Cleaning the mag tube of a Winchester 73 really needed?

[Leadshark]

I finally did it and bought myself a Miroku Winchester 73. It is a beautiful rifle that shoots very nice. I love it. I only shoot smokeless through it.

I usually just clean by boresnake. For more extensive cleaning I plan to take off the side-plates to clean the insides and then use a rod + patch for more intensive barrel cleaning.

I just do not see the use of taking apart the mag tube. It's not like crud can really get inside of it, right? Or is it better to clean the mag tube as well?

Love this forum btw. Had a lot of my questions answered in the past.

 

[film495]

If it works fine not needed. If it jams from time to time, the tube can be cleaned, the spring stretched a bit, and on one old tube fed Winchester I found some uneven metal and burrs where the mag tube exits into the action. Out of curiousit I used a q-tip, and found wear and burrs inside the lifter, which I polished out as well.

I've never messes with a 73, but a few other Winchesters, can't imagine it is that hard to get the tube open and give it a clean up. Who knows what the spring looks like, but if it works, it works.

 

[Dr T]

If it isn't broken, don't try to fix it. It would be opening a bag of worms (or a tube full of a spring). I have seen Model 94's over 60 years old that have never had this done and they still work well.

 

[herrwalther]

Usually no. A tubular magazine rarely needs cleaning or maintenance unless something specific is going on. For example if rounds were getting stuck inside your mag tube while cycling the action, it might need a look. But if it isn't doing something odd, best left alone.

 

[handyman163]

My only reason for doing so would be if shooting lubed (tumbled or otherwise) lead bullets. That lube residue could accumulate in there and literally gum up the works after a while. Probably not worth cleaning every time though.

 

[cfullgraf]

I'll agree with others, routine cleaning of the mag tube is not necessary. I have a Marlin 1894C that I bought new in the early 1980's and have never cleaned the magazine tube. I shoot mostly jacketed in it but a little cast now and again.

As for the Winchester 1873, I had to change the magazine spring in my 1890 vintage 32-20 1873. Although the rifle had been refinished, the magazine spring was broken when I bought it..

I do not remember the exact procedure but it was not very difficult, just a few minutes from start to finish. The magazine tube could have been cleaned at that time.

I also have a Miroku 1873 chambered in 357 in magnum. It is a nice rifle.

 

[Leadshark]

Thank you all for your answers!

I'll agree with others, routine cleaning of the mag tube is not necessary. I have a Marlin 1894C that I bought new in the early 1980's and have never cleaned the magazine tube. I shoot mostly jacketed in it but a little cast now and again.

As for the Winchester 1873, I had to change the magazine spring in my 1890 vintage 32-20 1873. Although the rifle had been refinished, the magazine spring was broken when I bought it..

I do not remember the exact procedure but it was not very difficult, just a few minutes from start to finish. The magazine tube could have been cleaned at that time.

I also have a Miroku 1873 chambered in 357 in magnum. It is a nice rifle.

It truly is. I love it! Do you only take the sideplates off to clean the innards or do you do a complete dissassembly. I am new to the Winchester 73.

 

[Varminterror]

Are you shooting cast? If yes, How are you lubing your bullets? How generously are you lubing - which method? How much are you shooting? How hot is it getting while shooting?

I’ve pushed caked lube from customer leverguns, enough to choke a horse, let alone retard the mag spring - guys were thinking they’d bent/dented/warped their mag tubes or broken their mag springs as the followers weren’t traveling. Shouldn’t happen, and usually doesn’t. But it can, and occasionally does. Jacketed bullet shooters won’t ever be even at remote risk here.

 

[Pat Riot]

I used to shoot a lot of Cowboy Action with a Winchester 94 Trails End .357 and a Marlin 1894 Cowboy Comp. Usually fired a couple of hundred rounds every month. After a year I pulled the mag tubes to clean them and there wasn’t much dirt or grime to worry about. A couple of years later I did the same. On the Win. 94 I was having feeding issues. The mag tube was a little dirty, but that wasn’t the problem.
Some folks say to not worry about it until you have a problem. I prefer to not have problems so every great once in a while I pull the mag tube and clean it. I shoot some Hornady One Shot CLP into it and let it dry and reassemble.
It depends on how much you shoot it.

