Do you clean your handguns after every range session?

bdickens said:

All this incessant over cleaning mistaught in the military is neither for the benefit of the gun nor the soldier....

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All of my DIs were Vietnam combat vets, so Ima listen to 'em.

Nope. I get weird looks when I tell folks, but I clean when they need it.
Smokeless simply doesn't need it every time they're fired IMO. If you disagree, that's cool. Your guns and your time, I'm not hating.
Deer rifles get cleaned at the end of season.
Rimfires very rarely. I've had a Marlin 60 for almost 20 years and I can count on one hand the number of times the bore has been cleaned. I think people overclean bores.
Again, just one fella's opinion.

Pistolay said:

All of my DIs were Vietnam combat vets, so Ima listen to 'em.

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All my DI s were vets of Chosen Resevoir, Tarawa, Iwo Jima. They knew the elephant well.

Pistolay said:

All of my DIs were Vietnam combat vets, so Ima listen to 'em.

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None of mine were, but they were just as wrong.

I clean mine every time they are fired. As far as deep cleaning, I spray out the semi-autos with aerosol brake cleaner and rem-oil.
Revolvers: I have to dismantle the Rugers or the cylinders will get tight in about 200 rounds. S&Ws don't have that problem, never had one apart.
Good thing Rugers are easy to take apart or I wouldn't have any.

Definitely not. Between range session I don't clean unless I am not planning to go right away. But before every match they get a comprehensive cleaning an lubing.

I clean my guns after every range trip because I never know when I will be able to go out again. last time it was over a year due to weather and illness.

It's weird, but for handguns, I'm more willing to shoot them and to clean them. I hate cleaning rifles though.

uncle sam made a deal with me in 1972. he loaned me a nifty rifle and gave me all the fmj ball ammo that i cared to shoot. in return i had to put away his rifle clean after using it. uncle sam sent a loud, tough guy around regularly to check the cleanliness of our rifles. you did not want to upset that guy. fast forward, old habits die hard. respect tools that you depend on.

I try to, but if I don't clean it after every single session I'm not really worried about it. If I have to clean something after every session in order for it to be reliable, I don't want to own it anyway

I clean my guns on the same schedule as Jerry Miculek. When they are dirty and accuracy is diminishing. He points out that accuracy is less with the first few shots from a clean gun. And who am I to argue with that kind of experience

I use to clean after every session but I'm a convert now and only clean after about 1000 rounds. For my auto pistols I run a brass brush about 10 times, then a wet patch until it's clean, then a dry patch followed by an oiled one.

For my revolvers I clean the cylinders after every match or 500 rounds, whichever comes first. I don't think I've clean the outside of my revo in a year. It may look nasty but it's a fantastic shooter.

My rifles still get a thorough cleaning after each session. Old habits die hard.

whatnickname said:

Admittedly, I’ve gone back and forth on this issue. When I shot competitively I would clean my handguns about every 500 rounds or when they started acting sluggish...whichever came first. Today I clean them after every range session. I just prefer to keep them clean and I’m a bit lazy too. Cleaning 22 pistols after 500 rounds is a real chore. Easier to keep the crud in the action to a minimum. Am I cleaning my handguns to death?

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Every session- can’t stand a dirty gun!

Every time without fail.

Yes I clean and oil them every time.

When I was in my early twenties and began owning my own firearms, I cleaned them obsessively. Eventually I became more casual and practical.

* If I am shooting anything corrosive, it gets cleaned immediately and thoroughly.
* All guns a least get a wipe down on the exterior. Else, I clean them every few hundred rounds, or when I think about it.
* If it's a gun that I know starts to experience function issues after so many rounds (e.g. certain revolvers that may start to bind up with dirty ammo, or a certain H&R single shot rifle that likes to pop open under recoil when the latch gets grimy), then I clean it every time
* If it's a carry gun, I may or may not clean it every time. The way I see it, if a gun is so picky that it doesn't operate well with a little dirtiness, it probably isn't fit to be a carry gun.

