[fyrfly]

Recently, I had the unfortunate experience of removing handguns from a gun bag which had been soaked in cat urine. I now need to clean these. A collector recommended soaking the metal parts in kerosene, and then oiling the heck out of them. But he was at a loss on the wooden and plastic grips. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[carver]

Welcome to the forum! My brother lost a S&W .38. He found it weeks later in a box that had been under some shrimp bait. That gun was pitiful! I told him that I thought the best thing he could with it was to take it to a gunsmith, and I'll tell you the same thing! Don't know the status of his pistol yet.

 

[Fatstrat]

Can you give more detail as to the damage?

 

[Twicepop]

Step 1-Shoot the cat.
After that there are ultra sonic cleaners out that a hand gun can be immersed in and given a thorough cleaning. If you can't find easy acces to one of these, jewelry stores usually have them and might have one large enough to help you out with this. However the inside mechanisms will need to be checked for rust damage from the cat urine. The plastic grips could probably be cleaned and odor neutralized, the wooden grips will probably always smell like cat pi$$. A buddy of mine that does wood working has some really nice pieces of birds eye and flame maple that a cat pi$$ed on 10-12 years ago. It's not as strong, but you can still smell it today.

 

[fyrfly]

That I can see, there's a little rust in places, which may or may not, have been caused by the urine. I'm hoping that I got to them in time to have prevented anything major. Other than the rust spots, they really don't look bad, but they're sticky in spots and stink. I've been handling them wearing nitrile gloves because of the stink.

"Shoot the cat"- it was more than one cat, and they've been relocated. The bag went to the dump.

 

[Fatstrat]

Well, from what you describe, I'd just use some fine steel wool and light oil on the rust. Spray em down and wipe em off w/a gun solvent. And call it a day. Maybe check on them every few days for a week or so to see in any further action required.

 

[fyrfly]

Thanks. The first one is out of the kerosene, taken apart, lubed and oiled (multiple times) and then gone over with the silicone cloth, and put back together. I may have gotten lucky with the wooden grips as I'm not smelling anything. The second is on the table, awaiting lube and oil; the third is in the kerosene. The collector recommended lightly rubbing an old (as in all copper) penny on the rust to remove it. No steel wool.

Has anyone ever tried one of those Mr. Clean Magic Erasers? LOL They seem to clean everything else without scratching.

 

[dad2thebone]

The magic erasers work well on everything iv'e used em for. well worth the price and last for longer than i thought. for the wood id use some old english cleaner, worked on a stock my exs cat sprayed.good luck.And welcome to the forum.