cleaning your Weapon

Reading the previous posts it strikes me that "More guns have been damaged by poor technique when cleaning" would be more the actual events than the frequency of cleaning.
 
I clean every time after I shoot it. If you want to trust your guns 100% then you need to maintain them.

I don't go crazy on it though. After three swabs through the barrel I call it clean, even if the patches still show some residue. A little seasoning left in the barrel won't hurt it.
 
Not every time after being at the range. It all depends on how dirty it is. Most of my guns don't lead up, so I don't worry about it until I feel they need it. Doesn't hurt a thing and if you shoot a lot, you know when it's 'time'. Oh course if it is being 'retired' to the safe for a long period, it will get cleaned. But the working guns? Just when they need it. Of course if shooting black powder, then yes ... that same evening the guns(s) are getting a good cleaning and oiling.
 
Generally clean the auto after each 200 rnd session. Revolver after each session, rnd count usually less than 200.
 
As my father would say: "You shoot a gun; you clean a gun."

I clean my guns after every shoot. How thorough depends on how many rounds.
 
No James, not over the top, maybe a little more than some people and probable some what less than others.

But you can't fault someone for taking good care of their firearms investment.

I rotate my firearms cleaning every 6 months even if I haven't fired that gun, just to make sure there is a coating of oil to protect the metal. For the outside I use a silicon cloth and put a film of that on them to protect them.

So, no you are not over the top.

Stay safe and healthy.
Jim
 
Great news.
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My round count and so scrub count is still low enough that I could have avoided unnecessary wear had it been over-zealous technique!
 
I should but don't keep track of firing-pin/striker cleanings. Many manuals don't show how and is understandable. Easiest IMO is the 1911. Others can get hairy, tiny springs, detent balls, safeties and pin blocks. And gets worse with roll pins and fasteners that are like rivets. :o
 
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Howdy

OK, this is the Revolver Forum, right?

So how many of you have actually experienced a revolver that malfunctioned or refused to fire because it had not been cleaned recently?

I can understand cleanliness being next to godliness with a semi-auto. A slide that refuses to slide, or a round that jams entering the chamber, or something like that.

But we are talking about revolvers here!

I have dozens, yes dozens of revolvers. I have been shooting them since the 1970s. I have never once, no, not once, had a revolver that got so gummed up from a lack of cleaning that it refused to fire.

Yes, many of us have fond memories of Dear Old Dad, or Dear Old Grandpa, or our Dear Old Drill Instructor, telling us to clean our weapon after every use.

Guess what folks. Most of us are shooting Smokeless Powder here. If you want to talk Black Powder, and how often I clean, let's go over to the Black Powder section. But what Dear Old Dad or Grandpa told you may have sounded good, and been good for character building, but cleaning a revolver that has been shot with Smokeless Powder after every use is simply unnecessary. As for Dear Old Drill Instructor, part of his job was to keep you busy all the time, and cleaning a weapon was part of keeping you busy. Yeah, if you had an early M16, it had to be kept super clean. But getting back to revolvers, and lever guns for that matter, clean it every time you shoot it if you want, but I have better things to do.

I clean them when they need it, and not before.

Now, should we talk about how to remove those nasty carbon rings from the front of the cylinder? Can you guess what my answer is to that?

P.S. Yes, I have bought plenty of old revolvers, guns that are older than me, that were so crudded up inside that they that needed a good cleaning inside. Old oil that had polymerized into varnish and needed to be removed, then relubricated. But that is not routine cleaning. That is taking the guts out and cleaning everything down to bare metal, then relubricating and putting it back together again. And once it has been done, it does not need redoing for many years.
 
As my father would say: "You shoot a gun; you clean a gun."
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My dad said it first!:D

I am always interested to hear from so many people who clean infrequently when these threads are posted. I suppose I will plead guilty to cleaning after each shooting only because it has been drummed into me and I have done it for so long. I have experienced no failures either from dirty or excessively cleaned firearms, however.

(OK, that isn't entirely, true either. The extraction claw on my Beretta Neos is necessarily small and hard to clean, and I have experienced extraction failures when I didn't do as good a job as I should have at cleaning it.)
 
So how many of you have actually experienced a revolver that malfunctioned or refused to fire because it had not been cleaned recently?
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I've done it. I've shot one to the point where it gummed up and the cylinder refused to rotate. Namely, on a week long camping trip and I forgot to bring a cleaning kit.

Off topic, but: It's amazing how differently we think when we were younger. A few decades back, when I decided to bring a gun on a camping trip, my first thought would be: grab many hundreds of rounds of ammo! Fun fun fun! Now days, my first thought would be: bring the cleaning kit. :p
 
More guns are destroyed by over cleaning then under cleaning.
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Sure, if you don't know what you are doing. Once had a guy tell me that cleaning a gun more than a couple of times per year could damage the gun due to losing springs and/or screws.

If I shoot it, it gets cleaned. If I don't shoot it and have been wearing for a week, it gets cleaned. I do a lot of shooting every week. It rarely happens but if I put even a single round thru a gun, it gets cleaned. For the revolvers, they get field stripped by taking off the cylinder. Not a time consuming chore and actually makes the gun easier to clean than if the cylinder were not removed.

My guns are my lifesavers. Never want a gun to fail because I was too lazy to clean it and I will certainly never fear an "over cleaning" as long as I am the guy that cleans it.
 
for me, it makes a difference on what gun, what the conditions were, when it was shot ( was it hot & humid, raining, below zero outside ??? ) & how many rounds were fired ( my guns are all stored in a temperature & humidity controlled walk in gun safe room ) if they were stored in a non humidity controlled environment, I'd admit to cleaning them all more often

talking revolvers, since this is the revolver section... I have stainless revolvers that I can't remember the last time they were actually cleaned ( my hands sweat more than normal ) so I'll almost always wipe them down with a rag... after a couple spritzes of spray oil, when I'm putting them away...

then I have some high polish blued guns, that get wiped down every time I touch them, & cleaned every time they are fired, no matter how many rounds...
 
I don't quite buy the idea that so many guns are damaged by cleaning, either, at least not if the cleaning is appropriate. If you tell me that frequent detail stripping increases wear I might be more on board, and if you tell me that errors in reassembly cause damage and failures, I would assent with considerable vigor.
 
I was always under the impression, that it was cleaning rods, jags & improper brushing / swabbing techniques that caused most of the problems... on chamber throats, crowns, & cylinders ( talking handguns )
 
For the revolvers, they get field stripped by taking off the cylinder. Not a time consuming chore and actually makes the gun easier to clean than if the cylinder were not removed.
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Unless I fired only a few rounds through it, the cylinder gets removed.

I agree. It's just one screw; and makes the process so much easier.
 
I'd also guess that screw heads ( & even threads ) would wear over time, even if using a "proper" screw driver... wrong screw driver & those slots get ugly, with only one slip...
 
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