More than anything, I came to realize a few years ago that with even a minimal level of thoughtful care, all of my guns will outlast me. Such was found to be the case with all of my grandfather's guns that he virtually never cleaned, but shot often.

We can't take them with us, friends.

I do not necessarily scrub the daylights out of them…just enough.
For firearms that sit mostly unused they are occasionally relubed and wiped with waxed rag to prevent rust.

I have a couple that specifically never get cleaned as a test. The rest tend to get cleaned after one mag/ring or 500 rounds.

Yes, my shooting partner/family Sherpa does. Thanks Dad. I think having a dirty gun in the house actually hurts his soul.
On the range I'll run a bore snake through my long range guns a couple times if they seem to be having feeding/ejection or accuracy issues, which is rare. The copper fouling eraser powder my reloading Sherpa (thanks Dad) uses seems to keep fouling to a minimum. Imagine that.

On my rifles and long guns I do a lot of rust prevention cleaning, mainly on the exteriors of the guns. I rarely if ever clean the bore of the rifles I use to hunt with. Modern ammo is pretty clean and that can mess up the zero. But I wipe them down pretty regularly. The high gloss blue is important to me and any surface rust is a no go.

In the once every other year occasion that I shoot my AK, I thoroughly clean it every time. I don't trust commie ammo.

I clean the surfaces of my SD pistols every time I shoot them. Probably do the barrel every other time and completely break them down about once a year, which is probably 300-500 rounds.

I treat my revolvers like expensive china or the Mona Lisa. The only thing missing is the ropes. Those things are as clean as they can possibly be, and even one cylinder of clean ammo will result in a thorough scrubbing, usually with a cold beer and a baseball or football game on the TV. It's one of my favorite things to do.

I used to, and I used to actually enjoy it. I've gotten very very lazy about gun cleaning and maintenance and dread doing it. In the winter there is lil to no chance I'm doing any gun cleaning unless I'm very bored and haven't been shooting in a while and want to feel close to my guns again

In the summer I will just take the whole show right outside with about 3 or 4 filthy guns and hose em out and scrub. A few times I actually went at my AR's with dawn dish soap, a scrub brush, raggy T shirts and shower hose. Same with my Glock Bbl and slide..... just want to make sure you've got compressed air around for that particular method so you don't have water sitting in the corners on steel.

No. Probably not even as much as I think I should.
The military custom and 'knowledge' of cleaning a rifle - firearm - for three consecutive days following firing stems from the days of corrosive primers and the very real - for that reason - danger of rust in the bore. Not a bad standard, but not all that needed currently.
The other reason to clean any firearm ensures functionality. As the M-16 and variants are made with a 'self-dirtying' action, making sure the moving parts actually move when required is crucial. Then again, revolvers gotta revolve, bolt rifles have to move back, forth and rotate as needed and so on. No matter what sort of arm, moving parts have to move. Too much crud build up can jam the mechanism. But a bit of pocket lint won't freeze up a revolver.
I do clean arms regularly. Whenever that is.

My EDC is either a Glock 19 or a Kahr K9.
I've never had them give one care in the world about how clean they were. Thats a good thing to know that they can go through lots of abuse and thousands of rounds without being cleaned. It gives me piece of mind. If my carry piece started to malfunction from being "dirty" that would bother me. Lint, grit, dirt from being carried and not necessarily fired, can be just as troublesome as dirt/carbon/fouling from shooting.
All that being said, I do clean them about every few range trips, or about once every month or 2. Whichever comes first. Not super systematic or highly meticulous about it, however.

Other firearms such as hunting rifles, revolvers, etc get cleaned once before their "season" and once afterwards. If I shoot them during the year in the off "season" I may just wait to clean them until their ON season. Unless they were exposed to any moisture.

Nope. There's no reason or benefit to doing so. Plus I shoot in the backyard, if I cleaned every time I fired a shot, I'd have time for little else.

If you're getting rust, it's not because your guns are dirty, it's because they're improperly stored.