Today I tried moose milk in my 30-06 and it does show promise.
Here is the recipe for a very small amount. Just multiply to make up large quantities.
35 ml water
6 ml water soluble cutting oil
3 ml dish washing soap
What do you mean, shows promise, OB?
Well, seemed to remove a fair bit of carbon in about 10 minutes. I finished off with Edās red and not much more came out.
I will it try again. Because it has oil in it shouldnāt allow rust to start. Unlike Windex. @danmac Maybe the BP blokes know something we donāt. Lol
BTW the BP guys always say water is great for removing carbon deposits.
Iād be willing to bet that youād get the same results with water.
I think the only real way to advocate or discouraged a formula, is to have a metal plate with control and various solvents.
Just running a patch through the bore without a control or some baseline comparison doesnāt really prove anything, other than that it goes in clean and comes out dirty. Need a control and baseline to really compare.
If you want to get all testical you are correct. But it was never intended to be a controlled test. Just a basic trial/test.
But you make an interesting observation.
Windex is mainly water, so is moose milk & itās well known hot water is often used for muzzle loaders.
Makes me wonder how soap and water would work.
Water is an excellent solventā¦
I guess if you look at it in a slightly different way and look at how they used to clean their firearms in the old days.
Yes muskets and muzzle loaders are a lot different than the rifled barrels that we have today and the metallurgy is way better now than then.
They also had a lot dirtier burning powder and didnāt really treat them very well but they also didnāt have the choice of chemicals or cleaners that we do.
They used what ever they had and most times it was just water with a brush or patch and finished off with a lubricant of some concoction.
We definitely have a better choice of gun care products.
Hey, OB, I bought all of the ingredients, but I havenāt had a chance to find/borrow/steal/buy a stainless steel plate that I can use to test different mixes.
Not sure what the tests comprise of but I thought mild steel would be good enough.
Iād buy some nuts or bolts in the correct grade if you want to be fussy. I think barrels are made of 416 grade SS which is not likely to be lying around in plate form.
Iām not fussy, I just donāt know what to get and havenāt had a chance to look into it. Ideally, Iād like to burn powder on it and then clean, that way Iād know what provides the best cleaning solution. Plate of obviously preferred, because cleaning nut or bolt would be more cleaning than Iād like.
Burning powder on steel is very underwhelming at least in small quantities. Not only that it is so easily removed it just leaves a damp spongy easily removed residue.
It may take a bigger qty to get a more realistic explosion. It wont be but it will be hotter at the base.
The copper test I have considered just placing a bullet in each solution and look for or weight differences. I tried to get copper onto a plate of ss by rubbing that was too much hard work. Someone mentioned a bolt that may take a bit of copper by rubbing have to try it.
Just an easy way to source the correct grade of stainless in small quantities. I could give you a meter or so of 20mm ish SS bar but Iām buggered if I could swear as to what grade it is.
The particular alloy you use for testing should be close or identical to that used for barrels.
Thanks, @Wombat. A bar might be a little hard to test on, need something flat. 
But in terms of like for like, I donāt think necessarily think that material matters as long as residue is deposited on the medium in some way that canāt be removed with a wet sponge.
Iād like to test each solvent, in terms how it performs against each other, with controls being nothing (obviously) and Hopes9 which is my go to. I donāt think how they perform against each other on a specific type of medium matters, because weād already know how they work in relation to each-other. I could be wrongā¦ Just spitballing ideas now.
Sorry I thought you were going to test for potential damage to the barrel metal rather than the efficacy in cleaning.
If that is what you are testing for you need to test the correct grade of stainless or the results will mean SFA.
Uh, I see, I think that may have been a brain fart somewhere along the way. Iād like to test cleaning solvents for their efficiency first.
I seriously doubt that anything I can get my hands on in a hardware store, with maybe exception of some acid, will damage the bore. Either way, this is not the primary aim for now. Iād like to experiment with āhow well they cleanā first. I have few ideas, would like to test them. Right now, the only 2 things standing in the way are time and suitable metal plate.
I did a test of Sweets on SS barrel material for a week adding a few new drops each day. I couldnāt see any visual damage to the SS bar I was using. I parted a bit of Rod to test on the flat portion.
Considering that Sweets is eye burning, lung destroying hell juice that makes birds fall out of the sky when you pop the lid off; and is very popular and widely used bore cleaner - I seriously doubt that I could possibly concoct something that could be any more damaging. But! I want to make a cheap cleaner, so yeahā¦ Digressing a little here. Prefer to stay on topic of cleaning, not potential damage.