M-Pro 7 gun cleaner/carbon remover is 75-85% water.
M-Pro 7 copper remover is over 60% water.
Bore gel: 55-65% water.
This is stated in the SDSs, see Document Library & SDS - Pantheon Enterprises chemical company scroll down to the weapon care section.
The instructions are that, after using these water based products, you must protect the bore etc with oil, they suggest their LPX gun oil.
CLX was discontinued years ago, I think that LPX is the replacement, certainly they say it has some bore cleaning capability if scrubbed on with a metal brush, but I'm not sure it has any useful chemical activity such as that of the dedicated bore cleaners.
The C2R instructions (thanks for the tip, never head of it before) say to let it soak, no brushing required, then just use wet (plain water soaked) patches to shift the loosened carbon. I'm guessing that there is a strong surfactant in the fluid to assist the process, just as dish detergent is basically surfactant, thickened with salt, and scent added. The thickening thing seems to be a British preference, elsewhere in Europe theirs is mostly thin, and to my mind often more effective.
Chloride ions (as in salt) are not good for barrel grades of "stainless" steel, better to avoid things that are stuffed full of them, no matter how cost-effective they may seem to be.
I'm also guessing that C2R have dosed it up with some sort of copper solvent or chelating agent, to serve dual purpose to try to keep on top of the copper as well as keep the carbon loose. I suspect that that may be a compromise, trying to make it into a universal one-stop solution. Everybody else seems to see these processes as separate. Or maybe they just prefer to sell two separate products for twice the price ? and the concept of never needing to use a brush, the cleaning fairies will just float it all away with a few patches is, let's say, interesting.
Well it must be so, there is no practical way to dissolve carbon, all that you can do is try to loosen it somehow by attacking the other stuff holding it together, a cocktail of perhaps initially tarry deposits, that the longer you leave them, the more baked-on they get. A bit like neglecting cleaning your oven regularly. Keep on top of it, tedious though that might be, and you may save yourself a lot of pain.
I do agree that it seems improbable that the carbon could be effectively removed without brushing, just wiped away with a few water-soaked patches. Likewise the copper and other metals from the jacket just dissolved away without any effect on the barrel steel despite lengthy soaking and no neutralisation process suggested afterwards (slightly more plausible) but I have no experience with the stuff, .perhaps it really is that good.
Cynically, I think I've heard similar things before with "foaming bore cleaners". Miraculous stuff, just a quick squirt, leave for a while, patch out, or or if really lazy just tug a boresnake through. But no substitute for trying a little harder. Frankly I suspect that just a squirt of WD40 and a regular careful rod-through with a bronze brush would be at least as effective, that's if you just want to keep on top of the carbon, but leave the de-coppering to when you think it's becoming a problem, if ever.
I haven't tracked down an MSDS for C2R yet to give some clues about the formula, but one will have to be published sometime if this is to be sold legally.
Studying MSDSs can be interesting, to get an idea about what you are dealing with. Some of the old fashioned stuff like Hoppes #9 (original, then re-formulated), Butch's (original then re-formulated), Sweets etc. is really quite scary, you certainly don't want to be using it without gloves and good ventilation, whether or not you like the nostalgic smell.
There's a lot to recommend these modern aqueous or otherwise, fairly benign, environmentally compatible biodegradeable formulations, as long as they can do a good-enough job. Better that than the toxic old formulations that come plastered with every warning sign possible, no practical way for most of us to safely dispose of even just our used patches (maybe burn them, rather than risk the stuff leaching into water courses, highly persistently toxic to aquatic life, polluting landfills etc. ) No, washing out your brushes, perhaps in the US cleaner, then flushing the residue down the drain is no longer acceptable, at least to me.
The military seem to have moved over to the newer stuff, possibly simply for pragmatic reasons of easier procurement, transport, storage, worker safety, disposal, maybe even effectiveness and ease of use. E.g the stuff that Pantheon Enterprises developed for the military, and supply by the oil-drum full, their armourers just dunk entire weapons into tanks of it, maybe scrub them a bit or ultrasonic, drain, dry, dunk in the oil, drain, job done.
Study the MSDS for the M-Pro 7 gun cleaner/carbon cleaner, and you will soon realise that it is just water, with a named, presumably very strong, surfactant, maybe a few other things too, undeclared. They are not required too either because they have stated that it's entirely hazard free, biodegradeable. Probably a lot better than diluted Fairy Liquid, but basically same principle. If you have contacts you might be able to get your hands on really strong pure surfactants. E.g. the stuff laboratories use for cleaning glassware, or nuclear decontamination.
The Pantheon stuff gets put into little bottles, branded, and sold to us at huge margins by Bushnell, who also sell it as Hoppes Elite, which I think is exactly the same stuff.
I once knew a chap who was so tight that he'd re-use his old patches and bits of 4x2 by putting them into the washing machine in a calico bag, along with the household wash. Even then I didn't think that was very clever, now I'd say it was borderline insane to expose himself and family to the chemicals, metals, gunshot residue, God knows what, by impregnating their clothes with it, to save a few bob.
Now my big bottle of original Butches' that will last me a few years more, came in a glass bottle (no usual plastic can contain it long term), contained in a polycarbonate outer/bund, double bubble wrapped, double boxed, even back then I'm pretty sure it shouldn't have been posted. It's the original formulation though, not the less effective re-formulated version. When it runs out I won't be replacing it, meanwhile there's no doubt that it still works very effectively, and I bought far too much, being inexperienced as to how little you really need to use if you work sensibly. And I can't think of a way of safely disposing of it, other than by using it up.
If you really want to see how toxic this stuff is, here's a link to the MSDS. It seems Butch just chucked in everything he could think of, preferably a benzene compound. Even back then we knew that was not a good idea. Read it and weep, it's probably the scariest one that I have read, and I've still got a significant quantity of it that worries me a little to have about the place. Original Hoppes #9 was nearly as bad. I still have an ancient bottle of the original too. It seems that I'm the habit of over-buying.
