The Stronghold kit is a great balance between utility and value. It provides the tools to clean a variety of guns without excessive or specialized tools that most hunters would find unnecessary. Allen’s universal cleaning kit is a more traditional-style cleaning kit geared towards acco*modating a wide variety of popular calibers. It has all the basic parts and pieces you need for periodic cleaning and maintenance of your hunting guns. All the parts are easy-to-find, well-organized, and easy to keep organized.
The nylon cleaning jags (used to push patches through the bore) aren’t as durable as brass, but they are very safe for your bore. The cleaning rods are a little short. With long-barreled bolt-action rifles, you will have to clean from the muzzle. The kit includes a couple of muzzle guards to prevent any damage to the crown. For anyone who doesn’t need to do frequent heavy bore cleaning, this kit is ideal.
Otis’s gun cleaning kit is one of the best gun cleaning kits for pistols and its co*pact size allows it to fit in (or attach to) your range bag. It has all the tools you need to clean your pistols thoroughly. This specialized handgun cleaning kit follows the Otis gun cleaning method of using pull-through cables and their proprietary patch design for efficient cleaning. The kit includes two cables, as well as slotted patch holders, 2 inch and 3 inch patches, and bore brushes to acco*modate co*mon pistol calibers.
Cleaning the bore is often a small part of keeping a pistol clean and working smoothly. The gun cleaning kit includes several valuable tools for helping you with other cleaning tasks, like cleaning the feed ramp and extractor. It includes two different picks, a dust brush, scrub brush head, obstruction remover/flat head screwdriver, and a handle that can be used with any of the accessories. It also includes a pin-punch for disassembly.
The kit also includes a small bottle of CLP which will help you remove powder deposits as well as keep your pistols lubricated. The proprietary patch design doesn’t allow you to use generic cleaning patches as effectively as a push-through rod, but the Otis patches do a quick and efficient job of swabbing out your bore.
Although this is more of a specialized tool kit than a traditional cleaning kit, it contains all you need to keep your AR clean and running (minus solvent and a rag). The tools specifically provide quick and easy ways to tackle the most time-consuming parts of cleaning an AR. Fouling tends to accumulate in certain spots on the bolt carrier group, in the star chamber, and on the end of the gas tube. The MSR Cleaning Pack provides solutions for all of that.
The Ripcord bore-cleaning rope isn’t what you’d want to pick exclusively for a match gun or for removing stubborn copper fouling, but with some solvent, it will quickly swab much of the powder fouling out of your bore and is plenty adequate to keep the gun running. I’d like to see the kit include more Otis star chamber pads, and you’ll have to buy more of them separately, but they do work very well at scrubbing out fouling that you’ve scraped loose much more quickly and effectively than with Q-tips or swabs. This kit stands on its own, but also incorporates well into other kits and systems.
This simple and effective kit is specialized for cleaning shotguns, whether at home or in the field. It includes a quality brass rod and co*ponents, at an affordable price. Birchwood Casey’s shotgun cleaning kit is an improved version of many classic kits, featuring a higher-quality brass cleaning rod, a nylon slotted tip, and bore brushes, patches, and mops for 12-, 20-, and 28-gauge shotguns. It co*es in a highly organized and co*pact plastic case with a kickstand on the back to set it upright in use.
Although it doesn’t include any solvent or oils (and doesn’t have any space for them), it’s a great option for anyone who only uses shotguns or wants an extra kit to keep with their hunting equipment. It includes all the basics but doesn’t have any extra parts or fluff that you won’t need or use.
For someone who does a lot of rifle cleaning, especially bolt actions or other rifles with match-grade barrels, a specialized cleaning rod is a must. These rods are available in a variety of lengths and caliber ranges to most closely match what you need. They are a precision tool, designed to withstand years of use and help you clean your bore efficiently and effectively.
The coated spring steel rod is made to be strong and flexible, without holding a bend that could result in damaging a bore, and the protective coating is designed not to embed in the rifling if it does make contact.
The handle features bearings to allow the rod to spin smoothly on the handle. This lets the rod twist with the rifling and applies even pressure all the way through the bore. The thin profile of the handle allows it to pass over most stocks, whereas some thicker-handled cleaning rods can be impeded by a high co*b.
For anyone serious about cleaning their rifles and protecting their bores, a bore guide is a must. A bore guide lines up the cleaning rod with the bore so that it doesn’t scrape on the throat and potentially damage the rifling. Although there are more specialized and expensive bore guides out there, this one is affordable, user friendly, and highly adaptable.
Using the different-sized tips, you can optimize it for your rifle, and it will sit snugly and securely in most bolt action rifles. It also has a sleeve that fits perfectly inside the receiver of an AR/MSR, and with the threaded set screw handle, can be secured in the receiver so that the cleaning rod can be easily passed through without the guide co*ing loose.
The Shooter’s Choice Universal Bore Guide also has a solvent window at the rear, which allows you to wet your patches or brush and get them into the bore without dripping solvent down into the magazine or other parts of the action.