Can any of you recommend a good oil to use on a cleaning pellet or patch, while pushing/pulling it through (breach to muzzle) with the rws breachway cleaning system? I thought I read somewhere that you can use one of the lubricants out of the Rws "Shooters Kit" in the barrel??

Also, my gun seems to favor Crossman Premier Domed heavies (10.5 gr), and I read somewhere that if you use those pellets, that they should be oiled. Does anybody have any experience with this, and can anyone recommend and oil to use for this?

Thanks for your help

John

I have owned many airguns, including a 52 in .177 and currently a 54 in .22. The 48-52-54 guns seem to quickly lead up their barrels, especially in .177, due to high velocities. Russ Best, a well known and highly respected air gun tuner (you can read his posts on the Straight Shooters airgun forum), recommends Goo Gone for barrel cleaning. I found he is spot on. I had horrible lead build up in my 54 that MP5 and tight fitting patches was not getting rid of. Accuracy was poor even after cleaning the barrel. It looked clean but obviously was not. After using a drop of Goo Gone on a tight fitting pull through patch with flexible cable, a whole ton of lead came out. Then ran some dry patches through to get rid of the Goo Gone. Accuracy was wholly restored. Be careful not to get any Goo Gone on the breech or anywhere in the breech area, as it can dilute desirable lubes and cause dieseling. Wipe up carefully. In fact, squeeze out excess Goo Gone before running your patch through to avoid any problems of excess Goo Gone going where you don't want it.

Thanks John,

Does anybody out there oil their pellets? Im shooting Croosman Premier Domed 10.5gr in a RWS 54 .177, and from what I read on several blogs/forums that they should be oiled to reduce lead deposits. Anyone have experience with this, and can anyone recommend an oil to use???

Thanks,......

i use slick 50, the lube not the engine treatment.

Not in anything as powerfull as a 54!!! It will light up!! Maybe there is some kind of lube. But any of kind regular oil or even airgun oil in a 54 is a quick way to a broken spring.

Keep in mind that you are cleaning an airgun and not a firearm. Use of 'strong' chemicals intended for removing primer/powder/lead residue in firearms barrels isn't necessary and could be very harmful.

For a general degreasing I use Isopropyl Alcohol in the highest concentration I can easily/inexpensively obtain. That's typically 91 to 96% found in the first aid aisle of my local drug store. It's often the recommended first step, before application of many modern high tech firearms lubricants, because there's virtually no residual film left on the metal as with some degreasing products.

I typically use Break-Free® CLP for cleaning all my airguns and firearms. For tougher jobs like cleaning the bore of a new airgun barrel I may, or may not, use tiny amounts of J-B® Non-Embedding Bore Cleaning Compound... NON-EMBEDDING. It depends on how clean I think the bore looks after using CLP. A small flashlight that can be held close to the barrel breech will help illuminate the subject.

There are hundreds of products to choose from and the general consensus is that it's a very bad idea to allow nearly all these cleaning/lubricating products to get inside the compression chamber where they could go BOOM!

All the above is based on my research, opinions and general experiences alone and I offer no guarantees. In other words, there are many 'right' products and 'right' ways to do what you have in mind to do.

If you value your fingers be very, very careful when cleaning the bore of that airgun! I suggest removing the action from the stock. After cocking the rifle the anti-beartrap mechanism can be secured so that it's highly unlikely to be accidentally released while the barrel is being cleaned. Better yet, buy or build a spring compressor, to safely release the re-load on the mainspring, and then it won't be necessary to be performing maintenance on a cocked airgun.

Finally, I've very sparingly used Shooter's Choice FP-10 to lube pellets, since the product became available, with no ill effects that I've been able to see.

Here are some results of a GOOGLE search for "oiling pellets"...

1.) http://www.airhog.com/airblog/2006/10/oiling-pellets-is-not-straightforward.html

2.) http://www.airhog.com/airblog/archive/2006_01_01_airhog-airblog_archive.html

3.) http://home.hiwaay.net/~ispellan/S200.html and scroll down the page to the text heading "Barrel Cleaning and Dirty Pellets."

4.) http://www.pyramydair.com/blog/2006/04/can-you-keep-clean-barrel-with-crosman.html

Cheers,
GH

Re the powerfull rifles detonating: remember that as the pellet moves down the bore the barrel section behind it becomes part of the compression chamber. It wasnt oil squirted in the hole that cost me the spring on my 54- just a micro coating in the barrel!

Thanks all of you for your tips and help!

John