First gun cleaning set?

Brazilianbatman

Which one of these? 

Or other suggestions 

Zee

None!!!

There is no “one size fits all” cleaning kit that works well. 

Tell us what you are trying to clean and we can recommend pieces parts. 

First off, if you stick a sectioned rod down your barrel........kick yourself in the yams. 

After you pass out.......we can continue talking. 

Diver43

Zee is right 
But I bet almost everyone on here started with a kit like that. Some were lucky enough to have a father or mentor teach them right rest of us went with what the Military taught us or listened to advertisements. Start with a one piece cleaning rod. There are several out there Tipton and Dewey come to mind  but there are others. There is no one size fits all.  They are not cheap, but will last for many years. 
Get the end pieces you will need, pick a cleaner and lube and go from there.
There are too many to name but for lube Autonatic Transmission Fluid works great and one bottle will give you a lifetime supply for a couple bucks.
Others will add more but few if any will reccomend those kits

Gene L

A lot depends on how many different guns you have.  Because I've got a number of different calibers, I bought a set of bronze brushes different calibers from .17 up to .45.  Also pistol brushes are shorter than rifle brushes so you can push them through the barrel.  Rifle brushes won't clear the cylinder space in a revolver or bolt space in an auto, leaving much of the bristles in the barrel, angled in the direction your pushing, making it difficult to reverse the brush and pull it out.  So I'd get pistol brushes for handguns. 

I also have a set of jags to push patches through the bore.  Loops will do, but aren't as tight and I think don't clean as well.  Patches, CLP, maybe some lithium grease, rags, and a toothbrush.  If you're cleaning rifles, copper solvent as well as bore solvent.

Bronze bore brushes.  Nylon won't clean and SS, never.  Too harsh.  And always when you can with a rifle clean from the chamber.

I keep my cleaning stuff in a sealable plastic box about 14" long and 8" wide and 3" deep.  It holds everything except, of course, rifle rods and I can set it in my lap and not get spillage. It will hold a pistol rod. Pretty handy.  It's taken me a while to collect materials and before the box I lost a lot of bore brushes.  Either Dewey or Tipton rifle rods have to have an adaptor to fit the threads on most cleaning brushes.

Also, for bolt guns, there is a plastic chamber tool to guide the patch directly from the chamber into the bore so you don't mess around the chamber with the steel rod and slop a bunch of bore cleaner where it doesn't need to be.

Other stuff people will sound off on.

earlyagain

I was only partially joking on the last thread. Ive accumulated a lot crap.

Basically one needs solvent to clean metalic, carbon, and powder fouling. A way to apply that solvent that doesn't harm the firearm. Lubrication and preservative to protect the mechanisms and aid in smooth operation.

Optics require special care to keep clean. 

Some finishes need special attention to protect them.

As this thread goes on you'll get a good idea of what you need. Its not a big deal. It took me along time to accumulate all the junk I wound up with. You can likely avoid alot of that.

Brazilianbatman

I have a KS7, CZ Scorpion and CZ 9mm.

As far as cleaning goes, I've only been to the range a few times, so I was just thinking basic maintenance and being a novice... I saw one of those kits as something that would be helpful.  I also have already gotten some supplies I will put in a picture after this.
I appreciate the help!

Brazilianbatman

My dad got me these as a gift yesterday 🤔🤷🏽‍♂️

Zee

Ah!
-Cologne
-Breath Freshener
-Deodorant

😁

Zee

Everybody uses a wide variety of stuff. I’ll list my usual for rifle/pistol. 

-Dewey Rod (Rifle & Pistol)
-Brass Jag & Brownell’s Patches
-VFG Adapter & VFG Felt Pellets (caliber specific)
-Q-Tips (cardboard stems not plastic)

BoreTech Eliminator
BoreTech Cu+2 Copper Remover
Shooter’s Choice/Kroil Oil (50/50 Mix)
Dexron-VI ATF 

TW25 Grease 

A good dental pick set. 

Bigslug

The generic kits like that are OK for handguns.  Long guns get their own close-to-caliber one-piece rods, and often bore jags.  Segemented rods are OK for shotguns, but you need the big diameter of a dedicated shotgun rod to keep them from bending in the bore.  Bore squeegees are nice to keep your patch consumption down.

