Cosmoline removal - what to use?

[Allred]

Just received my CMP Garand! What is best for cleaning & removing cosmoline?

Thanks,

Information

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[browningautorifle]

Some use boiling water. I use trade name Varsol. Don't do it indoors in any case. Also...don't put it in the dishwasher.

[Amsdorf]

How much boiling water does it take to get rid of the blasted stuff? I just poured three huge pots of boiling water through my Mosin barel, and ... a day later ... cosmo is still coming off when I wipe the chamber with a cleaning patch.

Egads.

[GUTS]

I spent right at three hours removing the cosmoline from my CMP Garand. I used paper towels and rags on the furniture and set the metal parts on the sidewalk and poured boiling water on them, it worked fine. Just remember to oil the parts right after. When I shoot it in the sun a little cosmo still leaches out of the handguards but someday it will stop.

[Chubby308]

Something I have used that works well is a heat gun.
You do need to be careful and use this only on a gun where you
can remove the stock completely.The last one I did took about 20 minutes. I did it over an old t-shirt to soak up the cosmo. Wear gloves, apply heat, watch the cosmo drip off.
Hope this helps.
Regards.
Chubby 308

[daveboy]

It's dangerous, but almost anything that works is. I have used gasoline to clean cosmo off the metal surfaces. A big pan full of it (outdoors and far away from any ignition sources) and a good stiff brush work great.

The best thing for the stock is heat. It will take time. Wrap the stock in newspaper, place in a black garbage bag and place in direct sunlight for a day or so. Keep changing the paper and in a few days (depending on how soaked it is) most of the cosmo will be absorbed by the paper. After that, take some acetone/paint thinner/denatured alcohol/lacquer thinner (you get the idea--any solvent) and wipe the stock until you can't remove anymore cosmo.

You can also try what I did ONCE...place the bottom rack of your kitchen oven as low as it will go. Cover the rack with tin foil. Turn the oven on low and place the stock on the rack. Unless you have a huge oven it will stick out the door, but that's okay. Warning!!! Few thing smell worse than burning cosmoline, don't ask me how I know. In a short time the cosmo will have leached out of the stock and ran down onto the foil where it smokes and stinks to high heaven. But...it works.


daveboy

[Bill Hollinger]

5 gallons of kerosene mixed with one quart of type F automatic transmission fluid. Works great!

[sfoster]

During WWII, my Dad was detailed to clean cosmoline off .30cal machine guns, along with some squad-mates. He told me they used drums of boiling water to do the job. He is gone now, so I can't ask him any more, but I'm sure the drums were set up by an ordanance man. My Dad had very little mechanical or field engineering aptitude. But thats how he said they cleaned them.

He also related that in his first fire-fight, his M-1 Garand oozed hot cosmoline onto his hand, so much so that he thought he was hit and bleeding. He commented that whoever cleaned the cosmoline off that M-1 didn't do anywhere near as good a job as he and his friends had on those .30cal machine guns.

In any case, cosmoline soaked Garands can be considered in "battlefield condition".

[Amsdorf]

Thanks for sharing that story, SFoster, very interesting. So the Garands were packed in cosmo, period, not necessarily just for long term storage?

[browningautorifle]

Storage was never a pre determined timeframe. You never knew how long it would be. Short term was an oil and long term was cosmoline. If you packed away 10,000 rifles, you could unpack half the next year and the rest never. Cosmo is just the accepted preservative.