Cleaning Your Guns

S

ScotchMan

New member
How often do you clean your guns, and how often do you NEED to clean your guns? Obviously a carry gun should always be kept clean, but I'm curious how long it takes before a gun can no longer be expected to be reliable. 100 rounds? 500 rounds? Should it always function regardless of maintenance?

Just gathering opinions here...I tend to clean my guns every couple range trips. However, I'm "breaking in" my SR9c and want as few variables as possible to determine if issues crop back up. Should I be cleaning it every time, or keep to the regular schedule of whenever I feel like it, ie every few range trips?
 
I've always been in the habit of cleaning my guns after every trip to the range. Sometimes, I'll even strip em down and just lube them if I feel they've just sat in the safe for too long. But then again, I enjoy cleaning my guns. :D
 
Carry gun should be maintained regularly. I will give my daily carry a visual every day and weekly field strip. I sweat bunches and living in FLA heat humidity. Just me. All guns get cleaned after range sessions because I shoot lead bullets. Asking about round counts and reliability will get a lot of opinions on varying handguns. Why not experiment with what you own and see how many rounds you can put down range before reliability goes out the window.:eek:
 
For me, it depends on the rounds fired between "maintenances". Usually, every 200 rounds I take them down and clean them thoroughly. I use Browning Legia gun oil. It cleans and lubricates. I may fire 100 rounds and field strip, have a visual check, and although you can see the gun powder residue, you realize there's still a good layer of lubricant doing its job.
 
i hate cleaning guns. if i do clean its just a wipedown of the rails, slide and barrel and then reoil with breakfree especially inside the barrel. it might get a boresnake run through it every now and then.
 
I own many guns and some of them sit in the safe for long periods of time between shootings. So anytime I take one to the range, it gets cleaned and relubed before putting it away. I also will take them out of the safe and give them a wipe down with a light coat of oil every six months or so. Some people may consider that overkill, but it can get rather humid here in Georgia during the summer months. The last thing I want is to take a gun out of the safe and find rust.
 
Not only do I like cleaning my guns, but I like waxing them too.

I use Meguiar's Gold Class Carnauba Plus Paste Wax on the exterior of my pistols now. I just rub it on like I would wax a car. Then I polish it out with a cotton cloth and my slide has a fairly hydrophobic coating on top of the gun's finish.

Not for parkerized or rough finishes - like if you have stipling - it's going to look horrible. It looks great on my tennifer. I do like the protective coating it leaves. After I've done a lot of dry firing, I put another coat on.

If I can't go to the range for some reason, I take solace in cleaning them and waxing them. I usually clean them once every two weeks.
 
I clean my handguns right after I fire them but I will only spray and wipe down my shotguns after doing so. Every few years, I will take my long arms down and give them a good cleaning.


P.S. If anyone needs to learn how to strip and clean your Glocks, go to a site called eyehandy.com and let Ashley show you. Warning: This is only for adult males who won't be offended. My buddy sent the link to me recently after I told him about my G23 order. He thought I may need this type of instruction. I warned you!
 
"Never let the sun set on a dirty gun."

Good advice when I got it a long time ago.

This doesn't necessarily mean one has to tear down the gun to a nubbin and scrub the fire out of it, although you do need to do that once in a blue moon. Just field strip, clean and lube lightly and away you go. Don't have to be perfect. Half the point is to inspect things and make sure they are OK, as in not bent or broken or loose.

Good insurance.
 
I usaually clean after a range session. My walther p22 and sig p238 start acting funny after about 200rounds. My glock keeps rocking past 500rounds. My AK never, not yet anyways.

@ftttu thanks for the eyehandy! HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
 
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Pretty much after every range trip for my sig. My sig(with .22 kit attached) used to do fine for 400+ rounds. Had some issues recently due to my failure to get some of the gunk out of the smaller spaces(mostly the extractor area), but after an extra thorough cleaning those went away. Now I'm more careful in cleaning the nooks and crannies during a field strip. My BDA-9 however runs like a champ dirty as all heck, I let it build up for awhile before doing a thorough cleaning during field strip. Normally it just gets the points of contact(rails etc) and barrel cleaned and relubed after the range. But it also sees far fewer rounds per trip than my sig does.
 
Practically speaking, it should always be clean n lightly lubed. But I personally like to know what I'm working with, and I'll push my guns to the point of FTF so that I know what my boundaries are ;)
 
Always clean them as soon as I get home from the range. Since I have not been to the range in about a month, I took my guns out and gave them a quick once over and reapplied some oil.
 
How often do my guns get cleaned? I do so after ever outing regardless if it's 50 rds of 1000 rds. If they don't get shot I field strip them at least once a month and wipe them down.

How often do they NEED to be cleaned?? Not sure. I've run close to 1500 rds through a Sig 229 over a long week of shooting and at least as many through various revolvers without any failures but they were well cleaned and lubed before those outings.

I have a S&W 22A that is the favorites of our girl friends and they'll put a couple thousand rounds through the gun on a typical weekend and it hasn't given me any headaches since the first few mags. Can't tell you when the last failure was.
 
Practically speaking, it should always be clean n lightly lubed. But I personally like to know what I'm working with, and I'll push my guns to the point of FTF so that I know what my boundaries are
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That's kind of what I was thinking. I have a friend with a P229 who has never cleaned it for the same reason. Sounds like most people here don't let it get that far :)
 
I clean my guns after every range use, my father did it for 40+ years and his guns are all in great shape.

If I am not firing the gun, I like to break down and examine each of my handguns (I only have two right now) about once every 1-2 weeks. I like to cycle a few rounds and make sure everything still feels normal. After another 500 rounds I think its about time for my 226 to get a new recoil spring. Every month or so I will brush off any lint/dust/misc stuff that might build up from being around the house. As a collection grows, I can imagine this becomes increasingly and exponentially difficult so I imagine I will have to make concessions about having 1-3 "go to guns" and others that are in "storage".
 
I always at least field strip and clean my guns the day of shooting (despite my girl's protests :rolleyes: ). Do you have to---depends on the gun. There are a few well documented cases of Glocks and AKs with thousands upon thousands of rounds without a failure. But, the way I look at it, why would you want to take the chance?

Also, if you're using corrosive ammo, not removing the fouling could actually damage your gun...
 
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