Oh, @Varminterror post reminded me. I saw a lot more debris shooting lubed bullets. I switched to moly coated bullet from Bear Creek Supply and that minimized dirt & debris in the mag tube.

 

[cfullgraf]

Thank you all for your answers!



It truly is. I love it! Do you only take the sideplates off to clean the innards or do you do a complete dissassembly. I am new to the Winchester 73.

I have not gotten to the point where I felt the need to remove the side plates. It all depends on how much you shoot your rifle and how dirty the ammunition is.

@Varminterror and @Pat Riot have some pretty good advice to follow.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

This made me curious about the Winchester 1873 owner experience with tube magazines and BP loads. (I have shot a lot of .30-30 BP loads in my Marlin 336 and .357 BP loads in my Rossi 92, but nada in a 1873, tho' my stepdad owned a repro 1866).

Winchester 1873 owners post about disassembling and cleaning their tube magazines infrequently:
at the end of a season, once a year, just before putting the gun in long term storage, once or twice in a lifetime, or never.

How much Winchester 1873 owners are concerned about thorough cleaning (taking the side plates off, disassembling the action and/or magazine) depends a lot on what cartridges they are shooting with BP.
With the original 1873 rifle cartridges, the tapered almost bottleneck .44-40 (.44 WCF) and .38-40 (.38 WCF) do NOT allow much black powder residue blowby into the receiver.
Straight wall revolver cartridges popular in modern repros of the 1873 rifle (like .38 Spl., .357 Mag., .44 Special, .45 Colt) DO allow more black powder residue blowby into the receiver.

In cleaning their 1873s many owners specified:
Pull the cleaning patches from the breech out the muzzle.
Never push patches from the muzzle toward the breech.

 

[Dave DeLaurant]

I clean my guns after every range trip, no exceptions. Just a couple quick passes and some solvent on a Q-tip for the crannies. Usually the magazine is just gets a wipe with the oily rag across the feed lips, but I do occasionally take them apart for a more thorough clean.

A buddy of mine used to brag to me that he never cleaned his Glock and his gun always worked just fine. Until he finally started having feeding problems. I told him to clean the thing and he found that some of his magazines had just enough accumulated powder residue in the body to create friction with the follower. It took him thousands of rounds to get there. A tube magazine in a rifle is usually better isolated from the various types of gun gunk than a box magazine.

Speaking for myself, I'd only remove the follower and spring and clean out the tube whenever a tiny bit of gritty resistance becomes noticeable during loading. In other words, rarely and when necessary. I keep lube here to the minimum since that can hold particulates.

BTW, if you drop a loaded round, take it home and clean it thoroughly (I use dry paper towels) before using. They used to say (correction: I was instructed, in the distant past) to discard all dropped rounds, but they evidently had a bigger ammo budget than I. If I spot any grit in the bullet lube, I'll take it home, pull the bullet and reload the case afresh.

 

[Varminterror]

They used to say discard all dropped rounds

Who is “they” which made this claim? I’ve never heard this before, and I don’t believe I’d put much stock in anything else “they” said unless “they” brought a buttload of science to back up such a nonsensical claim.

 

[Dave DeLaurant]

Who is “they” which made this claim? I’ve never heard this before, and I don’t believe I’d put much stock in anything else “they” said unless “they” brought a buttload of science to back up such a nonsensical claim.

In my case, it was a series of NRA-certified USMC Gunnys who ran the shooting range at BSA Camp Chawanakee, Shaver Lake CA. These instructors came up for 2-week shifts and doubled as recruiters. (I did two summers as an archery instructor, BTW.)

We had a bucket for all dropped .22 LR ammo. I don't know that they actually threw it out, but we were told we were 'discarding' dropped rounds -- I suspect they got cleaned and shot when no one was looking.



I also seem to recall (this was 1974) one of my Hunter Safety trainers saying the same basic thing, about discarding .22 ammo that went into the dirt rather than risk scratching the bore. I don't see it as completely nonsensical for externally lubed ammo, especially back when it sold for under a penny per round.

