Cleaning Your Stainless Steel Suppressor With CLR

[@LifeLibertyLoaded]

I updated the title adding "stainless steel" to it. This is for stanless baffles and cans.

[@DavidA20200]

This is a really awesome trick. I’ve been doing this for years. You don’t want to do it terribly often because a dirty can actually is quieter. Btw, if you need an aluminum safe option, try the new breakthrough technologies suppressor submersion cleaner kit, it’s insane and it works pretty much the same way CLR does except being aluminum safe.

[@highdesertdrew1844]

IIRC CLR uses hydrosulfamic acid, I've used it to clean brass and a lot of other things around the shop. It's generally safer than some of the industrial degreasers and doesn't destroy aluminum on contact like some of them do. It looks like this works pretty good, we've used purple power in an ultrasonic it worked ok, we found typically you need something that can dissolve the polar and non-polar compounds. I know some people are saying stainless vs CLR is no good, yea, any metal vs any acid can be kinda sub optimal, but suppressors don't actually work better with smooth surfaces in them the same way barrels do. As long as it's not pitting the interface and it removes all the gunk, it's doing a good job. Ammonia dope worked well for us. I might try this next time the RC2s are in need of cleaning.

[@tacpanda]

great video!! thanks for sharing

[@LifeLibertyLoaded]

Thank you, More to come!

[@alexsullivan3272]

Awesome, going to try this out on my 300SPS

[@thor653]

Damn man! That worked awesome! Thanks for the tip. Going to try it today.

[@LifeLibertyLoaded]

Awesome! CLR is pretty cheap too.

[@thor653]

I tried it on the baffles only after removing the o-rings on a griffin checkmate. All the gunk came right off in about an hour. Currently soaking my high round count yhm turbo k. Looks like CLR for the win!

[@LifeLibertyLoaded]

@@thor653 Awesome!👍

[@davidr7333]

Some say the CLR can cause pits if it is not totally neutralized. So they recommend using alcohol then a final water rinse.

[@filfarmerpacnw4868]

Another video on youtube showing CLR eating stainless. Turns it black and oxidizes the metal. The guy put a stainless barrel blank in the clr and it started eating it. Yes stainless! A much better solution is wipe-out bore foam. It will NOT eat the stainless and it works so well that it cleans my baffles on my 22LR can about 95% in 30 mintues. I would try the wipe-out bore foam before the clr.

[@vikp6115]

I use it to clean my barrel

[@jbazan11]

Would’ve been nice to have seen the carbon dumped out and removed into a clear container after sitting there for over 24 hours. I don’t know if I can do this with my 22lr suppressor. Not a fan of cleaning that can. Maybe I could try it on my omega 9k?

[@LifeLibertyLoaded]

Im going to try this on my Omega 45k at some point, both are made of stainless steel. Maybe a 6 hour pass for the 1st time. The first time I tried this it was on my surefire 5.56 can, maybe 4 hours. It did a decent job but needed longer. The second pass it came out like this one. It depends on use, but in general these dont need to be cleaned that ofen, just when its getting pretty built up. iraq veteran 8888 has a good video on unconvention cleaning like this using untrasonic and Simple green, I think thats even a lighter cleaner than CLR, might be another option.

[@paulmatthews2035]

What a complete faff! Use an ultrasonic cleaner at 70c with about 1 tea spoon of dish washing liquid per litre of water. 20 minutes turning it every few minutes to avoid air pockets, rinse well and shove it in a hot oven 160c for half an our till dry. One tip is if you weigh the suppressor when clean you can track the build up of carbon.