How often should I lube my carry gun?

Shoot it as-is, if you don't experience any stoppages you can attribute to the lint, then you know you can get away with ~two months of carry. (call it a month to be safe, this is a time to err on the conservative side)

Every gun will have a different tolerance for lint, and every lube will have a different rate of loss and affinity for grime (grease should be where you left it, but how much lint has stuck to it in the ensuing months?)

I've gone over 6 months of EDC on one of my carry guns, and test-fired it with cheap ammo and a mixed bag of HP designs, it didn't do anything bad to the gun except make a burning smell as the lint and leather crumbs from the holster were burned off ... I no longer worry much about that weapon, the range rotation is more than enough to keep it cleaned and lubed (that was a Walther PPS-9, well broken in and deliberately neglected for the experiment)
Other guns may be looser, tighter, more susceptible to losing lube, less tolerant of lost lube, etc etc ... there's no predicting it without doing your own experimentation.

I spray mine with remington teflon dry lube (slide barrel), it works and lasts for a very long time and attracts no lint. I used to clean and lube once a week with break free or FP10, but both attract dust and pocket lint. BTW carry gun most carried everyday is my Ruger LCP used to be a p32 or S&W 642.

Unload it temporarily, draw back and lock the slide, and see if it looks dried out.

Unless fired my Sig gets cleaned every other month. I do wipe it down with TW25b spray every other week if carried. If you use grease such as the Sig approved TW25b you could let it sit for months,

Master Blaster said:

I spray mine with remington teflon dry lube (slide barrel), it works and lasts for a very long time and attracts no lint. I used to clean and lube once a week with break free or FP10, but both attract dust and pocket lint. BTW carry gun most carried everyday is my Ruger LCP used to be a p32 or S&W 642.

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I'm with you on the dry lube for pocket pistols only I use RZ 50 because it has no teflon so leaves no residue.

The dry lube stays put (does not migrate) and does not attract lint.

Master Blaster said:

I spray mine with remington teflon dry lube (slide barrel), it works and lasts for a very long time and attracts no lint. I used to clean and lube once a week with break free or FP10, but both attract dust and pocket lint. BTW carry gun most carried everyday is my Ruger LCP used to be a p32 or S&W 642.

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I'm with you on the dry lube for pocket pistols only I use RZ 50 because it has no teflon so leaves no residue.

The dry lube stays put (does not migrate) and does not attract lint.

In my humble, uninformed opinion, grease is for rust protection (e.g. cosmoline). Or for lubing parts that don't fit together very well. Grease can dry up, leaving behind thick deposits. I've seen semisolid deposits on the slide rails of my guns, after only a few months of storage, using a popular gun grease. A more extreme example are the desposits I found on a milsurp pistol. I initially thought the slide had manufacturing defects along the top of the sight rib. But I finally realized that it was just hardened cosmoline that could be chipped away in solid pieces.

I just recently switched from REM oil to tetra gun grease. I just felt that the REM oil was kind of thin, but after reading the above post, I'm going to be cleaning guns when I get off work.

Tetra is the gun grease I tried, BTW. I still use it on the bolt of my bolt action rifle But for most everything else, I stick to oil.

I follow the method recommended by Sig Sauer: If it's shiny, lube it. My regular carry pistol rarely makes it more than 3 weeks between range visits. So, lubed at least that often. I use 3-in-1 oil, some other light gun oil, or the Sig "cream" that comes in the little tubes.

Sig's like to be run wet. If your using grease on the slide your fine for a long range session. I do not recommend the spray/dry lubes for Sigs. They may work for some guns but your asking for premature slide wear. The factory ships there guns with TW25b. Any Syn oil or grease should work just fine.

Blue68f100 said:

Sig's like to be run wet. If your using grease on the slide your fine for a long range session. I do not recommend the spray/dry lubes for Sigs. They may work for some guns but your asking for premature slide wear. The factory ships there guns with TW25b. Any Syn oil or grease should work just fine.

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I use RZ50 dry lube on my P238 and it runs just fine, stays nice and clean in my pocket and is a breeze to clean without any dirt holding grease or oil on it.

Follow your instincts. If you're worried about it, then it deserves a further look.

No harm in clearing it and checking to see if the rails look wet with the slide back. I like to keep the outside of my barrel oiled. If that's dry then I need to lube my pistol.

I also worry about dirt/lint or barrel obstructions from a few weeks of CCW (I find Skittles in the weirdest places sometimes). So it's not a bad idea to clean that out and check the bore.