You Can’t Un-Smell It
Quick! Name The Solvent That Should Be An Aftershave
Some people reading this will reach for the Hoppe’s and open the bottle just to take a whiff.)
This is my nose’s favorite time of year. On the eve of mourning dove hunting seasons across the map, the final third of summer heading into early autumn is when range visits with hunting rifles and/or handguns become really serious. This is when you’ll be smelling “the odor” around the cleaning table, in the workshop, in the gun case — even on the firing line at the range. It’s everywhere. You cannot escape.
I’m talking about Hoppe’s No. 9, and don’t tell me you didn’t know that immediately. There is nothing like it.
“The Scent” has lingered in more leather holsters than I can remember. Somewhere, there’s a well-worn brown cloth rifle cover that used to protect my .22-caliber Winchester Model 69A bolt-action rifle, which my dad gave me, and it eventually became a big “air freshener” smelling of No. 9. (As I was writing this, I looked on the company’s website and, doggoned if they don’t actually market a genuine No. 9 air freshener!)
It became a habit of mine whenever bringing home a new or used firearm to literally give it a bath in No. 9 to remove any shipping oils, or make sure the bore and action are clean of any powder residue. Maybe I just needed a fix.
We’ve all heard the jokes about how Hoppe’s No. 9 smells so good it should be marketed as an aftershave. Some of us had dreams of the stuff being a babe magnet since we “discovered” girls about the same time we took our Hunter Education class sometime around the 5th or 6th grade. The scent lingers for days, and maybe weeks, in a cleaning cloth. It hangs on much longer in our sensual memories.
Dave jokes about how No. 9 might be a great aftershave. He’s kidding, of course. Well, uh, maybe he is. We’re actually not sure …
Hoppe’s No. 9 has been around for 101 years, according to what I read on the Hoppe’s website. There, one learns the original formula for No. 9 was created by the late Frank August Hoppe in 1903, who, the story goes, “mixed nine chemicals and created the world’s most effective gun cleaner.” Even in the company’s advertising, you’ll see this listed among the formula’s attributes: “Has the traditional Hoppe’s No. 9 scent.” Well, what a coincidence! So do my gun cases.
Enter Aerosols
Time marches on, and technology didn’t skip around the gun cleaning world. Some years ago, companies began marketing various aerosol spray cleaning products, primarily for people who either don’t want to or don’t know how to disassemble a semi-auto pistol, so they spray it throughout with an aerosol.
A lot of these products dry after a couple of minutes, after effectively cleaning out a lot of crud. I have found, however, my pistols still require a good scrubbing with a bore brush, followed by patches. In the days I was actively teaching firearms safety and personal protection, each of my student groups got the 10-minute lecture about cleaning their guns after a shooting session: Never case a dirty gun for any length of time.
What I’ve found with aerosols is that one still needs to brush and mop out the bore for a complete cleaning. I recommend cleaning from the breech toward the muzzle rather than the other way around because you want to push powder residue out the front end rather than down into the action. I realize this doesn’t seem possible on lever-action rifles or pump and semi-auto shotguns, which are not disassembled. But wait a minute …
Get a flexible cleaning cord that is designed to be inserted into the barrel at the muzzle and pushed backward toward the receiver. There, a brush, mop or patch holder may be attached and pulled back toward the muzzle. This keeps crud out of the action.
If you’re cleaning a revolver, open or remove the cylinder, clean out the bore, clean the individual chambers and reassemble, or simply close the crane if it’s a double-action with a swing-out cylinder.
My firearms are not just tools; they are investments and maybe even family heirlooms one day. We can’t take them with us, and we all want them to be functional, safe and well-maintained for those who will have them and the memories after we’re gone.
Wayne LaPierre stepped down from the NRA earlier this year, and a New York judge ruled he cannot return to any paid position withing the organization for 10 years.
Last month, New York State Supreme Court Judge Joel Cohen banned Wayne LaPierre, former executive vice president of the National Rifle Association, from holding any paid position in the organization for a decade.
This comes after a trial earlier this year determined that LaPierre had misspent millions of dollars on what the media has described as “lavish trips and other personal expenses,” costing NRA at least $5.4 million. LaPierre must repay $4.3 million, and former NRA Treasurer Wilson “Woody” Phillips must pay $2 million in damages.
Whether this brings back members and millions of dollars in donations to the beleaguered gun rights organization still remains to be seen. Earlier this year, NRA members elected a small slate of “reform” candidates and named new officers, including a new EVP, but there are still concerns about how effective this “reform” movement will ultimately be.
With the elections about 65 days away, the NRA may not be the political powerhouse it used to be, so it remains to be seen how big an impact the organization will have in November.
Judge Cohen did not order NRA to have a “monitor” in place to prevent a re-run.
Anglers in Wisconsin can now pack firearms while they’re fishing.
The Department of Natural Resources has scrapped a regulation
prohibiting gun carry by fishermen and women. It hasn’t been
enforced for more than a decade.
No Kidding, It’s True
Last month, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty settled a little dilemma. Unbeknownst to me and most folks I know, the rule that prohibited the carrying of firearms while fishing was eliminated, according to Spectrum News.
Out here in the West, a fair number of anglers of my acquaintance often carry guns while fishing, especially in bear country. If I’m casting flies along some back country river, it’s a safe bet there will be a gunbelt wrapped around my waders.
What I gather from reading the report is that this started way back when some fools were shooting fish. (Hey, they wear cheesehead hats in Wisconsin!)
Wisconsin’s state constitution includes a strong right-to-bear-arms provision, which reads, “The people have the right to keep and bear arms for security, defense, hunting, recreation or any other lawful purpose.” Then, in 2011, the state adopted a concealed carry statute, and the rule stopped being enforced.
For a complete list of all state constitutional right-to-bear-arms provisions, visit the Second Amendment Foundation’s website.
Incidentally, sportfishing is big business in Wisconsin. For Fiscal Year 2024, the state raked in $11,822,290 in funds from the federal Dingell-Johnson sportfish restoration program.
