How do you clean your blasters

[mikeg]

I am just interested in finding out how you clean your guns after use. Do you scrub the barrels with brass brushes, do you use solvents. Your opinions please.

[j1b]

I'm not too technical on this.

Generally I throw a brass brush down the barrel before I shoot any local match and I lube it up. I'm married to Break Free - I've never broken away from it so that's what I use generally always.

For a major once in a couple of months (or before a major match) I get some carb cleaner, dissassemble the gun down to its nitty bitty parts and spray everything down. The carb cleaner really pulls almost everything out and honestly makes a job I don't enjoy much a lot quicker. Then I go back through, wipe everything down, lube up all the critical parts and give the barrel a good working over with brass brush, solvent and pads.

JB

[Jasonub]

just swab bore and chamber with hoppes 9 leave for awhile and then tissue through it.

other parts are cleaned with fp10. lubed with slide glide

[Ray_Z]

I love WD-40. Not for a lube or a rust inhibiter. I don't think it really does a good job there. But as a cleaner it fits the bill. Then three or four swipes with the 'ol bore snake and I'm putting the noise maker back together.

[Little Bill]

A few months ago I altered my cleaning techniques to try what I had read in Bob Londrigan's front sight article (HERE)

I got a small air compressor for Christmas, and I really like the H20 method on the slide of my Open gun. Its fast, it cleans really well, and it doesn't involved squirting carcinigenic chemicals all over my basement. I scrub out the chamber of my barrel with a Q-tip, drop a Boresnake once or so down the pipe, and wipe down the bottom end. I then lube it up with Fp10 and Slide Glide.

[stingerjg]

i shoot all enclosed base bullets in my blasters. Rainier for the 40 and Zero JHP for the 38sc. So im not worried about lead build up in the barrel. Ill clean the chamber with a copper brush. But a dry bore snake is the only thing that i run down the barrel. Other than that i wipe everyting down with a rag or patches on a small screwdriver. I dont ever use any type of solvent on my pistols. I do use solvent in the barrels of my rifles. Every 5,000 rounds ill take everyting apart to all the small pieces and wipe em' down. Other than that i lube it and put it back together. On my open gun(the one i shoot the most), i dont clean it but every 1000 rounds. I just lube and shoot.

[TriggerT]

Every once and a while I whipe out the chamber and lude the top end. Otherwise I take the gun down to the springs every 5-6 thousand rounds and clean everything with brake cleaner. Then I re-lube all the parts and put it all back together. I clean the barrel out with a bronze brush and some Hoppes, but I dont go to crazy cleaning it. I barely have enough time to keep up with my reloading and practice, so cleaning the gun is a little lower on the list. Haven't had any problems thus far, and I know people who only clean their guns........well just about never.

[Kimberkid]

How to clean guns.....

1. Lock back slide

2. Hose gun down with brake cleaner

3. Let sit on rag for 20 minutes

4. Lube with FP 10

5. Shoot another season

[XRe]

I enjoy taking my toys apart and putting them back together, and I love the smell of petroleum chemicals, so....

Light cleaning - pull the slide off, and remove barrel and recoil spring assembly. Wipe everything down w/ a clean shop rag. Relube and reassemble.

Full cleaning - disassemble everything. Hose out frame, slide, and barrel w/ brake parts cleaner. Bronze brush through the bore w/ Hoppes #9 for a few strokes. Wrap patch around brush for one push through. Follow w/ dry patches until clean. Wipe of internals. Lube internals w/ normal oil lube concoction (50/50 10w40 and Slick-50). Lube hammer/sear engagement w/ JP Trigger Prep. Lube major moving parts w/ AFTEC blue grease (don't even know if this is around anymore, gotta call Rusty and see, cause I'm gonna run out!). Reassemble. Make noise.....

[Carlos]

I never ever clean the barrel on my .40 Limited SV, CZ-85 Combat or Glock 17. The chamber? Sure, I brush that out, but its been well over 10,000 rounds through each of the above guns with nothing down the bore other than bullets. I go the idea from Wil Schuemann's website - Wil makes "match grade" (whatever that means) barrels for 1911/2011.

Other than that, wipe down the rails & re-coat w/ slide glide, brush off the carbon & light coat of Slip 2000.

