Does anyone know a good way to clean a Silencerco Harvester or other aluminum cans? Silencerco suggests to use mineral spirits, but that doesn't do anything, and I'm told the "dip" will eat the aluminum quickly.
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Suppressors Cleaning a Harvester or other alum.
- Thread starter BigBucks18
- Start date
Currently using a media blaster with compressed air and baking soda is all the rage. An ultrasonic with simple green provides fair results. Lots of elbow grease with WD-40 a brush of your choice will take most of the excess off. You can use a buffing wheel and compound for the baffles exterior, won't work well with the end caps and/or tube or the baffles center. Heat treating a new/clean can with silicone prior to use makes cleaning much easier. Cleaning before you have a lot of buildup is expedient. Aluminum cans have one advantage, especially for rim-fire............light weight. They suck though when it comes to cleaning. I have a Surefire Ryder aluminum can but when it wears out will be going with the TBAC take-down next.
Use the simple green extreme aircraft and precision. The bottle is blue.
The (regular) green bottle has high alkaline properties that eat away at aluminum, because aluminum is soft. Hence the previous post mentioned "pitted."
That's why simple green created the other more aluminum friendly version.
Quick test put a soda can in regular simple green and see what happens.
SilencerCo recommends using a powder solvent. They specifically mentioned Hoppe's. I just read that on their downloadable PDF after doing a Google search.
When was the last time you cleaned the muffler on your car? There's no reason to clean center fire cans unless your shooting lead exposed projectiles. Now a rimfire can is a completely different conversation
Update on this. I ended up using a sonic cleaner and the hornady sonic cleaner solution. It took several cycles, but it took a lot of carbon out and cleaned the carbon off the brake without any noticeable damage to the can.
The simple green and US works great, BUT for aluminum, you wanna steer clear of using any water medium with aluminum. US works by implosion of microscopic air bubbles --it bombards the material in essence. It has been known to eat completely through aluminum. However, what I do find interesting, is that my Hornady US cleaner is designed to accept an M4 upper, and they do offer two different cleaning solutions, one for brass, one for weapons. They say the brass cleaner will strip weapons. So maybe there is a solution, but the knowledge of what's happening or can happen to the aluminum just keeps me clear.
However, there is this one way that works with a US if you have one. Put Kroil in the pan, then put THAT in the hot water bath. The Kroil isn't a good medium for the implosions but is good for breaking down carbon and shit. I use these to clean titanium cans that have been cerakoted. Doesn't harm the finish at all. Doesn't clean it perfectly either, I still have to use a pick and rag, but it makes it MUCH easier and I haven't found a better way to clean .22 cans yet. I pour the Kroil back into a jar and keep for later (a can would be better).
I've never cleaned a can yet. Choose your powders carefully given the specific length of barrel, and you won't get a tremendous amount of powder residue. If you are seeing significant amounts of powder residue, the powder is still burning inside your can. Change your powder and it will help greatly, and you might even find a bit more velocity!
DK
DK
