Back when raccoon were $20 with the hide on, we ran hunting dogs after dark.
The .22 rifles would see a box or two (50 to 100 rnds) in a night.
Running after raccoon there were two types of shooters.
The accurate type that usually stop and take aim at a running coon (low successe rate) and the guys that would run full tilt and fireing and walk rounds into a fleeing coon (better hit ratios) so the particular firearm that seen heavy use was the Marlin model 60 and the backup Ruger 10/22.
The marlin was a well liked killing machine but as round count climed thru the night more stoppages would happen.
Dirty dust/dirt/cold environment and dirty burning economy ammo.
The .22's would see some cleaning before the next outing.
Rugers are great at dropping mags when your hoofing it thru cornstalks after dark (best place to lose a $24 magazine), they had a very fine rear sight that was horrible to use at night and was prone to breakage.
Also cleaning is good time to see if your sights are still in good shape as those rear sight elevators have a tendancy of dropping out as your crossing marshes and passing thru fences and brush popping.
Helps to add a quick refrence mark to your sights to see if your sights shifted in dark.
With rimfires keeping them clean for reliability, and less stress on moving parts and longer life of all parts in general if you avoid lubricating them with liquid cement in a can (WD-40) than use a quality lubricant.
Really Dirty guns break parts.
Cap and Ball revolvers can break the spring on the hand assembly.
As gummed up Colt 1860 revolver gets harder to thumb hammer back for next shot can really stress that hand spring, given long enuf abuse will cause that spring part to break off.
Cleaning is only a minor part of firearm maintenance.
You dissemble it to clean But also inspect your firearm for parts wear and breakage.
A fact I was running my thumb over the rough edge of my Rem 552 disconnector revealed it was missing a fair chunk of it!!
As what is plain for all to see took me over a year to realize I had a cracked cartridge lifter!
That part though cracked still worked flawlessly.
Of course I was looking for a failuer to fire at the time so was not looking too close at the ctg lifter.
Cleaning is when you notice the hammer plunger and spring are rather aneamic from 30 years of built up sludge, lube varnish and powder grime so bad that the hammer plunger was half stuck down in fire control group.
In end couldnt clear problem till it was completely torn down to remove rust and burrs and replace the collapsed hammer spring with a new one.
https://www.gboreloaded.com/forums/index.php?topic=285923.0
Here is an example of a reason to clean after shooting
A pilot from work took to toteing a Stubby .454 casull revolver (I think S&W)
He shot revolver for qualifications and at home cleaning went to depress the cylinder latch to discover the tbumb piece had busted off!
Imagine if he didnt clean and discover that issue till he was 80 miles from any place.
Or worse yet, discover it missing when reloading it in a bear encounter? (Weak arguement) yet he only discovered it missing after he got home!
It seems it was the last bit of the day and dusk setting on and he stuffed the 'empty' revolver back in its case (had to use release)
Back home, No cylinder latch button!
Not in its hard case, not in range bag, not any of the places he retraced steps searching for that missing part.
