, 2014, 07:27:36 PM »
Anyone try this? It's so much of a hassle to undo my quad rail, and figured this would be sufficient to clean the tube.

Brake-clean works wonders .... But it strips off all the lubrication... Just clean the tube from the receiver side like you would a shotgun barrel

Bigkahuna808

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Re: Using brake cleaner on AK gas tube
« Reply #2 on: January 05, 2014, 07:42:00 PM »
It will work, but there is better stuff to clean.  I'm sure in war times if the guns ever got cleaned it wasn't with top notch stuff.  After all its a ak.  I'm surprised if they didn't dunk the whole gun in boiling hot water pull it out and apply well used motor oil.

Boomah

Re: Using brake cleaner on AK gas tube
« Reply #3 on: January 05, 2014, 08:23:11 PM »
Guilty... I use it all the time.   I shoot a lot of 7N6 in my 5.45 AKs so it's brake cleaner or hot soapy water within a day of the range.   Quickly followed by an oil chaser of course  ;D

Boomah  :shaka:

suka

Re: Using brake cleaner on AK gas tube
« Reply #4 on: January 05, 2014, 09:07:14 PM »
Its an AK, why clean them?
the space between the piston and tube is well over 1mm
The small gas port on the front post does not clog well over 10,000 rounds even with corrosive ammo
but yea, break cleaners works wonders...!

sworbeyegib

Re: Using brake cleaner on AK gas tube
« Reply #5 on: January 06, 2014, 08:50:46 AM »
Brake cleaner works very well, but like its been said, it'll strip all the lube off, so make sure to re apply oil liberally.

A surprising amount of "auto" clenaers and oils work well for guns.  If I was stuck using only auto store cleaners and oils the rest of my life (mobile-1, brake cleaner, white grease, ATF), I could easily get by.

causa mortis

Re: Using brake cleaner on AK gas tube
« Reply #6 on: January 06, 2014, 01:59:08 PM »
Thanks for the replies everyone.

Yeah, I figured since auto cleaners basically perform against the same abuse as guns, like metal rubbing against metal, that it should work even though it wasn't designed for it.

Haoleb

Re: Using brake cleaner on AK gas tube
« Reply #7 on: January 06, 2014, 02:04:49 PM »
another thing you may want to consider instead of brake cleaner is carb, choke and TB cleaner which is designed more to remove carbon type deposits. Brake cleaner is pretty nasty stuff especially the chlorinated type (which I prefer)

I have used carb cleaner to blast all the crap out of my ruger mkIII trigger mechanism with great success, followed up with blasting it out with compressed air. Only way to get that thing clean, and it gets very dirty.