Am I the only person who cleans his guns?

[asia331]

USMC taught me to clean'em when I use'em; still do.

 

[xfyrfiter]

Even stainless steel will corrode if subjected to perspiration or salt spray, so on carry gun, yes, it gets a once over with a silicone treated cloth twice weekly. On all of my others they are in various stages of cleanliness.
I wore 2 rimfires out with over cleaning, pins and screws can only be removed so many times without wearing the threads and holes to an oversize or sloppy fit. At the time I was shooting 1500 to 2000 rounds weekly, tends to wear other moving parts out as well.

 

[MtnSpur]

Ok, to be very fair here, the vast majority of revolver owners shouldn't be pulling the side-plates of their wheelguns -- certainly not on an old Colt.

If you have the correct screwdrivers, and a light touch, and have an informed idea of what you're doing -- and you shoot the revolver a lot -- you might want to really clean out the wheel works every year or two ... or three. But those aren't designed and intended to come apart after every single use, and I'd consider it abuse if they did. (Not that I care what you do, per se, but that I wouldn't want to buy a revolver knowing that the owner did that.)

The issue you faced with a 35 year old gun is that the old lubricants had dried out and solidified and did need to be removed and the gun properly lubed. Once. If that had happened once a decade you'd not have had the problems with it you initially had.

I agree 100% Sam but I do have the correct tools and it's not my first rodeo. I certainly do NOT recommend taking off the sideplate, especially on an old Colt, as they are very tight toleranced and can be a nightmare to correctly put on. Not for the faint of heart. I might add that she won't be apart again . This is only the 2nd revolver I've ever had to resort to removing the sideplate after traditional methods failed to correct the problem (she was not a candidate for sitting in a bath BTW)

 

[X-Rap]

After hearing about Glocks in the dish washer I am looking for one that is the size of a safe.

 

[outboard]

I usually clean my hunting rifles 4 or 5 times a year. Several times in the "off season". I try and run at least 100 rounds or so through each rifle prior to September/October. I'll clean them again prior to the first big game hunt I'm using them for. Last cleaning is post hunting season. .22s are cleaned every 200 rounds. I try to clean pistols and revolvers after every use.

Question: several people stated firearms could be damaged by cleaning too often. How exactly does this happen?

 

[mortablunt]

Anyone who doesn't want to waste his money will clean their arms. Of course, the guy might has been thinking 'Nah, the other guy will get it.' and just gone through one last splurge.

 

[Nushif]

Kind of like the sweatshirt you wear under the 3-position jacket. Never wash that! Important layer of magic builds up in the fibers and [...]

Yes! My wife tried washing my Patrol Cap once ... I couldn't believe it. She's trying to get me killed.

But yeah, I have a healthy dose of JuJu injected in my gun cleaning rhythm.
Basicaly none of the nasty harsh, abrasive stuff.

 

[Crex39]

Question: several people stated firearms could be damaged by cleaning too often. How exactly does this happen?

It doesn't. It is a mental crutch some have come up with to justify non maintenance. I am assuming they are talking about brushes wearing chrome, or over scrubbing to the point where the bluing is affected. If you keep them clean you don't have to scrub the you know what out of them when you get some residue on the internals. This is a silly debate. If you feel comfortable leaving residue and deposits in your fire arms go ahead that is your choice. I suppose my 1997 Chevy Pick up has been over cleaned since I wash it after I drive in the rain and snow, but you know what? Its in a lot better condition than a lot of of them I have seen that get cleaned once or twice a year.

 

[Owen Sparks]

Cleaning was much more important back in the days of black powder and corossive primers. Back then people were taught to "never let the sun set on a dirty gun." This is no longer true but the military still operates as if it was.

 

[Davek1977]

It doesn't. It is a mental crutch some have come up with to justify non maintenance.

not even remotely true....guns CAN be damaged by overzealous cleanings....the crown of the barrel is especially suspect on weapons that cannot be cleaned from the chamber end. Overcleaning...especially when failing to use a proper bore guide, and certainly have adverse effects on the crown, resulting in a decline of accuracy. Other parts too can be worn from constant, unnecessarily dissasembly and reassembly. I'm all for regular maintenance and proper cleaning....but I've yet to be convinced by anyone that a through cleaning is needed each and every time a weapon is fired. Sure, you said you wash your pickup after a rain....but do you pull the engine, drop the tranny, and make sure there are no "deposits" anywhere? Do you remove the tires from the rim "just to be sure" everything is OK? Washing a truck is no differnt than simply wiping down a gun with an oily rag...which is something I DO do, whether I feel the need to actually CLEAN them or not

 

[Serenity]

What do you mean by "clean"?

When I think of it, I mean field stripping it, I guess. Removing the magazine and slide and rod and spring and barrel, and cleaning what I can see with cleaner and a toothbrush and careful around the little bits with Q-tips, then wiping the lint from those off and lubricating it. I've taken apart and cleaned the used magazine that came with my gun, but just once. Are you guys talking about opening it up more and cleaning the guts? I'm not going anywhere near that. I figure if I even manage to fire a decent number of rounds through it, I'll take it to the shop for a once-over.

The revolver gets the same treatment; open the cylinder and clean what he can see.

 

[mljdeckard]

Damage from overcleaning occurs when you are so obsessed with cleaning that you start to wear things out. You toothbrush out the trigger and hammer so much that you start to snag springs, and break off bristles in them. Or you bend the disconnnector. And yes, the obvious one is the crown and rifling. Since the army uses the cheapest, worst cleaning rods you can imagine, and don't care about training soldiers to clean correctly, they routinely clean the wrong direction, jam brushes in the bore and try to remove them by tapping them out backwards, and using the crown as leverage for cleaning tasks. This is usually because they are poorly trained, and their supervisors don't care at all about the long-term life of the gun, that's someone else's problem. I've been issued rifles with the last four inches of rifling completely GONE. It is absolutely possible to damage weapons from overzealous cleaning.

 

[Crex39]

Sure, you said you wash your pickup after a rain....but do you pull the engine, drop the tranny, and make sure there are no "deposits" anywhere? Do you remove the tires from the rim "just to be sure" everything is OK? Washing a truck is no differnt than simply wiping down a gun with an oily rag...which is something I DO do, whether I feel the need to actually CLEAN them or not

Why I am even debating this shows I have too much time on my hands. To me the way you are describing cleaning a truck and a weapon would be a complete dis-assembly. I am talking more of a field strip. With my truck I do wash the undercarriage, rinse the wheel wells and the door jambs, as well as the outside panels. I drop the tailgate and clean the area out between there where dirt accumulates. I do not simply wipe it down with a wet nap. When I clean a pistol, I take the slide forward, remove the bolt, rod and spring, wipe those down, check for debris in the barrel, use the proper size brush if needed (usually because my weapon is maintained it takes little more than moving a clp coated Q-tip type swab down it. Some solvent in a patch over the trigger assembly, and back together. Its not that much work. I do not over scrub with wire brushes or completely disassemble the weapon, nor my truck.

 

[Neo-Luddite]

If you were - like me - trained by someone who grew up in the days of corrosive ammo being the norm----it takes *a lot* of de-programming to convince you that nowadays there is usually a 'more harm than good' point to the cleaning of most weapons in terms of servicability, wear and tear, and corrosion/rust risk.

My general thoughts:
1) If your life depends on the weapon, seek expert council on THAT weapon from someone who knows (or keep your own as you might if *you are* THAT person!).

2) Antique/special/heirloom/ (esp. Colt Bluing!) clean gently w/ modern materials and monitor closely for signs of decay in both wood and natural stock materials like wood and real 'hard rubber' and early sythetics like bakelite or vulcanite (although bakelite is one tough customer even when it is near the one-century mark--hurray for Leo!).

3) Or, come to the point (like me) where you just really don't much care OR will select an 'already dirty' weapon to shoot from your rack to continue on your later-life found lazy path. I do always take care to let weapons sweat after shooting and at least wipe down the blued ones.

 

[Davek1977]

One thing that made me kind of smile in this thread....it was asked if you'd trust your life to a dirty gun. My thoughts on that are I'd rather have a gun that I could trust slightly "dirty" than one that had to be immaculately clean in order to be fully trusted.

 

[Sam1911]

it was asked if you'd trsut your life to a dirty gun. My thoughts on that are I'd rather have a gun that I could trust slightly "dirty" than one that had to be immaculately clean in order to be fully trusted.

Yes indeed.

In fact, WHY would you trust a gun that had just been disassembled and reassembled? Would you not be significantly safer with a gun that had been (at least) function fired a few mags' worth to make sure everything went back as it should have and no extra bits of cleaning rag, bristles, debris, etc. got lodged somewhere they shouldn't have?

I don't ever take a freshly-cleaned gun to a match -- that's just begging to find that some pin wasn't seated fully or that I managed to put a spring in backward. I always put at least a week's practice session through the gun before an important shoot.

Why would carrying a defensive gun be any different?

Clean guns are NOT to be trusted!

 

[axeman_g]

i would be embarassed to ship out a dirty gun. I would hate for the new owner to think I was I lazy gun owner. But I have recieved many dirty guns.

 

[Cluster Bomb]

#1 thing I do when I get a gun is clean it. The Colt trooper I got was filthy aswel but all clean now.

Most people dont know how to clean a gun, let alone disassemble it and reassemble it. Theyll just sell it when it "stops" functioning well, blame it on the gun and buy something else and write a bad review online like they know anything about guns....just saying.

 

[GoWolfpack]

Most people dont know how to clean a gun, let alone disassemble it and reassemble it. Theyll just sell it when it "stops" functioning well, blame it on the gun and buy something else and write a bad review online like they know anything about guns....just saying.

I have some serious doubts about that particular scenario actually happening very often. You've got to shoot a modern gun an awful lot before it stops working. Most people just don't shoot their guns that much.

 

[Byrd666]

One round or a thousand rounds, my firearms get cleaned the same day they were shot.

 

[Dr.Zubrato]

HD guns get cleaned as if my life depends on them, because it does. I have not reached a failure point yet in thousands of rounds so I remain cautious about maintenance.
22's get cleaned when they start to malfunction, or every 1-2k rounds.
Every responsible gun owner who cleans their firearms has amuch better and intimate understanding of how their particular design operates, and critical wear parts that need to be inspected or lubricated.

 

[JohnBT]

"Am I the only person who cleans his guns?"

Yes, want to clean all of mine?

 

[Strykervet]

Most of us would rather spend the time it takes to clean a gun on the Internet asking what the cleanest powder is.

Ha ha! No joke, it REALLY makes a difference! The H335 powder grimes up my 6.5G AR much worse than an M4 using M855 (and whatever they use in it). You can really tell in an AR, that DI is real fine for simple function and accuracy but really funks up the action.

I like to clean mine after, but when I take several to the range and stay all day, I just don't get around to it. I SHOULD at least wipe them down real good, I can do that pretty fast, and then hit 'em with the dental picks later. Besides, unless you clean them while still hot (fastest way) then wiping them down and "soaking" the action until you get around to it is the best way. Hoppes will soak into the grime and makes the carbon come off much easier if you do this. Running a mop down the bore with a moderate amount of CLP isn't bad either, but too much can actually trap water and make it rust.

As for changing oil in my truck, it gets changed about twice a year. Wife's car too. These are '05's and they run fine, the truck is still like new, but only has about 25,000 miles on it. I use the expensive Mobil 1 full synthetic. If you run this stuff, you can run it for quite awhile before it breaks down. It doesn't seem to go bad near as fast as regular oil. Where regular oil would be BLACK GRIME in 5000 miles, synthetic is only starting to look like 1000 mile regular oil.

I've read more than once that synthetic can be ran for, no joke, up to 15,000 miles. I first changed it at 3000, then that seemed like a waste, then went to 5000, then went to about twice a year. Works out to be average for the car, overkill for the truck, but it needs to be changed at least bi yearly even if you don't use it. I used to be real religous about changing oil until I started using this Mobil 1. If you use their filter, it seems to last even longer. BTW, those KN air filters are pretty nice too; they last much longer and are easy to clean.

When using a weapon for defense, it STAYS clean. I'd wrap my rifle up to keep sand, and worse, dust out. Still, I'd clean it everytime I had down time. We'd wrap the M2's and Mk19's up real good --NOTHING sucks like cleaning a good greased up one of those after a drive through moon dust. My carry pistol, a Glock, it stays clean too, although due to the design it can go much longer than just about anything else, so my target pistols tend to get real quick cleanings. Not having to oil them up a very much really helps. When you depend on it, carrying dirty gear is kind of stupid --it'll never work better dirty than it does clean if it is worth using.

Finally, carrying an M4 or MG during daily downpours or constant moon dust presents a challenge. This one unit of POG's, they did the dumb army stuff. They'd clean their rifles DRY after an exercise, they may have learned to use pressure washers with hot water watching us but didn't do the other stuff afterwards (bad to do, but it works great every once in awhile with a MG). They may have been using shaving cream too, that is another trick (who figured that out and how I don't want to know). The rifles looked real good, real clean and would pass a white glove test. No joke. Then when they actually went to a range to shoot 'em (they shot just enough to qualify, once or twice a year) these BRAND NEW M4's started having parts failures. In at least one, the bolt carrier broke in half. The part had basically rusted from the inside out over time. Never seen anything like it, but it wasn't the only one in that unit to have problems, the barrels were just trashed but brand new. So sometimes over cleaning is bad, especially if you remove ALL of the oil on the metal, cleaning with water, yet keep it dry enough not to rust.

Seen one guy try and armor-all his pro mask for an inspection, but that is another story. Yep, seen it all.

 

[CZguy]

This is just idle curiosity but, I was wondering if there was any correlation between cleaning guns and making beds, or washing cars etc.

BTW, those KN air filters are pretty nice too; they last much longer and are easy to clean.

I really like K&N air filters. I use them in both the car and truck.

 

[7thCavScout]

After all my years in the Army I am a little OCD when it comes to my firearms. The are ALWAYS kept in a high cleanliness.