Rusty's Rags Sheepskin Silicone Gun Cleaning Cloth

These patches of sheepskin, billed as "the world's best gun cleaning cloths," do a good job at wiping down a gun to prevent rust. Handling a gun leaves it unprotected where your fingers remove any protective oils from its surface, and this can definitely restore that. Like many good products, it's a simple one that just plain works.

Take a hunk of sheepskin, impregnate it with a "special silicone blend," and you have a Rusty's Rag. In fact, it reminds me of an old gun wiper my Dad had when I first started going to the woods and I became the official gun cleaner. It was a sort of oval of sheepskin, which he had soaked well in gun oil, and that's what we used for wiping down our guns, until it finally wore out.

Latham Doxey's Rusty's Rags product is kind of a new twist on that old wiper. When it arrives, each Rusty's Rag is well wet with a proprietary silicone blend, and does fine for wiping down a gun. In fact, it almost does too well.

Too well? Not really... but the first time or two I used it, it left a bit too much silicone on the gun. That's no problem, because the Ziploc-type bag that contains the "rag" also contains a flannel cloth, which can be used to remove the excess.

Although it's called a gun cleaning cloth, it's not made of cloth and I wouldn't use it for cleaning. When a product like this costs more than ten bucks, I don't consider it disposable enough to get it all nasty with powder residue. But that's an individual decision - it's your money, spend it however you see fit.

The bottom seam didn't hold on the plastic bag containing my larger "rag," so I had to put it in my own bag. Slightly disappointing, but not a big problem.

All in all, a Rusty's Rag makes a great wiper-downer, and it will reach into the cracks and crevices that a flannel cloth won't.

Since I originally published this article, Rusty's Rags has begun offering "Rusty's Signature Silicone Gun Oil," which can be used to rejuvenate your Rusty's Rag. I need to get me some of that.

- Russ Chastain

Disclosure: Review samples were provided by the manufacturer. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.