Ed's Red, what's best, and is it a good cleaner for the entire gun

Pretty much, yes.

After the Mineral Spirits evaporate, it will leave a thin film of Dexron/Kerosene mix. The Kerosene will evaporate next which will still leave a Dexron film. ATF is a lube. However, you may be happier with an additional lube such as Castrol GTX Magnatec 5w30.

Acetone is only necessary for shotgun bores, to clean out plastic residue from shooting plastic hulls/wadding.

The acetone can be hard on some plastics and wood finishes. You don't need it if you're not shooting plastic coated bullets or shell cases.

It will leave an ATF film, and I consider it a CLP, but many people give an extra lube after cleaning with Ed's Red.

 

When I made my batch of Ed's Red, I was left with 3 Quarts of the stuff! I gave away about a quart to various friends and have used about a quart between cleaning stuff and using it as an immersion bath for ultra-sonic cleaning. I still have a full quart or more left.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

Mobile 1 Synthetic is the most popular among gun nuts but any light weight motor oil will work. Synthetics are generally preferred by gun nuts for the same reason that they're preferred in engines by gear-heads. You could use Wal-Mart brand 5w30 non-synthetic if you wanted, particularly if you don't run thousands of rounds through your gun before you clean. But synthetics last longer before breakdown, stay cleaner, lube marginally better, are more resistant to heat, etc.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

Yum! ...

 

Say that again. A "gallon"!!!! The hardest thing about Ed's Red is making it in "small quantities."

The second hardest thing will be using it all up. hahahahah

 

It does lube. When used that way, it works best as a penetrating oil. Many still use it as a cleaner. It also works darn well as an external surface protectant. In fact, I believe that's where it works best and is what it was designed for.

The problem is that it's easy to use improperly.

If you can take the barrel out, then take it out and you can use WD40 down the inside of the barrel to loosen carbon fouling. Scrub it out good.

Personally, I only recommend WD40 as an external surface protectant, and then only used in certain ways. Spray the WD40 on a soft rag and then use that to wipe town the exterior surfaces of the firearm. Used that way, it does a fine job of protecting from rust.

If it gets sprayed into the internals, particularly if it's sprayed liberally and then left to sit, there's a pretty good chance it will eventually harden and build up like a lacquer.

It's like Johnson's Paste Wax. You use it on the outside of the gun to protect from surface rust, not the inside.

On that note, I've found that Johnson's Paste Wax does a better job of protecting external surfaces than WD40 but it requires more work to do it right and needs more care exercised to prevent intrusion into internal mating surfaces.

I hate "talking bad" about it because it's a great product. ...when used properly. But so many people never learned to use it properly. Now I have to throw all of these caveats at it that I thought was common knowledge. I feel a little like I'm telling people to not put Diesel into their standard gasoline tanks. "Of course you don't, didn't anyone ever tell you?"

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk