Handguns and a day at the beach

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Bryson

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Had a friend ask me today about taking a handgun to the beach. Other than corrosion and sand, I couldn't see a problem with it. That's not to say that those aren't two really big problems. I was kind of wondering about it myself though, and the gun that came to mind was the HK USP Mark 23, since it was made for SOCOM and such, I figured it'd handle it as long as it was cleaned up after.

Any ideas?
 
Not sure, I spent 9 days at a beach house in Tampa with a Glock 20.
Didn't have any corrosion problems at all.
I'm sure sweating directly on it is worse than having it exposed to air.
Worst case is you'd have to take it apart every day and oil it. (That's what I had to do when I brought my parked 1911 first time).
 
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A gun shop here on the coast(S TX) has lot's of problems with rust in the barrels.. mostly new Kimbers for some reason.
 
Carried a little Beretta pocket pistol with me last time I was on the beach. Surprising how little sand it takes to grit up an action.
 
While I doubt that either of us could conceal a Mark 23 on the beach, concealing one at all is a challenge in itself I would guess. The reason I bring it up is because it's supposed to be super reliable in all kinds of conditions so that the special forces guys that it was designed for didn't have to strip and clean their guns in the middle of an operation.

But thanks for the replies. If it really takes as little sand as you make it sound like to bif up an action, then I guess it probably isn't worth it.
 
It'd be fun to try to design a sand-proof handgun - maybe a blowback, with a shroud over the moving breech component? Designed to blow a puff of air up through the ejection port when it cycles?

Around the time of the Iraq invasion started I heard some people claim that the big opening on top of Berettas made them more sandproof - I haven't heard that claim lately, did it hold water? (so to speak!)
 
the special forces guys that it was designed for didn't have to strip and clean their guns in the middle of an operation.
Click to expand...

This is kind of a misnomer. You do clean your weapon during a mission (operation). The reliability is so it won't go down so easily between cleanings or during a fight.

Everytime I've brought a pistol through surf it was in a taped up plastic bag. I could have fired it (once anyway) by jamming my finger through the plastic. But I carried the rifle in bare. Once we were off the beach and into the hinterland we would strip and clean the rifles at the first lengthy stop. They would typically function fine, between insert and the first stop if you taped 'em up and oiled 'em good prior to insert. You try not to stay on the beach and in the surf very long.
 
Bryson,
I don't mean to discourage you. The gun would've fired fine had I needed it, but required a detailed cleaning when I got it back.

If I were going to do it again, I'd probably go for a nickeled snubby.
 
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