Regards,

D.C. Johnson

[Husker95]

When it gets really filthy I break it down to the springs and really scrub it good with Simple Green and the hottest water i can stand. Then dry quickly with the wife's old hair dryer so there is no problem with rust. I then put everything in a plastic bin and literaly bathe it in Break Free (CLP) and let it sit overnight. Then, I wipe off all but a thin coat and reassemble. This is for a pretty stock Springfield loaded and i think it has become noticeably "slicker" since I started using this method. Something about the hot, clean metal surfaces soaking up the Break Free during the overnight bath. I run lead exclusively so i wind up doing this a couple times a year.

[DougBarnes101]

The guy who works on my guns swears I just find some work for him to do on my gun and then bring it to him. He then needs to clean it before working on it. It seems to work for me.

[ipscron2000]

Clean my gun? What's that?

To tell you the truth it's all about what mood I'm in. If I'm bored, have allot of free time or going to a major match, it usually just gets shot. But when I do clean it's field stripping, electric motor cleaner, wipe with a rag, lube up with Synthetic 0w-30 motor oil. Works like a champ. And then about oncetd or twicetd a year it gets a full "feet up on the sturups" exam.

As long as it's reliable, I'm happy with it.

[mikeg]

Thanks for the inputs.

[mcoliver]

For people like me who seems to break things in their guns every cleaning session (just broke my sear , and my trigger job in the previous session), it should take no more than a simple exterior wipe down. Add some breech face scrubbing with a tooth brush at most.

[EricW]

Cleaning guns every couple hundred rounds is a waste of time. If you gun won't run with a little gunk, you need to get it fixed. I generally shoot 2 or 3 guns every time I go to the range. Then there's the hunting guns and my carry guns. If I gave them a head to toe scrubbing every time touched them, it would be all I would ever do. It's just not worth the effort. A little gunk has no meaningful effect on reliability or accuracy.

[George]

As long as I am shooting jacketed hollow points (enclosed base, no lead), I don’t really bother cleaning pistol barrels much. I just push a solvent patch through once in a great while to clean the chamber of powder residue as much as anything. Scrub with a copper brush, not anymore unless I am shooting lead bullets out of it.

--

Regards,

[SRT Driver]

2 minute clean -

Run a bore snake down the bore a couple times.

Get some Kroil on a Q-tip and clean out what you can see with the slide back, like the feed ramp.

Put a few drops of lube on the bbl hood and rails.

Get the finger prints off with a rag and throw it in the safe.

15 minute clean -

Take it apart every few thousand. Kroil and MPro7 for the bore work well...with lots of Q-tips.

[short_round]

For people like me who seems to break things in their guns every cleaning session

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I have this same problem ... so I don't really clean my guns.

[JerryDGeek]

I use to clean my guns anytime they have been fired.

This is a good policy. But I'm old, and fat, and lazy.

Now, I fieldstrip the gun after every match (or practiceI and wipe it down. Paper towls are good for this, if you do it before the gunk has time to set.

For the bore, I use any reasonable solvent (Hoppe's, Simple Green, etc.) and use a bronze bore brush. Precede and follow that with a solvent-soaked rag on a stick. Follow it with ... a solvent-soaked rag on a stick. Then a couple of dry rags on a stick.

Wipe everything you can see with a solvent-soaked rag, until you don't see any more blacky accumulations.

Then use brake cleaner to wash away the residue.

Oil the bejimmineze out of if. The lightest oil you can use, for the climatic conditions the better. I use sewing machine oil during cold weather, and synthetic motor oil in hot weather. Slide Glide is okay in the hottest weather, but perhpas not the best choice the rest of the year. Slide Glide is a grease ... you want oil, because it will help rinse away powser reside.

Once a year, I take the gun to a gunsmith for a thorough detail cleaning.

Do NOT use WD-40 on your gun, or your gunsmith will not respect you. It's too cheezy, and doesn't get rid of gunk in the parts you can't get to when you field-strip your gun. Listen to your gunsmith.

Lubrication is at least as important as cleaning your gun. You need to get the gunk off your gun, by dissolving it ... and then sluice it off with massive doses of degreaser. That's why the cost-effective influence of Brake Cleaner is helpful. After that, oil it up to provide lubrication and prevent rusting.

