Marlin clean and lube.

[AJC1]

I know everyone has their own process for cleaning and living their guns. My dad was not a cleaner at all, and I never owned a decent cleaning rod and jags until a few years ago. So the bench rest guys scrub to hospital steril and the prs guys shoot till chunks stop things up and they cant hit the target. What is a sane approach to lever gun maintenance. I broke down my 357 trapper and it was filthy. I put 300 rounds through it since I brought it to my house, cant immagine they get that dirty that fast. Break it down how much how often.....

 

[herrwalther]

Lever guns are remarkably low maintenance. Which is one reason why they are so popular from the Civil War to today with little change in the mechanisms. Typically I clean my lever guns by taking out the bolt and that is it as far as dissassembly goes. Spray down the bolt with your choice brand of gun cleaner and wipe it off. Use a brush to make sure the breach face around the firing pin is clear of carbon and crud. With the bolt out you can get to the barrel. Inspect the bore for copper or lead fowling (depending on what you shoot) every few hundred rounds or so to see if you use bronze scraping brush to get deep in the rifling. Based on what you have said so far you will want to do so anyway. Run wet patches down the barrel until you don't see black on them. Then run a few dry patches down to clean up the oil. Unless you start having problems there isn't much need to do more than this.

 

[Roverguy]

Well, depends on use and ammunition. I have a few lever guns in 45 Colt, a few in 30-30, and one in 30-40. The 45s get pretty dirty, so they probably get the barrel cleaned every outing and the receiver taken down and cleaned every 3-4 times out. The 30-30s run remarkably clean and may or may not get a barrel cleaning every couple of uses. Innards probably only get cleaned twice a year if that. 30-40 is a Win 95 and quite unpleasant to take down. Shoot a lot of cast over IMR4227, so the barrel needs cleaning regularly. The cruel and unusual punishment that constitutes taking down the receiver does not get done annually…