I still use water w/a touch of dish soap in it. A small squeeze bottle makes for quick and easy use in the field.
Windex I use for cleaning up cartridge arms fired w/ corrosive primers. Done it that way for 40+ years and haven't lost a bbl yet.
Windex alone in cleaning a M/L works just as well too. I just never got into that habit.
Ballistol is a mixture of isobutyl alcohol, the solvent side of the stuff,,, and 'pharmaceutical grade white oil' (that's baby oil, mineral oil, other names for it too). Oleic Acid is a component,,an emulsifying (sp?) cleaning agent as it is in soap.
Some perfumes thrown in I'd guess.
A couple of new M/L shooters at the range I shoot at swore by it to clean their M/Lds. They were going by info given to them not having tried it yet for BP cleaning.
They used the stuff for cartridge firearms and everything else they could pour it on and into. There isn't much in it that can harm anything. Lubing a gun with babyoil isn't on my list though.
Anyway, after a couple of sessions, they both switched to water/soap cleaning I originally suggested as they admitted to having after rust problems w/it.
They were still in search of a 'better' solution though.
Just like any normal younger person would be!
Hope they find one..
That's the only time I've run into anyone using it to clean a BP/ML firearm.
Lot's of people say it works great. Maybe it's all in the technique.
