What? You have to clean them?

Japle

Japle

Member
Joined
Feb 28, 2005
Messages
1,128
Location
Viera, FL
Well, yeah.
I started getting failure-to-eject jams with my 9mm STI 2011. At first, I thought it was my handloads, but when I tried factory ammo, I had the same problem.
Humm, when did I last clean the extractor and channel? Couldn’t remember.
That’s a bad sign!
Man, the amount of hardened crud in there was amazing. I had the extractor set pretty tight and it just wasn’t able to flex far enough to release case rims.
Back when I was an armorer in the Army, I was hard on the guys who brought their guns in for inspection. My own M16 and 1911 were spotless.
But that was long, long ago and I’ve gotten lazy. I don’t clean my own ARs until they start to jam. If a gun is designated as a defense arm, I maintain it religiously. Before a hunt, I give the gun a through going-over.
But the day-to-day range guns don’t get much attention.
That’s gonna have to change.
 
Japle said:
...when I was...in the Army...My own M16 and 1911 were spotless.
But that was long, long ago and I’ve gotten lazy...the day-to-day range guns don’t get much attention.
Click to expand...
Same here. When I was in the Army, they essentially paid me to sit and clean rifles. As a civilian, getting lazy on gn cleaning is a necessity-especially if you're firing hundreds of rounds per week. If you've got a job (possibly even a second job), a family, other responsibilities, you just don't have the available hours to do the gun cleaning like we did in the military. I tried to keep up with it but just gave up.
 
Everyone I served with knows there is a spectrum of cleaning weapons. From the "you have been in the field for a week firing blanks at each other and need it to keep running" to "there is an inspection tomorrow, spotless." I still do them all depending on how dirty my firearm is. Most of the time I do enough routine cleanings where I don't have problems or need to spend hours cleaning one thing.
 
Japle said:
Well, yeah.
I started getting failure-to-eject jams with my 9mm STI 2011. At first, I thought it was my handloads, but when I tried factory ammo, I had the same problem.
Humm, when did I last clean the extractor and channel? Couldn’t remember.
That’s a bad sign!
Man, the amount of hardened crud in there was amazing. I had the extractor set pretty tight and it just wasn’t able to flex far enough to release case rims.
Back when I was an armorer in the Army, I was hard on the guys who brought their guns in for inspection. My own M16 and 1911 were spotless.
But that was long, long ago and I’ve gotten lazy. I don’t clean my own ARs until they start to jam. If a gun is designated as a defense arm, I maintain it religiously. Before a hunt, I give the gun a through going-over.
But the day-to-day range guns don’t get much attention.
That’s gonna have to change.
Click to expand...
How long do you typically wait before you clean your AR? Mine get pretty filthy after a case of cheap bulk ammo but with a lil lubricant in the right places, no cleaning is necessary. I don't really notice any fouling that bothers me until about 2K-3K rounds but even then just a lil CLP and a wipe down is all good. Just wondering if your AR actually chokes or you just clean it when it looks filthy.
 
Cleaning serves a second purpose also. I clean my guns after each range session to check for wear points and look for any problem areas like I once found in a Kel Tec 9mm with its cracked frame. That problem could have led to a "problem" if it hadn't been caught early.
 
I do a field-strip and clean every 200 to 400 rounds on the 1911s. No problems except for a box of bad ammo that caused conniptions in three weapons known to be reliable.
Yesterday snowed-in so took a couple of 1911s down to pins and springs. Not too bad except for the extractor tunnel. It was pretty sooted in both.
Range tomorrow to check a fix. Wife has a "Girls Only" function so have to go hide somewhere. Range time sounds like a good idea :thumbup:
We're getting snowed in again Monday so the other two 1911s get the pins and springs treatment.
I need the practice anyway.
 
Years ago I needed to borrow my brother-in-laws truck to haul some hay. On the way home with it the valves started rattling loudly. I pulled it over and found out that it was 4 quarts low on oil. When I told him about it he said he only put a quart of oil in it when the valves started rattling. He never uses the dipstick.
 
I don't clean my guns religiously. I do clean them occasionally though. Couple times a year or every couple hundred rounds. Some guns I clean every time I shoot them, like the one I carry, though I don't clean it spotless. Usually a 22 doesn't get much unless it starts jamming. I do wipe them down often though to prevent rust. I actually enjoy cleaning, but I enjoy it outside on a warm day while my kid watches. I don't enjoy doing it because I have to.
 
Yeah, me too.
Cleanest gun I own is the one I carry. Everything else is cleaned/lubed as needed. .22 rifles when they start to shoot a little loose, semi-autos when they start misbehaving. They all get wiped down before going back in the safe, though.
 
I clean mine to some extent (depending on how hard they are to take apart) every time I shoot them. The Glocks are easy to take down and clean thoroughly.
The Ruger MKlls just get a cursory cleaning.
I bought them around 1981, have shot the heck out of them and have never taken them apart with never a jam.
The others are usually somewhere in between.
 
Match rifles cleaned every session. Pistols cleaned every use. Ars and lever guns cleaned all the way every 2 or 3 trips. I go about every Saturday so the longest a gun is dirty is 2-3 weeks.
 
I wipe every gun down after use at a minimum. I will clean certain guns after eace use, others may go a time or two before I clean them. (Duty, defense guns or guns I know I won’t be shooting for quite a while get fully cleaned.)

I know a lot of guys do, but I can’t go along with waiting until they start failing to function before caring for my guns. To me, thats like waiting to look for a gas station to fill the tank after the car starts sputtering. YMMV.

Stay safe.
 
I will not abide a filthy gun! I carry and hunt with cleaned pieces and I carried a CLEANED one for over three decades as a LEO............Only a fool of the first order carries a device that could be called on to save his life that might not work

And yep, I've seen both cops and soldiers do it..............seen leos with vertigris on their revolver ammo to the point that it interfered with extraction..........soldiers, well if they shoot him cause his don't work thats one less round I have to worry about.

I'll say it again..........let it go far enough to malfunction then it's on you!
 
Thankfully, or sadly - depending on your PoV - I don't shoot much or often as there is no outdoor "public" range in the immediate area.
That being said, any time I do shoot more than 15 or 20 rounds (usu. .22LR), the rifle gets at least a minimal cleaning.
Some guns get cleaned after just a few rounds as those tend to be the "dirty" (corrosive) kind of ammo.
 
When a friend of mine bought a well used Haemmerli 214 (a target pistol in .22 LR), he said to me one day: "Thank God I found a manual for that pistol - otherwise I never would have guessed that there's a trigger adjustment screw underneath all that filth!". He also hates cleaning guns...
 
I have several guns that need cleaning right now and it's eating away at my soul.
Probably 10 guns that have less than 50 rounds each fired through them. LOL.
Been picking a different gun to take for walks over the last month.
I have a friend that doesn't clean his guns. It's like he can't even see the rust.
We went 4 wheeling and he didn't even put his rifle in a case. Just tossed it in the back to bounce around with the recovery gear.
 
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