I believed, both then and now, that the they in this instance were being didactic. And note that I didn't say I agreed; it was something I was told in a group setting, and therefore a maxim others may also have been exposed to in similar situations. If you haven't heard this before, then you haven't. Peace.

The context of this posting is magazine cleaning. Turning your argument around, I don't believe you are saying you'd put a dropped round ammo straight from the dust into your rifle without cleaning it off first. If that is what you are saying, then we are indeed in disagreement.

 

[Varminterror]

In my case, it was an NRA-certified USMC Gunny who ran the shooting range at Camp Chawanakee, Shaver Lake CA. We had a bucket for all dropped .22 LR ammo.

This is the kind of stuff which is the reason NRA certifications (as an NRA Certified instructor for 20yrs myself) aren’t taken very seriously in market. The only reason I could fathom refusing dropped 22LR would be contamination of waxed bullets… but broadscale disposal of any rounds just because they hit the ground is ridiculous.

 

[chicharrones]

In my case, it was a series of NRA-certified USMC Gunnys who ran the shooting range at BSA Camp Chawanakee, Shaver Lake CA. These instructors came up for 2-week shifts and doubled as recruiters.

We had a bucket for all dropped .22 LR ammo. I don't know that they actually threw it out, but we were told we were 'discarding' dropped rounds -- I suspect they got cleaned and shot when no one was looking.

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I also seem to recall (this was 1974) one of my Hunter Safety trainers saying the same basic thing, about discarding .22 ammo that went into the dirt rather than risk scratching the bore. I don't see it as completely nonsensical for externally lubed ammo, especially when it sold for under a penny per round.

I assumed, both then and now, that the they in this instance were being didactic. And please note that I didn't say I agreed, but that it was something I was told in a group setting, and therefore a teaching others may also have been exposed to in similar situations.

Sounds like a range operation thing for young uns or people new to shooting. If someone tries to chamber a boogered up cartridge and jams up their gun good, then the range officer has to call a cease fire and futz around with a locked up gun when everyone should be shooting. Makes me think of my Boy Scout days on the range with our Scout Master in charge.

 

[Dave DeLaurant]

Sounds like a range operation thing for young uns or people new to shooting. If someone tries to chamber a boogered up cartridge and jams up their gun good, then the range officer has to call a cease fire and futz around with a locked up gun when everyone should be shooting. Makes me think of my Boy Scout days on the range with our Scout Master in charge.

Forgive some digression -- remembering this stuff almost 50 years later makes me smile!

The main enemy of the Gunnys at Chawanakee was fine grit in our part of the Sierras -- the stuff got into everything! I wore two pair of socks under running shoes and by the end of each day my toes would still be caked with this yellow-brown stuff.



The ammo was unboxed by the Gunny onto 2x4 shooting blocks with holes drilled for 5 cartridges. Boys bought tickets (.10 each, I think) at the camp Trading Post that they then traded for each 5-round shooting block at the range. Since a dropped round meant wasted money, the boys tended to be more careful with them than usual for teenagers.

Our Council made a point of selling the rifles after each summer and buying new ones the next because of bore erosion. We had 8 one-week sessions each summer, and the scores for the boys in the final weeks averaged a bit lower than those from the early weeks.

I bought one of those rifles for $15 at the end of the season in 1979, a Savage 63 single shot, and despite excellent care by a succession of three Gunnys, you could tell it had been well-used. I later shortened and refinished the stock on mine for my wife, and later still traded it to my cousin for a German switchblade knife.

I was told by one of the Gunnys that they competed hard for our camp posting each summer. They were always the captains of our staff softball team. The USAF also contributed camp medics, often the only females we'd see all summer. Before camp, USN Seabees would spend a couple weeks doing maintenance that included digging up the range backstop for lead.

 

[herrwalther]

In my case, it was a series of NRA-certified USMC Gunnys who ran the shooting range at BSA Camp Chawanakee, Shaver Lake CA

Doesn't mean a thing. NRA qualification is a joke to complete, being certified myself since 06. And not everyone in service is a "gun person." I was one of 4 remedial rifle trainers for my infantry brigade because I have always been interested in firearms. My battalion did not want anyone below sharpshooter in the unit, so I got sent a lot of soldiers who passed as marksman in IADT or BOLC and needed to get better or get transferred. A lot of ammo got dropped in the dirt. Wipe it off or puff some air on it and in a rifle it went.

