Dry Hole eh ?

 

Skip:

A couple of months ago I was ordering some items from Midway and I needed to add another $8 or so to meet the $49 free shipping threshold. They were having a clearance sale on the German cleaning wicks and they looked interesting. A sealed box for $9.99. Sure, why not. In the cart they go so I can avoid the cost of shipping.

I was expecting a box about the size of a box of saltine crackers. What arrived was a box about three times that size filled to the brim with bundles of wicks. Needless to say I was impressed with the quantity received for less than $10 shipped.

What’s cool is that each particular bundle, being composed of many individual strands of cotton, allows you to select the number of strands you might need based on bore diameter. Being loosely tied together. it takes little or no effort to pull the bundle apart.

I have not used the wicks yet but I suspect they will work quite well. It’s going to take a little trial and error to figure out the number of strands necessary to fit the bore “just right” as Goldilocks might say: not too few that they slide through barely touching the walls of the bore and not too many that the strands get stuck in the bore.

Whether pushed through the bore with a rod fitted with a patch loop, or pulled through with a loop equipped Otis type cable or Ripcord, I think it will be a simple and very cheap way to clean a lot of barrels.

You should try a box. Good luck!

 

Richard,
I clean a lot of barrels , the price of admission for shooting a lot every week. I was intrigued by these wicks because I've never seen this approach to bore cleaning and being German issue, I thought they might be onto something. Certainly the price is attractive but lacking any reviews on them, if they don't work, not sure what other 're purpose' value they might have. I bought a GI duffle bag full of military 30 caliber bore patches ten years ago, and have used half so time is coming up when I'll evaporate all remaining of those truly epic patches and need replacements. Thus my interest in knowing how functional these wicks are when you use them for cleaning and how "TEDIOUS" is picking strands and threading loop to pull thru bores. In sum....easy no issue or Royal PITA ?

I'm thinking these were used with those G3 cleaning kits that had the aluminum chain type pull thru approach ????

 

Thus my interest in knowing how functional these wicks are when you use them for cleaning and how "TEDIOUS" is picking strands and threading loop to pull thru bores. In sum....easy no issue or Royal PITA ?

Skip:

Pulling the strands from a bundle is almost effortless. It took me about twice as long typing the previous sentence as it would to have actually pulled the strands.

As I noted I haven’t yet used the strands and I hadn’t even thought about the difficulty of threading the them through a cleaning patch loop until you mentioned it. I don’t know about you but I don’t have the fine motor skills/manual dexterity that I used to take for granted but any difficulty with the strands could be instantly solved with a pair of tweezers. Like pulling apart a bundle of strands, I don’t see threading them through a loop to be a problem.

If you want to test them before making a purchase I’ll be more than glad to send you a bundle of wicks. I have your address around here somewhere but if you can save me from trying to find it you would make my life much easier. Just send me a PM.

 

Richard, I'll PM my address. Tweezers ....I'm thinking pain and a real test of patience but I don't know what I don't know here so give it a try. Toss me out on that dance floor and see if I can trip over my feet !!

 

👍

 

Been working these things , kind of hard to describe my developed procedures but I'll try here...Richard in NY will post some photos to this thread to illustrate a bundle and the "strands" that make it up.. I used a Otis pull thru so the strands are pulled . If one used as solid ram rod, the strands will bind up around that rod and you got a stuck rod in bore for sure. Here is my procedure

556 caliber, thread 4 strands thru patch loop and then tie ends of strands in a over hand knot. Not a full knot which is tying twice , only a over hand like when you begin to tie your shoes before you go forth with doing the bow . Then the strands have bite in barrel and will clean grooves and not fall out of loop**** (more on that in a moment)

308 cal (30 calber) use 8 strands thru patch loop, same over hand knot and same results.

**** If you don't do the over hand, you have to use twice as many strands and one or more could slip out of the patch loop in your barrel and now you got a real drama getting 1 or more loose strands laying inside your barrel. Over hand knot avoids this risk.

