How clean is your firearm?

B

Bartholomew Roberts

Moderator
At what point do you decide "OK, its clean - time to call it a day"?

Is it OK to leave a little baked on carbon in the corners? on the feed ramp? chamber?

Does that last patch have to be absolutely white as snow or are a few faint grey streaks OK?

Personally, I have noticed that while I tend to be fanatic about my pistol (metal shiny where possible, no black crud, patches absolutely white... I tend to be a little more forgiving with my rifles (bore-snake and lube, occasionally some copper solvent.)

So I was just curious - what are your standards? What do you consider clean?
 
Greetings,

Clean enough to always work right and avoid corrosion and loss of accuracy. IMHO that's about 98% clean overall (field stripped), 99% for the bore.

or, minimally,

Clean enough to accurately and reliably shoot twice as much ammo as you carry around with you.

Regards,

Ledbetter
 
How clean are my firearms? Well that depends on which one. My rifles are sparkling clean. I clean them immediately after a range session. Depending on how long I'm at the range, I sometimes clean there too.

On the other hand, my pistols are a different story. My carry gun I keep relatively clean. My comp guns I clean every 1000-1500 rounds. Sometimes even longer. I've gone up to 3000 rounds on my race gun already. Now, I do wipe down the feed ramp and other minor areas. You may laugh but attend an ISPC shoot and ask the serious shooters how often they clean their guns. The answer will suprise you.

In my opinion, a "good" gun should fire at the very minimum 1000 rounds without cleaning before failure. My carry guns (full size Les Baer Concept III and Wilson CQB) can perform this task easily).

On the other hand, I have sweet shoot'n full house custom 1911's that I clean after every range session. I do that more or less to preserve the beauty of the pistol. Granted, I might shoot them once a month.

A gun is a tool. Nothing more, nothing less. If you wish to clean your gun all the time, you can play with Murphy's law. To each his own.
 
BTW, if some of you think I don't clean my guns because I'm lazy, keep in mind I have an Outer's Foul Out and an Ultra Sonic cleaner. It doesn't get any faster then with those two components.
 
White as my a**. It's timestaking but worth it.

------------------
"Are You Gonna Bark All Day Little Doggie, Or Are You Gonna Bite?"
 
All my center-fire guns are cleaned after each shooting session. The patch is allowed to only have a very slight discoloration.
On my .22, that sucker is lucky if it gets cleaned every decade. Stainless steel is awesome! It's still far more accurate than I am. I can't tell you group sizes or even what an X-Ring is. I'm one of those unscientific shooters. I shoot only beer bottles, light bulbs, and other glass objects found in my parent's trash dump. For all of you relegated to the range, you just have to try this sometime. If you can find a suitable place (where broken glass isn't a problem) shoot the bottles. Can't tell you what a stress reliever it is. I'm tryin' to find someone at the produce department to give me the rotten fruits to shoot, but no success. I guess my .22 has had pretty close to 10,000 rounds shot through it so far. A testament to the Ruger.
My Centerfire rifles and handguns are babied. Cleaned, oiled, and lovingly cared for.
 
I clean my guns after every range/shooting session. The only gun I don't clean is a CYI(?) .22 (the gun is so old that the markings are blurred). If I clean it, the accuracy is horrible. If it's dirty, and the dirtier the better, the accuracy actually improves a great deal. Hey, don't ask me, it a French thing I guess (it was made in france).

USP45usp
 
I've gone well over 1000 rds with my carry gun without a cleaning, and it still acted like it was clean as a whistle. After I take it to the range, I'll wipe the outside of the barrel, the feedramp, and the breechface with a clean patch, then I add some oil to the cone barrel. That's about it. It get's cleaned about every 500 rds. or so. My rifles get cleaned after every range trip. My 22's never get cleaned until they start choking.
 
Earlier this year I tried to get my SIG P220 dirty enough to jam. It got filthy, but never jammed. I finally broke down and cleaned cause it hurt to look at. Now she's clean as whistle.

I baby my centerfire rifles and my 10/22T, and I clean my pump shotguns every August whether they need it or not ;), just like my pickup.

"Happiness is a dirty truck"
 
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