Cleaning with Kroil

JWFilips

Well-Known Member
Paul,
I have a formulae gleened from a 1950"s hard bound gunsmith book In it there is a formula for Lead remover!
I consists of 1/3 Hoppe's #9 1/3 Kroil and 1/3 pure turps ( the only place you can get the real Turps anymore is from an art store that sells oil paints!) It is Grumbacker's Pure Turps.
Smells pretty darn good and does cut lead ( Now only use it from time to time since I found "guzilla") Guzilla floats the lead off in about an hour or so!
Jim
 
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Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
Kroil was around in the 50's? Huh! I thought it was a fairly recent development. Learn something new everyday.

I love the smell if real turtpentine. Takes me back to my childhood.
 

Missionary

Well-Known Member
Good morning
Benzene is a great solvent to clean pocket watches. Flat liquifies all lubricants and crud that accumulates inside a case.
We also use it for our 1980 vintage Colman two burner mantle lamp down here.
 

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
No kidding! 1939 and yet I never heard of it until people started mentioning it on tractor sites 12-15 years back. The internet certainly has changed some things!
 

Winelover

North Central Arkansas
I like and use Kroil, occasionally, in conjunction with JB Bore Paste. I use to get mine at work, where we used a lot of it. Great penetrant. Had a 44 Mag case head shear off and most of the remaining brass get stuck in the chamber of my Marlin 1894. Was up at the hunting property and had limited resources. Applied some Kroil around the stuck case and used a tight fitting bore brush to push it out, on the first try.
 

Pistolero

Well-Known Member
Missionary - where would one obtain benzene these days?
Is it only sold in South America now?

AFAIK, I have never seen Kroil, certainly never owned any or used it. Just never
ran across it. The only place I have even heard of it is here and the other bullet site.

Bill
 
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Rick

Moderator
Staff member
Kroil is supposed to be God's gift to rusted bolts. Tried it on a rusty bolt & waited till the next day. Nothing. Drowned the bolt in the stuff and waited two more days. Nothing. Some people put it in the cavities of their molds. :eek: Not me, no way no how. Oil in the cavities? Really? I don't care how good it is on rusty bolts :confused: ain't no oil going in any cavity of mine. With everything I've tried it in I have pretty much decided the stuff is nothing but Hype.
 

Roger Allen

Active Member
I’d say the real competitor to kroil is pb blast. I think it could be better. However I prefer the smell of kroil and I believe it places better after spraying and doesn’t run down like a rain storm.
 

popper

Well-Known Member
ATF/kerosene for me. Kroil for the garage door and springs. Cleaned the NAA 2 last week with a wipe of Ed's, all the junk came off on a paper towel. Next time I clean the XD the slide will go in a US with ATF.
 

Urny

Missouri Ozarks, heart still in the Ruby Mountains
My experiences pretty much mirror Ricks. In any application tried it has not done a better job than what I had been using already for that job. Every man to the devil by his own road I guess.
 

Intheshop

Banned
Just the way I see it.....

Kroil became the "little darling" of the BR crowd in the late 70's. When,it was a huge developmental time period. A time when everything caused cancer.... and every new "trick" to come down the BR pike was the next miracle cure for tighter groups.

We used Kroil in general shop practices,and still do.... it's OK.
 

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
They already did the "Which is the best penetrant" test and ATF/Acetone beat out Kroil and all the the rest. PB Blaster is a grease disolver. Not sure why people think it's a rust buster.
 
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david s

Well-Known Member
Speaking of "new tricks", remember Moly coated bullets? Kroil does a fair job of getting Moly out of your bore.
 

Jeff H

NW Ohio
They already did the "Which is the best penetrant" test and ATF/Acetone beat out Kroil and all the the rest. PB Blaster is a grease disolver. Not sure why people think it's a rust buster.

We've been there and I've been using Ed's Red (sans lanolin) to soak rusty stuff. Not enough data to report on.

OK, the truth: I like the Kroil can. It fits my MTM rifle cradle and I can dispense tiny doses without wasting a bunch of it and I like the smell dammit.

Even though I start soaking "planned" projects a week in advance by dousing what rusty stuff needs removed, NOTHING seems to ever soak all the way to the trouble-spot and sheer brute force (or applied physics in the manner of mechanical advantage) is what always seems to do the trick. Kroil, PB-Blaster, Free-All, Ben's Red - doesn't matter. In all honesty, I use PB-Blaster where gravity betrays me and won't let me drip my Kroil. 98% of PB-Blaster is wasted going everywhere but where it should. I can drip Ed's Red anywhere I can drip Kroil, but PB-Blaster shoots uphill.

No lyin' - What I use for freeing rusty stuff is more about which one I can apply to the troubled area and I almost always have to unstick something stuck well before any of the above get to the trouble-spot.

But, for cleaning cast-bullet guns, any of the above does it.

I hate the smell of PB-Blaster. Sometimes it's the only thing I can reach rusty stuff with though.
 

nicholst55

New Member
I have used AeroKroil fairly extensively to clean serious carbon buildup - on 60mm mortars. I had to remove the basecaps and clean the firing mech on old ballistic mortar tubes at Yuma Proving Ground, and Kroil was one of the two best items I found for it. KG-1 was the second. We're talking serious, serious carbon buildup here - like you'll never see in sporting arms! I use it on my own firearms as well, for the same purpose.