Don't forget to oil the exterior parts of your gun, but it's more important to oil the interior parts. If you over-oil it interiorly, the oil will seep out. Wipe your gun's exterior parts with a clean, dry rag when you're done.

If you don't have exterior plastic parts, you can clean your pistol in your dishwasher, this is no joke. You need to oil it thoroughly when you're done to keep it from rusting, even if it's stainless steel. This is not good for elecronic dot-sights, so don't do this with parts which will be adversely affected by copious amounts of hot water and soap.

Simple Green is good Hoppe's is better. Always oil your gun copiously after cleaning. Wipe off excess oil when you're done. Put lots of oil on your gun. Wipe off the excess.

Oil your gun. Clean the bore frequently; use a bore brush or wrap a copper dish scrubber around a stick and scrub it, then use more solvent. Consider a Lewis Lead Remover or a Hoppe's equivalent. If you use soft lead bullets, it will lead up your bore to the point where the tun won't shoot consistently. Don't use swaged bullets or soft lead bullets.

What have I forgotten?

No lead in the bore.

No powder-residur crud on the exterior surfaces.

No rust ANYWHERE!

Once a year ... or better ... have your gunsmith detail-clean the interior of your gun because you (like me) are too ignorant to detail disassemble the gun without screwing it up.

Keep it oiled ... more is better.

Yeah, that pretty much covers it.

Everything else is just detail. If it doesn't adversely affect your accuracy or functional reliability, you don't need it.

[DJPoLo]

Do NOT use WD-40 on your gun, or your gunsmith will not respect you.  It's too cheezy, and doesn't get rid of gunk in the parts you can't get to when you field-strip your gun.  Listen to your gunsmith.

No disrespect intended here, but my gunsmith highly recommends WD40 to clean his hard chromed guns. Field strip, spray liberally with WD40, use toothbrush to clean off black stuff, blow off parts with air compressor, lube liberally with FP10 (Trigger Slick on hammer & sear) and reassemble.

It's simple, so I like this procedure.

-Chet

[folsoml]

I cheat. My agency has a Crestor Ultrasonic cleaner in the armory. All I have to do is disassemble it, put it in the cleaning solution for a half hour, blow it off with compressed air, put in the oil bath for ten minutes, wipe it off, and throw it back together. Best thing since pre-sliced bread. The hot cleaning sloution is hard on the fiber optic sights though.

[azjogol]

Am I glad I found this thread. Being a novice to guns (by comparrison to all of you) I have definitely been over cleaning my guns. I was always told to clean after each and every use, which means spend at least 30 minutes with solvents that are apparently overpriced, toothbrushes, q-tips, tons of patches, and all the fancy "specialty" lubes.

I generally only shoot copper plated if not solid copper bullets, but defintiely only copper through my autos.

When I am done shooting lead through a revolver, I make a few passes with a brass brush while the gun is still piping hot, since I was told it's the best time to get the build-up out with minimal effort.

Great tips. Many thanks to all!

[folsoml]

No disrespect intended here, but my gunsmith highly recommends WD40 to clean his hard chromed guns.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I was always taught that WD40 had too much penetrating ability to be used on guns. Supposedly, it would penetrate into the primers and render them useless, and therefore render the bullets useless. Maybe this was intended for duty guns that would be kept loaded most of the time, as opposed to competition guns that would only be loaded right before you start shooting.

[cking]

I just take a stiff bristle brush to mag well area, and M-16 style brush to around the chamber area oil and put away thats it.

Now if gun has to be worked on, broken or modifying. Take it apart, got a little screen thing to keep small parts in. Then it all goes in the dishwasher. Don't tell the wife.

Comes out so spanking clean you wouldn't believe it. Its so degreased that it is even good for cold bluing.

I stopped sending my guns off for bluing, because I hair dryer the parts after coming out of dishwasher, then I just take cotton ball and my nitrile gloves and old plastic dish and rub the cold bluing all over and then dry again. Then back into dishwasher again, then blue again. Then dry and wash with hot plain water and soak with you favorite lube.

Comes out look like a dark almost black factory blue. Will last about three years of handling on my regular use IPSC pistol.

This can be all done while watching a movie in evening and working during the commericals.