Detail stripping your slide - best practice

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Sven

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I was reminded today of the importance of detail stripping your slide from time to time, if not all the time when cleaning:

Today at the range, I had a couple failures to fire, which were remedied by recocking the gun and firing. It happened again, and this gave me a chance to practice tapping the bottom of the magazine, racking the slide, and continuing to fire...

...but I wanted to get to the bottom of what was going on.

My suspicion was that something was blocking the firing pin, as the hammer hits with a good deal of force on my CZ Kadet conversion (.22 LR).

Removing the firing pin during maintenance, I found old, caked gunpowder everywhere, including clogging the firing pin hole.

I dutifully got out the .22 rifle mop, soaked it in some MP-7 Bore Cleaning Gel, and swabbed her out, inside and face. Then cleaned the pin, spring and back plate...lightly oiled.... and put it all back together.

Voila!

When manually engaging the firing pin using a punch, the operation is dramatically smoother than it was before I cleaned. Moreover, the firing pin hole is now wide open.

Based on this observation, I'm 99.95% certain that I will not have a non-ammo related failure to fire now that the weapon is cleaned.

Note: The firing pin had never been cleaning in 750 rounds fired. (doh!)

-

I now follow a similar practice on the 1911, taking the slide apart and cleaning the firing pin and channel as well as the extractor... I found a lot of gunk in there after only 200 rounds today.

Moral of the story: Learn to detail strip your weapon and clean thoroughly.

It's one thing to have a failure to fire when plinking at the range - you'd hate to be let down if you truly needed your weapon.
 
I tend to only detail-strip once a year or so. I field strip for most cleaning. Does that make me a slacker?
 
"Detail strip every cleaning"

That strikes me as similar to doing a "frame-off" restoration on your automobile everytime you drive to the gunshop...........:uhoh:
 
With something like a Glock it only takes me a few minutes to detail strip it..

Plus, I only shoot one or two guns at any one time. So, it's not like it's a real burden or anything. :)
 
I thought about doing this but have been too lazy to learn. I like how the firing pin thingy is so easy to take apart on the P7 though.
 
With a centerfire in good repair every 1000 rounds or so is a good interval for detail stripping IMO. For a 22? When it won't run anymore.
 
Excuse an ignorant question from a non-mechanically inclined doofus, but: How is one supposed to know how to do a 'detail strip' without hurting one's gun?

None of my owner's manuals show anything more detailed than a field-strip, and indeed warn explicitly against it. Where do I find out how to safely venture farther? And am I in danger of voiding my manufacturer's warranty if I try it? And, if I don't try it, what are my options? To take it to a smith to do it, and if so, how often?

Thanks for answering a doofus,
cg
 
I'd say it depends on the pistol as to whether it should be attempted at all by novices. The two easiest to detail strip, far and away, are the 1911 and Glocks. Others, like Berettas, have online resources for a complete tear down, but disassembly of pistols with little springs and roll pins is not for the faint of heart or easily frustrated.

I detail strip my 1911s every six months or whenever they get significantly wet from shooting in the rain. So here in Oregon, I detail strip my 1911 after about every range session.:D
 
I agree - detail stripping isn't something you need to do all the time - unless you are anal retentive and actually ENJOY cleaning your guns down to the last part.

I only learned how to do this recently on the 1911 when a gunsmith walked me through it... of course, it is totally easy once you get the hang of it. I still have yet to actually take the receiver apart... I've only tackled the slide.

NOTE: If I had used compressed air and the right solvent (Gun Scrubber or equiv.) during routine maintenance, this need to clean probably could have been prevented.

Kuhnhausens book on
The Colt .45 Automatic covers field and detail stripping of the 1911, including models with the Series 80 safety.

The Glock Armourers manual explains disassembly Glock (an old version from 1992 was posted as a PDF on TFL - probably illegally... maybe someone out there has a copy they can loan you). I google search just revealed an AVI showing how to detail strip a Glock 22 (12 Megs... large download)

For specific guns where Google/TFL/The High Road searches let you down, I recommend either asking here on the High Road or head over to a brand-specific forum for more information. For example, if I really wanted to know something about CZs, I would visit http://www.czforum.com and ask the experts...

-s
 
Well, I've got a Glock and a Kahr that are probably ready to have their guts cleaned up, so I'll take Sven's advice and search around for clear instructions. I'm sure it's out there waiting to be learned. Thanks for the recommendations.
cg
 
I "detail stripped" my Browning Buckmark, paid a lot of attention to what I was doing, and even drew some diagrams. Put it back together (three or four times) and everything looked right, but it just didn't seem to function properly. So, tail between legs, brought it back to gun store for "complete reassembly" (that's what the receipt said). Fortunately, the place was packed when I brought it in, so everyone got to enjoy the fact that I can be a moron...;)
 
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