Having been a shooter, reloader, and worked in the retail gun business I have heard many folks say they never or rarely clean their firearms. I'm posting this little tid bit about that topic on this forum rather than the rifle forum, because many of us carry for self defense. A while back I happened to be in the close proximity to a shooting and was questioned briefly by LE because I was obviously carrying on my hip when I opened my front door. The first thing the officer who made contact with me did was relieve me of my firearm. Although I wasn't too happy about him grabbing it off my hip before I even had my front door completely open, what choice did I have. Anyway, once he had it in hios hand he unloaded it and inspected it to see if it had been fired. I think since he had found someone wearing in the house next door to the shooting, he thought he had found the suspect as well. I say this because he said this gun has ben cleaned recently. I returned with no, do you smell any solvent? He gave it a sniff and then realized it had not been recently cleaned or fired and handed it back to me.
Now my point here is pretty obvious I think and one that I've instilled in my family that wears all the time, keep it cleaned! I always clean my guns right after shooting them and not just because it can help to eliminate me as a suspect, but also because a dirty gun can do bad things when you touch one off. A dirty gun that has not been cleaned in like forever can come appart unpredictably. A forcing cone with build up is a common culprit to catastrophic failure.
S&W said they took a K frame and put 250,000 rounds, yes 250,000, of 125 gr. full magnum rounds through it because of the wide spread hype about the forcing cone fracturing after being subjected to a regular diet of those small high pressure, high velocity rounds. They cleaned it after each 100 rounds and couldn't get it to fail at all. In fact, they stated that the revolver was just as tight as before the test. In their continued research they discovered that the most likely factor that contributed to the forcing cone failure's that were being encountered, was related to not cleaning the guns, and especially if non jacketed ammunition was put into the mix. Even just a few rounds of non jacketed will leave enough lead transfer on the forcing cone to quickly damage it.
I load and shoot 125 gr. jacketed through my K frame's almost exclusively. These are H110/296 powder charges. After thousands of these being put through my guns I have yet to find any evidense what so ever of impending damage.
Now my point here is pretty obvious I think and one that I've instilled in my family that wears all the time, keep it cleaned! I always clean my guns right after shooting them and not just because it can help to eliminate me as a suspect, but also because a dirty gun can do bad things when you touch one off. A dirty gun that has not been cleaned in like forever can come appart unpredictably. A forcing cone with build up is a common culprit to catastrophic failure.
S&W said they took a K frame and put 250,000 rounds, yes 250,000, of 125 gr. full magnum rounds through it because of the wide spread hype about the forcing cone fracturing after being subjected to a regular diet of those small high pressure, high velocity rounds. They cleaned it after each 100 rounds and couldn't get it to fail at all. In fact, they stated that the revolver was just as tight as before the test. In their continued research they discovered that the most likely factor that contributed to the forcing cone failure's that were being encountered, was related to not cleaning the guns, and especially if non jacketed ammunition was put into the mix. Even just a few rounds of non jacketed will leave enough lead transfer on the forcing cone to quickly damage it.
I load and shoot 125 gr. jacketed through my K frame's almost exclusively. These are H110/296 powder charges. After thousands of these being put through my guns I have yet to find any evidense what so ever of impending damage.
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