S.S.S.U.F.: soak, slosh, suck-up & flush 'yer gun clean

Guns Magazine, Nov, 2004 by Chick Blood

You sneer in doubt, no doubt. In that case, you've never heard of S.S.S.U.F. Whazzat? Soaking, Sloshing, Sucking Up and Flushing. You don't need expensive. high tech equipment like an ultrasonic cleaning system to make it happen, either. Local hardware, housewares and drug stores have all the right stuff. A shopping list will include a plastic or metal container large enough to hold the gun, a rubber squeeze bulb, a piece of hardware cloth * to fit the bottom of the container and a gallon of Mineral Spirits, a.k.a, paint thinner. You'll also need four 1" x 1" x 1/4" squares of wood, a coat hanger and a hand-held hair dryer, but those items are probably already in-house.

Place the four blocks of wood in the container with the hardware cloth on top of them. Remove the grips, open the action and place the gun on the hardware cloth. Pour in enough juice to submerge the gun. Cover the container. This part prevents evaporation, stinking up the homestead and generally making enemies. If no lid came with the container, use plastic wrap or aluminum foil. Same reason. Get lost for an hour. Come back, slosh the gun around without spilling any liquid and get lost again.

Two or three hours later, come back, suck up a bulb-full of liquid from above the hardware cloth and force it into the action through the trigger opening in the frame. Suck up another bulb full and force the fluid down into the action from behind the hammer. If the gun's a pistol, force another bulb-full into the firing pin hole in the breech face. If it's a revolver, the juice is squeezed into the firing pin hole in the recoil plate. If it's a black powder revolver, each nipple on the cylinder gets a bulb full. With a flintlock, the touch hole gets juiced. All this is done while holding the piece over the container.

The Bath Continues

Put the gun back into its bath. After less than a day of soaking, sloshing, sucking up and flushing, use a bronze brush to scrub out the barrel and cylinder if there is one. Again, the gun goes back into the bath. Leave it there for about an hour. Or more, or less, you decide.

During that time, all the crud you've flushed away will settle to the bottom of the container below the hardware cloth. Without stirring up the muck, remove the gun and hang it on a hook you've made from the coat hanger and let it drip-dry. Better put a couple layers of paper towels under it with a piece of aluminum foil or wax paper under the towel. Mineral Spirits can leave spots. Your wife/significant other will appreciate the precautions. Or do you like sleeping in the garage with the dog?

Now use a hair dryer to warm the entire piece and dry out any solvent remaining inside. Don't use a heat gun. Some of them generate enough of those degree-things to ruin the temper of a spring, to say nothing of scorching the skin of your hand. Afterward, introduce a light application of good quality spray lubricant into the action. When working with a revolver, a drop or two of lube on the extractor rod and anywhere else metal-to-metal contact is present won't hurt at all.

Oh Yeah?

Does this clean up really work? Tell you what, it's been used on .22 caliber target pistols so fouled they'd neither feed, fire, or allow their triggers to be pulled. When those guns were totally taken down afterward, their insides looked as though every piece had been individually scrubbed with a toothbrush. It's also the way to go if you don't know how to disassemble and reassemble a particular gun for a detailed clean-up. "But that's not all," as it's said ad-nauseam on TV.

Exactly the same method can be used with dirty trigger mechanisms from rifles and shotguns. They merely replace the handgun in the bath. Matter of fact, this cleaning shortcut does one fine job on entire actions. Just use a two-gallon bucket and stand the gun muzzle-up while you soak, slosh, suck up and flush.

Oh yeah, some stock finishes can soften-up and go into solution. In which case, you'll end up with a tacky action. Keep your wooden grips out of it. Moral #1: Always remove the wood. Moral #2: If you can field strip it, soaking, sloshing, sucking up and flushing will detail clean it. Inside and out.

Editor's Note: Of course, the really easy way is to simply buy a tub of Dunk-Kit or Poly Dunk-Kit from Cylinder & Slide and don't fuss with all the muss. The cool thing about Poly-Dunk-Kit is it leaves your gun with u high quality film of lubricant on it when you're all done. Cheek 'em both out at (402) 721-4277 or www.cylinder-slide.com.

* Hardware Cloth: Coarse, galvanized metal screening of 1/4" or 1/2" mesh. The smaller is recommended.