Cleaning your firearm is a pain sometimes! But, to keep it happy and functioning correctly, especially in an emergency, it must be clean! Who cleans theirs regularly? Sound off! I just finished cleaning Bertha and her children. They're ready for the next week!
My companion takes a shower every day. He also cleans his guns after every shoot. I am a bit more lazy. I had a terrible experience once taking apart one of my guns. Well, I took it apart okay but had a terrible time putting it back together and now I'm a little nervous about taking apart any of my guns. I really have to get over that. I really don't have anyone nearby who can help me if I have trouble reassembling any of my guns. A slightly dirty gun is much more dependable than a gun in pieces.
Lol! Yes, better a little dirt than in pieces! You definitely need to get with someone who can walk you through stripping and reassembly of it. If you're ever out at a range by yourself, you will need to know in case of an issue that would require tearing it down on the spot. Where do you live?
Maybe I'm a little crazy (well, no maybe about it), but I think you need to know how to do a detail strip and reassembly on all your guns, and do it a couple times a year at least, just to remind your fingers. I do a field strip and clean after every range trip, and a detail strip and clean every 300 rounds or so (this means the 22's get a detail job every range trip). This way, I know I can pop any one of my babies into my range bag and not have any troubles. A few "fouling shots", and a clean gun is ready to go. The "fouling shots" actually just settle the parts into their proper places, they don't lay down some magical crud that makes the gun function.
I live in Northern Illinois. I don't go shooting as often as I should or would like to because I don't have anyone to go with and I don't really like going alone. It would be wonderful to have a mentor.
Move to Texas... Lol look around, I'm sure there are plenty of folks willing to spend quality time at the range with you.
Because there are so few places to shoot around Los Angeles, nearly everybody winds up at the Angeles ranges. The master level shooters are mostly pretty friendly, I pestered them a lot! I was lucky to wind up with a shooting partner who is near master level. The trick is to talk to everybody at the range. The nuts will leave as soon as you talk to them, they get so unnerved that they can't shoot. The good guys will let you shoot their guns.
I imagine Texas as a sort of gun heaven, with Ken Maynard and Hoot Gibson riding in and out of small towns scattered across endless badlands! Is that about right?
I clean after every range visit or IDPA match. But I only field strip them. I've never broken them down beyond that. My carry gun has over 12000 rounds through it. At about 5000 rounds I had my gunsmith tear it down for a good cleaning. He said that was the cleanest used gun he'd seen in a long time.
It is possible. If the chamber is essentially perfect, you may be getting little or no gas leakage back into the gun. I've looked at thousands of pieces of 45 brass picked up at the range, and most guns leak a liberal amount of crap back into the action before the case seals, if it seals at all!
My carry gun is 9mm. Don't know if 9mm is less prone to leakage... Maybe the M factor in XDm gives me a match grade barrel that seals better.
Oops, my mistake. I'm very 45-centric. The SAAMI pressure for 45 is 21 ksi, for 9mm it's 35 ksi, more than enough to expand the brass to seal. Range 9mm brass does NOT typically show gas blow-by.
Field strip and clean after each range session. Detail strip and clean once a year. A wipe down once a week.
Y'all gotta 'member, no tupper-guns in my saddlebags. Don't wanna wake up 'morrow ta no gun with "character". Cocked, locked, and ready to throw like a rock:
It looks a little like one of those Browning Renaissance engraved jobs to me, but my eyes aren't all that good:
