Cleaning Rods
 

Hi Folks

I have been thinking about this for a while and finally have decided to go ahead and ask for your help with this. Over the last few months I have noticed quite a few cleaning rods for sale on Ebay. This got me to thinking about how would you know if they were real or repros.

I am asking if you could post photos of the cleaning rods that you may own and explain whether they are real or repro, with oilers or without, what type of Luger they were made for (Artillery, Navy, standard etc.), even the maker of the cleaning rod. I think this could be of use to all of us as part of a tutorial or a sticky.

This is to satisfy my curiousity as to what variations are out there. Thanks to all in advance. I appreciate it very much.

Sid.

Great question and suggestion Sid...

Unfortunately, I don't own an original Luger cleaning rod of any type... hopefully those that do will post a photo here in this thread.

Luger Cleaning Rods
 

Hi:

German cleaning rods for the Luger Pistols are a constant source of annoyance for me.

Who would issue a cleaning rod without a loop on the end of it to hold a patch in place? This is totally illogical, and actually comical to the extreme.

The millions of Mauser rifles made in Germany were all issued with cleaning rods with loops on their ends.

Would someone please explain this strange mystery to me, as I am going mad trying to figure it out.

Sieger

The reason that Luger cleaning rods lack a "loop" in the end is that cleaning patches were not used to clean the bore. The Luger cleaning rods were designed to take and hold a length of several strands of flax wrapped around the threaded end of the rod.

To add to George's excellent reply, one must keep in mind the rod was usefull to punch out stuck rounds or empty cartridge cases. Most bores on a combat pistol need little cleaning anyway and I am certain that is why the rod was dispensed with. Jerry Burney

I am currently filming a luger cleaning video. After reading this post I decided to order a repo cleaning rod and will use it in the video.

Is there any additional guidance that I can use to get it right in the video.
How big do you cut the strips of flax?

I am currently on my second attempt at this video. Every retake requires a dirty gun (200 shots).

Thanks,

Chris

George,

I can't find flax in the local area. Will linen suffice?

I will be in South Philly next Tuesday and will try to find flax there.

Chris

"Linen" is cloth made from spun flax thread. What you need to be looking for is not cloth but linen yarn, fairly heavy gauge and preferably unbleached. That is what is oiled and wrapped around the cleaning rod.

I have a safe full of Lugers that could use some cleaning... :)

Anything to help out a brother... :D

Thanks George and Ron,
I was wondering about the lack of hoop myself and how it would have been used.

John, any pictures of any cleaning rods would be helpful whether they are original or repros. I have a repro cleaning rod myself and would like to compare them to others that I have seen online. I seem to recall there are several variations.

Another question I have is when did they stop issuing the cleaning rods with the pistols? I believe it was in the early thirties but I am not sure.

Also, did the length of these vary from Navy to Artillery to Carbine? Or was one standard size issued with them?

Thanks for the help.

Sid.

Sure send the Lugers over!;)

I can only find thin linen(flax) yarn online. If I can't find heavy linen yarn in Philly next tuesday I will try to substitute it with heavy cotton or wool yarn for the video.

Chris

I got a some German ww2 flax along with another purchase I made. Those I have are 'wrapped' (not sure of the proper English word.. 'bundled' perhaps?) in the amount that is needed to clean the barrel once. Have used some of the flax, and I think it works quite well.
Great for cleaning the receiver and other parts too.

Steinar,

Can you take a photo of the flax so I know what it is supposed to look like.

Thanks,

Chris

[Sorry, I didn't mean to hijack this thread, moved my question to another thread in general discussion.]

Chris..It looks very much like hemp rope. If you were to unravel some natural hemp rope and cut it about three inches long this would approximate the material well enough for your vidio purposes I suspect. Just wrap enough of it to fit down the barrel.
Flax is very similar, both being a natural plant fiber. There have been several photo's of this stuff on the Forum over the years.

Also, I don't want to spoil your shooting fun but couldn't you spray some dry grey graphite on the pistol to approximate carbon build up for vidio purposes?
Jerry Burney

Shadow, I'm sorry.. I have the flax in Trondheim, only 'home' when free from work. Next time will be easter, if interested, I will send you a picture (or some flax?) then.
But I think finding a picture here in the forum and make a repro is quite easy.

I'm off to a gunshow in the morning but come Monday I would be happy to email photos of cleaning rods to Ed to post here. Among them would be a photo of an artillery rod with the original period flax still attached

George

Would this be one (flax) ??

Hi Sid,
I started a thread (Portuguese oiler/steel rod) on 10-11-2006 that I received a lot of great info. and photos on. Definitely worth looking at.
Mike C.

So that's how it worked.

Gee, that looks like a real pain in the butt to me. Particularly when you should be using water to remove the corrosive primer salts.

Well, it's a wonder my 1917 DWM has a bore left on it at all, if this is how the German Army maintained these pistols.

I do remember reading, in the original DWM Owner's Manual, that you were to grease the bore shortly after firing the pistol. I guess you would grease this stuff up and shove the whole thing down the bore, dirt, filth and all.

Oh well, if you ran out of pipe tobacco, may be you could just smoke the stuff!


Sieger:roflmao: :roflmao:

Sieger, Actually flax works extremely well with hot water. It was the standard for cleaning black powder rifles. The flax used was usually "tow" the waste from the spinning process and was coarse with some of the bits of stem remaining. This gave it a good scouring effect and it absorbs water well.

I have used it in black powder rifles to very good effect.