Gun Cleaning, How to Get It Perfect  

Gun Cleaning, How to Get It Perfect

Hand Gun Cleaning Tips.

 

There are dozens and dozens of different handguns from different manufacturers and even military and historical guns. Many of these have their own unique systems and idiosyncrasies for disassembly and re-assembly so I’m not going to get into that here, just the basics. The very first thing you want to do is make sure that everything is safe. What that means is removing the magazine, setting it aside, and if you’re going to clean the magazine, also make sure that the magazine is unloaded then pull back the slide or toggle, depending on the gun, and do a digital and visual inspection to make sure the chamber is clear, there are no loose rounds anyplace in the weapon, and that the barrel is also clear. In addition, at this point you want to make sure you have the necessary personal safety gear. Depending on what you’re going to do you would need nitrile gloves, OSHA & ANSI approved eye protection, and if you’re using volatile solvents, you may also want to use a respiration type mask. There are many good commercial gun cleaning preparations. The most traditional and first to come to mind is Hoppes #9. There’s a new arrival on the market, which is Break Free CLP foam and lubricant, which really does an excellent job. If you’re using the Break Free CLP, the first thing you want to do is spray it into the action trigger group, and also into the barrel, and let it soak for 20 or 30 minutes. Once it’s soaked, you’re going to want to use a brush to really get down there and loosen any stubborn carbonization or powder residues or loose powder that may not have been dissolved. The ideal brush you use at this point is a nylon brush because it’s not going to scratch or mar anything. You should avoid using a stainless steel brush, as that will definitely cause gouging and scratching and this is something you do not want to take place especially on the feed ramp. More on this later.

 

At this point you also want to run a nylon brush through the barrel, a few strokes cleaning from the breech (not the muzzle end) and then run a few cotton patches through it to clean everything out. One of the things you’re going to notice after you’ve done this is that the Break Free CLP foam is still going to leave a little residue. This would also be the case if you used Hoppes #9. In order to get your lubricant to properly flow and coat the necessary surfaces, you should remove the residue first. The best way to do this is to use a highly volatile solvent that will completely dissolve the residue and flush it out of the gun and the barrel. The best one that I’ve found is your common cold weather starting fluid that comes in a spray can. You can purchase this in the automotive section of Walmart or any automotive parts store. This is where you need to wear the gloves, respirator, and glasses, and you need to do this outside in a well-ventilated area. Just use the spray nozzle and spray it down, and everything will flush out and dissolve, and you will have a pristine really clean gun, but it still needs to be lubricated. More on this later. We’ll have given you the general idea of how to get a gun really clean.

 

Cleaning guns is like opinions, everybody has one. Some people like to maintain their automobiles and their yards in absolutely perfect pristine condition. Every stone and pebble numbered, named, and in its right spot. Then there are people who really don’t care, and everything is an untidy mess. We’re going to take the neat and tidy approach here because we want our gun to work 100% reliably every time we need it.

 

Before we take this any further, we need to pay attention to one of the critical areas that needs to be not only perfectly clean but also, if possible, polished mirror smooth, and this is the feed ramp. The feed ramp is the portion just behind the breech end of the barrel and it is, as the name implies, ramp and configured and below round to the same radius is the diameter of the bullet. When the bolt forces the round forward, it is the feed ram that levers it up into the breach of the gun. Unless this is perfectly clean you can probably visualize the type of problems that can take place. The most serious one, of course, is that the round fails to feed and chamber, in which case the gun doesn’t fire. Since you already have the barrel out and we’ve used Break Free foam to clean everything up, and you’ve flushed all the residue off, it’s time to pay attention to the feed ramp. You can clean it with a Q tip and some solvent. But the best thing to use is a Dremel with a buffing wheel. Use this to lightly polish the ramp until it’s mirror bright. This will reduce any incidents of feed problems going down the road.

 

Okay now we have everything clean. We’re happy with the way it looks and it’s perfect. It’s time to move on to lubricate the gun. You can use any one of the commercially available gun lubricants but pay particular attention to using something that is low viscosity, particularly if you’re going to use your guns in cool or cold environments, as viscosity tends to increase when the temperature decreases. The result being that the action slows down. This changes the timing and ability of the gun to cycle and feed, probably something you do not want. Therefore, our suggestion is to use simple old Singer Sewing Machine oil. Not only is it acid free, but it is an excellent low viscosity lubricant. This can be found in the sewing aisle or notions section of Wal-Mart. It has an applicator tip that allows you to dispense tiny drops, which is exactly what you want. The last thing you want is too much lubricant in the gun because this will pick up crud; powder residue, shaved metal that comes off as the action functions etc. etc. Then this will just lead to abrading the moving parts of the action and causing wear problems down the road that you don’t want.

 

Now that you’ve lubricated the gun it’s time to reverse the disassembly process and assemble the gun. One of the things that we didn’t mention here is that there are other ways to clean a dirty handgun. One of the best devices to use is the Hyskore www.hyskore.com 30293 Degreezer https://hyskore.com/products/30293-degreezer-small-parts-cleaning-system/  which basically is a cleaning tank that has a removable strainer basket for small parts. This is the perfect accessory for cleaning pins, springs, nuts, screws, and of course, the bolt assembly and trigger group. Just put them in the basket, let them soak in your preferred cleaning solvent. In this case we recommend Hoppes #9. When everything is soaked, and you’ve brushed it off and cleaned it, use the spray engine starter fluid to flush everything out and get a pristine clean then lubricate prior to assembly. Now you have a clean and lubed gun.