After taking a ration of s**t from certain people over cleaning my guns too much, I decided to perform a little experiment... I've taken my Smith & Wesson SW1911 to the range twice so far, putting ~ 60 rounds through it both times (once with rather dirty Tulammo) and my Sig Sauer P226 the same number of times, only with ~ 75-90 rounds each trip. I'm going to bring both guns to the range without cleaning until one has a failure of some sort (and then I will clean them both obsessively).
The revolvers are easier - when they get too gunked up to get rounds into the cylinder or when the cylinder stops turning easily, it's time to clean. They also tend to shoot more lead-nosed ammo (my gun club's indoor range is lead-ammo-only) and get fouled sooner. Usually the revolvers are only good for a couple ~ 50 round trips before they need a quick scrubbing (note to self: Do *NOT* use the bore brush on the 360!). The indoor range is an absolute blessing in the winter - given that outdoor shooting stops at dusk plus the indoor range is heated - but the lead ammo gets things awfully dirty quickly.
I'm curious to see which will happen first: Will one of the two guns have a failure, or will my gun cleaning OCD break me and force a cleaning session?
That is all.
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9 comments:
Try it with an AR, particularly if you are shooting outdoors prone on a sandy range. You will quickly realize why Infantry Soldiers and Marines are absolutely obsessive about cleaning their weapons. Sand and the M16 = fail. Things are a little better now that they learned not to CLP anymore.
In 1998 I ran an AR-15 for 6 months without cleaning, it did get a bit slow in rapid fire, but never failed round count was around 1200 rounds.
Handguns I run an average of 300 rounds before cleaning
I'm going with the OCD
I'm curious to see which will happen first: Will one of the two guns have a failure, or will my gun cleaning OCD break me and force a cleaning session?
Yes, and that's where my money is.
:)
My money is on the OCD.
Having visions of Jay high on Hoppes fumes, working at a corner bench lit by a single sixty-watt bulb, madly scrubbing away at little parts with an old toothbrush, gently rocking back and forth, muttering, "The dirt! The dirt! We hates it, precious, yes we does!"
I'm willing to bet your OCD wins this one.
That being said, I ran a P-22 into the thousands before I finally ran into issues with the slide stop not releasing smooth enough to satisfy me, and both my P99 and M&P15 have run into the thousands on class weekends with no discenrable hiccups, mostly with sightly dirty reloads. I'd wager the Sig woulddo the same, and I confess I'm not familiar enough with the SW1911 to proffer an opinion.
When I first got my Beretta 96, I ran about 250 rounds through it, without any cleaning, and no lube whatsoever. After the last mag, I felt bad, and cleaned it.
Darn thing ran like a champ, so my vote is that you break down first.
I've got a 226 I used as my primary gun for a "Combat Focus" shooting class over three days. Round count without cleaning was over 1500 when I ran out of ammo - the gun was still working like a champ!
Your OCD will lose. The Sig can go at least 1,000 rounds between cleanings (or at least mine has before; it does go 600+ rounds between cleaning on a regular basis)
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