 

[chicharrones]

Doesn't mean a thing. NRA qualification is a joke to complete, being certified myself since 06. And not everyone in service is a "gun person." I was one of 4 remedial rifle trainers for my infantry brigade because I have always been interested in firearms. My battalion did not want anyone below sharpshooter in the unit, so I got sent a lot of soldiers who passed as marksman in IADT or BOLC and needed to get better or get transferred. A lot of ammo got dropped in the dirt. Wipe it off or puff some air on it and in a rifle it went.

It's clear now that Dave's post was based on Boy Scouts of America (BSA) experience firing relatively fragile .22 rimfire ammo, with an adult tasked with keeping the shooting experience moving smoothly and safely for all under his watch.

Heeled type lead rimfire bullets that can get cocked in the case or deformed to the point of not feeding have certainly created chambering issues in my experience. Sometimes it's a real b*tch to open a bolt after a ham-fisted attempt to chamber a jacked up .22 rimfire cartridge. I know I've flung a bolt clean out of the receiver behind me while pulling out a chamber jammed rimfire cartridge from a bolt action repeater. Cussed myself good for that one.

Anyway, back to centerfire lever guns.

 

[Ugly Sauce]

If you put a few drops of oil on/in the end of the magazine tube where it goes into the receiver after cleaning it, and stand the rifle on it's muzzle when stored/in the rack/in the safe, that will keep the tube and follower working well for a long long time. Will also keep excess oil in the receiver and barrel from migrating into the butt-stock.

You know, I never thunk of it before, but we have a '94 made in 1949, that belonged to an uncle and then the wife's dad, that has probably never had the magazine tube off. But, not much dirt, sand or grit in North Idaho and North Eastern Washington, so I'm not sure if it ever will. Maybe should. I'll have to thunk about this. It feeds great normally, but if you try to do the CAS rapid fire it will fail to feed. Not being into rapid fire with a lever action, I've not thought much about it. Perhaps it does need it's first cleaning in 73 years.

 

[Leadshark]

Are you shooting cast? If yes, How are you lubing your bullets?

No I am shooting store bought FMJ.

I have not gotten to the point where I felt the need to remove the side plates. It all depends on how much you shoot your rifle and how dirty the ammunition is.

Thanks for the info. I want to take the plates off soon to clean it. Don't know if I need to, but better save than sorry, right?

In cleaning their 1873s many owners specified:
Pull the cleaning patches from the breech out the muzzle.
Never push patches from the muzzle toward the breech.

Have heard in other places that people just push it through the muzzle like in an ML. Makes sense since it is much more work taking out the bolt.

 

[Ugly Sauce]

Makes sense since it is much more work taking out the bolt.

They are probably talking about pulling the patches through with a cord. The purpose probably being to avoid pushing crud into the action, which would be a problem with black powder, not so much smokeless.

 

[Remington1911]

I am going to side with most of the other folk, in it is a well it is this far apart now might as well type task.

But I do have a couple stories where you do need to clean the magazine.

Story time:

In my ruger MkII I had an issue not long after I bought it new, this should tell you how long ago it was. I was at the range, indoor and it was bang click.....what no round in the chamber, pull mag, looks ok, rack bang click....what the hell.

Turns out on a non jacked bullet it would basically scrub off some of the bullet on the inside of the mag. The mag is lined up like this / so the spring pushes up and to the front with the pressure on the front it would work the nose of the bullet off on the inside of the mag. Basically like if you took a pencil and keep drawing a line in the same spot over and over again...it will get just thick. A quick hit with a brush cleaned it right up.

Several years later I had the same issue with a 45 and lead bullets.

With the straight tube on the rifle you are not going to get that, and I doubt much gas is going to get down that was.....if it is you have bigger worries.

 

[JohnB-40]

Thanks for the info. I want to take the plates off soon to clean it. Don't know if I need to, but better save than sorry, right?

It would be a good idea to wait to get a Brownells' Magna-Tip ground bit for the side plate screw. My '73 takes a # 240-3 bit. I can't guarantee
yours would be the same,but can't see why they would change it.