He told me how you just squirt it into the barrel, leave it alone for one hour or overnight with heavily fouled barrels, and then just swab it out. And... he said that it has no ammonia or other chemicals that will harm the barrel, as with other powerful cleaners. It sounded too good to be true, but he sounded pretty convinced, and the website made similar claims. See:
http://www.sharpshootr.com/wipeout.htm
I bought three cans; two for experimentation, one for him (so that he can pay for it and 1/3 the shipping - cheaper than just buying one can). What I discovered really impressed me.
You just shoot the contents from the can into a barrel. It expands like crazy - like pressurized whipped cream. You will see that muzzle of my .44 Magnum is plugged pretty deeply with a bore swab. The first time I put the can to the muzzle of the handgun and pressed the button, six tall streams of white goo shot straight up from the end of the barrel. It sure cleaned out those Taurus recoil compensator holes!
It is easy to apply the cleaner - shake the can, place the applicator nozzle into the barrel, and press the button. But the cans come with some red plastic straws that are too small to properly fit over the nozzle of the can - they crack. You can use the hooded nozzle if you shoot the cleaner into the muzzle. But there will be times that you want to start from the breech area, and you can't get the can into position. You are wise to spend about 3 bucks more and get the special hose adapter for those jobs that require you to apply the cleaner from the muzzle, as with this handgun (because of the compensator).
The instructions called for resting the barrel horizontally for about an hour; or overnight to 36 hours if it is badly fouled (as with the first application).
I'm pretty particular about cleaning my firearms. However, I shoot molybdenum coated cast bullets regularly through my .44's. And I had heard that the moly itself can coat the barrel, possibly creating an opportunity to trap moisture between it and the steel. Sure enough, this cleaner, after sitting for two hours, showed me some fouling. Not a lot, but you can see the gray stuff. I ran three patches through, and still saw the evidence.
It was time to try this miracle of chemistry overnight. So I shot the foam back into my Taurus and left it alone for 28 hours. While I was at it, I applied the stuff to some other firearms.
The most dramatic results were with a .30-30 levergun that frequently fires both cast lead and jacketed bullets, as shown below.
Taurus .44 Magnum revolver
The overnight soak loosened up some more gunk, apparently moly, and after the third, tightly fit patch on a jag, the gun was almost whistle clean. I will use some Prolix on it (my favorite lubricant and overall cleaner, now) and follow through. I noted several tiny shiny particles of what could only have been lead on the first patch after the overnight soaking.
The Wipe-Out website explains that this material is not a lead solvent, and there is a discussion about the result electrolysis eating up the barrel with that type of cleaner. However, the site explains that the other elements in the lead bullet are attacked - antimony, tin, etc. - and so the lead breaks loose and comes off in your patch. Well, it looks like that is true.
Colt .357 Magnum Python
OK, I recently fired some moly coated .38 rounds out of this gun. Just a couple of cylinders, maybe three. But prior to this, I have fired many lead and jacketed rounds, and have cleaned it rigorously after each session, having owned this gun for around 38 years.
Guess what - this Wipe-Out stuff found something - maybe the moly coating - and one patch took it out, after the overnight soak. The next patch was clean.
Nylon 66 .22 LR semi-auto rifle
This rifle is hard to clean, normally, because there is no way to secure the bolt; you have to hold it back while you mess with the cleaning rod (or the Bore Snake, which is what I generally use). The gun does not really lend itself to field stripping.
No problem. After reading about the properties of Wipe-Out very carefully, I just left the bolt closed and squirted the muck in from the muzzle until it started foaming through the crevices in the closed bolt. After cleaning, I applied Prolix, since it leaves a layer of micro-particles that safely lubricate your gun, including firing mechanisms (from what Chuck Hawks and others have been saying); and it does not harm or gum up the works.
The Wipe-Out product did indeed loosen up some more carbon and lead, even though I have regularly applied Hoppe's #9 to the bore after firing.
The third patch came out whistle clean! Wow, that was sure easy.
SKS 7.62x39mm Russian
In a Viet Nam era SKS carbine, several Wolf jacketed rounds had been fired. Some lead bullets were also fired in this gun - Junior Doughty's load of a Lyman 311041 .30-30 hard cast lead bullet is set on the second groove into the SKS casing. The gun had then been cleaned pretty thoroughly.
You can see the grayish traces (apparently residual lead, not cleaned thoroughly enough) and brown - which the Wipe-Out website identifies as carbon fouling. Hmmm... the owner of that gun will have to watch that.
Marlin 336 .30-30 - here is the kicker!
I fire lead and gas checked lead rounds in this gun. Several folks have told me, and have posted, that you can clean out your barrel after shooting some lead rounds by firing a few jacketed rounds. I clean my rifle after each shooting, but both lead and jacketed rounds have gone through it. This surprised me. Remember, this is after merely shooting some white foamy stuff into the barrel and leaving it overnight...
The patch was the same color blue as my Levis - that means copper fouling! Note also some evidence of lead fouling; the dark grayish matter.
Then, I ran a second patch through and it looked like this:
The third patch had no blue - the copper fouling is gone! There was a minor amount of dark gray, meaning that I will need to either do the Hoppe's #9 act to finish with the lead, or maybe just squirt this miracle stuff one more time. It is a bit pricey, but it sure works.
I am sold on this foamy cleaning solution.
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I just thought that I'd put in a plug for having wooden dowels on hand for which ever caliber(s) that you use - and clean(!).