shooting a dirty gun

[moooose102]

i went out shooting yesterday, first time in way to long (stinking snow!). anyway, when i was changing mags, i accidently droped the full one in the sand. of couse, it was loaded with lead bullets that had been coated with liquid allox. my first though was to just put it aside and clean things up when i got home. after shooting a while, i thought, hmmmm, i have always been a clean freak with my guns, what if i ever dropped it and HAD to shoot? i had never tested for this, and had no idea if the gun would work, or jam. so, when all the rest of the ammo was gone, i ran that dirty mag through to see what would happen. it fired fine, no issues. of course, i cleaned it as soon as possible afterwards. i could see no problems caused by the dirt (sand) other than there were some peices laying around. i would not even think about continuing shooting long term that way, unless it was a necessity. but it is nice to know it will shoot that way if i need to. there is a part of me that would like to trow it into a mud puddle, shake it off, and see if it would work. but i just cant bring myself to do that. anybody else done similar? on purpose, or by accident?

 

[MaterDei]

I spent 11 years in the Army and during that time often shot dirty weapons, it just couldn't be avoided. Sometimes it went well, other times I was sling shotting. I'm talking about M16s and M60s, not a sidearm which was easier to keep clean.

What kind of weapon were you shooting?

 

[The Lone Haranguer]

If I have the luxury of time to strip and clean such a firearm, I will stop shooting and put it away until I have such time. If my life depends on it right then I will shoot it dirty without hesitation.

 

[gafirefighter]

I normally do some sort of torture test on any weapon that I will use to protect my life or the life of my family. I have never thrown a firearm in the mud, but that does not mean that I have not thought about it. Normally my tests revolve around prolonged shooting will little to no cleaning. Normally about 1000 rounds.

I keep a log of my firearms and the date and number of rounds that have been fired through them. If I ever have any malfunction a record with with the date. There are certain guns that I own that I would have not problem throwing in the mud and others that I just could not.

Glad to hear it worked well for you. I would also be interested to hear what weapon you were using at the time.

Adam

 

[moooose102]

well, this was my Taurus 24/7 Pro. 45 acp. i had shot 88 rounds through it before i slid in the dirty 12 round magazine. all were 230g LRN handloads. part of me wants to do more torture testing, but a bigger part of me says "hey dummy, that is a lot of wear on the gun" so i am not sure how much more i will be doing. it will probably either a mistake (by dropping it) and / or i will have to be in just the right frame of mind to do more of this.