Take a 1-foot chunk of solid core copper wire, strip the insulation off the last inch, pound it flat with a hammer and clip it off to form a chisel tip.  One of the best non-marring, all-purpose carbon scrapers you'll ever own.

Lots of specialty solvents and lube out there:

Break Free CLP is my general one-and-done, especially for direct gas AR's.

Ballistol - limited use for black powder, corrosive ammo clean up, leather.

Hoppes oil - usually, I just use Break Free, but this is great for "lube only" jobs.  My wife's sewing machine runs on this - sometimes I borrow my bottle back.

Shooter's Choice copper solvent or Sweet's 7.62.  You need some kind of copper solvent around.  I don't use it often, but better to have and not need.

Grease of some kind.  I ain't fussy, but stuff like piston-rifle and bolt actions like it.  I've used the dedicated gun stuff like Lubriplate and TW-25, Sta-Lube Moly-Graph, bicycle bearing grease, and marine grease (I was never sure if it was made by, for, or of Marines  )

Brazilianbatman

Which way ??

Zee

Two schools of thought. 

Closer to your shooting eye gives you a larger field of view THROUGH the optic. 

Further from your eye gives you a larger field of view AROUND your optic.

Depends on what you need. Most likely, I would say closer for you. 

If you have to fit helmet mounted NVGs behind the optic, you move it forward to create the space.  

Jay

That was kind of your dad to gift those to you. They’ll get you started as general, light duty cleaners. But they’re not the best at anything. They’ll at least make the room smell nice.. 😁

Great info already posted. Start moving to one piece rods that are the largest diameter you can use for the guns you need to clean. I use Tipton carbon fiber rods. Rifle rod sizes are for 17 cal, 22-27 cal, 30 cal and up. Pistol rods are 22-27 and 30 cal and larger. I can clean everything I need to clean except shotguns with those 5 rods. I still use a large diameter 3 piece rod for shotguns. But I don’t use or clean shotguns enough to justify spending the money on a dedicated shotgun rod. 

Tipton makes a nice set of brushes and jags that will cover 17-45 caliber. That’s what I use. 

Ive tried seemingly every cleaner and solvent out there. Some are ok, some suck. Hoppes pretty much sucks. Stay away from any product that claims to do everything. Personally, I’ve settled on Montana Extreme copper solvent, Shooters Choice bore solvent, sometimes mixed with Kroil if I have it, and automatic transmission fluid for general lubrication. You also need grease for spots where you want the lube to stay put. I’ve been using the same tube of Wilson Combat grease for around 15 years. Before that, I used Tetra gun grease, which I don’t recommend in hot weather. It liked to separate and give a squirt of thin oil prior to the grease coming out. Much like a ketchup or mustard bottle does if you don’t shake it. But I could almost never knead the grease tube enough to prevent it. 

A good set of picks and scrapers and some q-tips are mandatory. Like Zee said, cardboard or even better, wood q-tips if you can find them. 

Get good quality patches that are sized for the bore diameter. Cotton or flannel. Not the cheap little squares that come in most kits. Those things suck. Poking a jag through a patch mid bore all the time sucks. If you have time and patience, you can sit and cut old white T-shirts into patches. I choose to buy them pre cut. If money is an issue, you can buy the largest size patches you need and cut them down to smaller sizes as needed. I keep 3 sizes. 17-22, 30 cal and 45 cal. Those pretty much cover all my bore sizes. 

Jay

And yeah, I was one of those guys who started off with a piece of crap Wally World gun cleaning kit and Hoppes. I did really naughty things with guns. Luckily, nobody was around to see it and there are no videos. I didn’t know any better. Now, you don’t have that excuse any more. You’re getting advice from knowledgeable dudes. I learned how to do it right and narrowed my “kit” down over the years to what works for me. Your turn...

Brazilianbatman

Im going to make a checklist of some sort with all of this! thanks everyone.

Brazilianbatman

Uncle Fester

My life got better when I learned to buy good 1 piece rods in the appropriate length.  I like Dewey and hang them using eye bolts in a board mounted to my bench.  

For 9mm, I keep a separate rod with the jag and the brush left on.  Cheap and easy.  

Break Free CLP and Ballistol. Bore scrubber for really bad jobs.

Bore snakes are growing on me, but don’t take the place of a good rod.

Gene L

I have Ballistol but don't use it much.  I don't like the smell at all.  Those who do use it, however, swear by it.  CLP for me.