As you know 16 strands are held together to make 1 Bundle. I'm thinking these bundles are made this way for use on 50 caliber barrels where you loop bundle thru patch loop and pull thru 50 caliber barrel. I really don't think these are made to be used for small arms but of course they can be adapted as I have done to clean small arms. I did not need Tweezers to thread patch loops and I will admit the strands as looped on my Otis pull thru cable scrubbed lands & grooves of barrel very well. There is a lot of material making contact and riding the lands where regular patches are dragged over the lands for the most part.

I think these strands have a ton of merit in cleaning 22 rifle barrels and pellet rifle barrels by the way.

I would not use these with a solid ram rod as it will certainly jam up hard in barrel. A loose strand or two that somehow lays up in ones barrel could be darn hard to remove...a drama to avoid..

Worth messing with...sure, price is cheap, and if used with limitations , they will clean barrels well if one has the right gear. Threading patch loop was not the drama I thought it would be. Easily done.

 

Richard in NY will post some photos to this thread to illustrate a bundle and the "strands" that make it up.

I’ll post those photos (here) tomorrow afternoon.

 

All this talk of wicks, strands, and bundles might be a bit confusing for those who haven't seen the object of this discussion so hopefully the following photos will make things clear.

Essentially we are dealing with strands of soft, absorbent cotton about 7.5" long. Sixteen individual strands are loosely tied into a bundle and eight bundles are loosely tied together into a larger bundle:

I should note that I'm unaware of the official German army nomenclature but for all practical purposes I'm going to consider the terms strands and wicks to be interchangeable with strands being the term I'm going to utilize.

To give you some idea of the diameter of the strands here's a photo of a .22 caliber cleaning patch loop:

As I mentioned in my earlier post I haven't actually used these strands but in playing with them I found that five strands slid through the patch loop without difficulty and several more would easily fit if I used tweezers or a needle probe to guide them through:

 

The German technical term is Reinigungsgdocht. Which translates to cleaning wick.

 

Does anyone know anyone who was in German military in recent years and can get a comment about these things ?

 

Yes indeed, I can.
These are standard issue Reinigungsdochte. Those are still in use for cleaning all kind of handguns in the German army.
The newer cleaning kit for G36 is almost identical to the G3 one and very simmilar to the RG34 for 98k etc.

I have never cleaned barrels, even of my privat guns, with anything else than these Reinigungsdochte.
I do like them😅

 

Now that we got language terminology sorted out, whew............I was losing sleep on that ! LOL...Does anyone have
a clue what the Germans used these "Spaetzle" for ???

 

When I got to Germany in 1971 I was in Swabia and wondered why the locals ate little sparrows. "Spatz" = sparrow and "Spaetzle" is the diminutive. Germany is kind of like Italy, which is divided into the rice and pasta regions, and Germany is divided into the potato - Kartoffel - and noodle - Spaetzle regions.

 

When I was in Germany in the 70s that's what we called something that Oma made for us usually at dinner, and it Tasted sort of like a dumpling I think, or at least it tasted like that.
I suppose if it was boiled too long, it could be used for cleaning a bore. LOL
P

 

My reference is Reinigungsgerat 34 Bezeichnung und Gebrauchsanweisung (Cleaning Kit 34 Description and Use Instructions) 1936. There they are called Cleaning Wicks, 18 strands with cross thread. The ones illustrated are sewn together in the middle and therefore cannot be separated.

milprileb, the German use them the same way we use cleaning patches.

 

LOL!! Ok, Milprileb! I suppose you caught me on a pretty slow day. That went right over my head before I caught on.
P

 

I guess we've arrived at the bottom line, these are cotton tasteless Ramen noodles the Germans use to clean rifle bores.

 

Nah... you got it right the first time: "Laufspaetzle" it is.
Lauf = barrel.

 

I am not sure how effective they would be vs. the getting the methodology worked out, but they would be great for cleaning muzzleloading rifles. Using a tow worm fitted ro the ramrod, it would not be much different than the tow which is a cotton-like ball of fibers. Since most ramrods for thse guns have a larger head than the shaft, and a tow worm is NOT tight fitting, binding should not be an issue.

They would also work in airguns using heavy 30LB monofilament as a pull through as it is stiff.

 

Bend the strand double & push the bend part through the loop. It's easier that way and will go down an 8mm or 9mm bore.
Dan 🤠

 

Hey I’ve got some of those! Maybe a little older