Saturday, May 6, 2017

Reminder: Lube Your Gun Regularly

Went shooting today with my son-in-law and his not yet gun owner brother and a couple handguns would not reliably eject spent cartridges.  After inspection and thought, I concluded the problem was that neither gun had been fired in some months, and therefore not lubed.  Friction on dry metals surfaces prevents the slide from doing a proper motion.  Lubing all semiautos is now on the recurring calendar.

We cleaned guns together as a learning experience.  My son-in-law's brother being an engineer was very interested in how they work.  My son-in-law's ultra cheap .22 bolt action, bought in college had never been cleaned.  You can imagine what we found.

3 comments:

  1. Or perhaps use a high quality grease like Tetra's? I've heard greases can cause problems in dusty conditions, but that hasn't been a problem for me.

    When I do a thorough cleaning, I detail strip, degrease, spray every surface with Tetra Spray (which at minimum gets all surfaces covered a hydrophobic and slick coating of polytetrafluoroethylene (AKA Teflon™) particles quite a bit smaller than those in CLP), then lightly grease surfaces that slide past each other, and use Tetra oil for where I need penetration.

    With this regime a 1911 can go for years, sitting in a gun rag, or carried, with occasional minimum firing, or even after putting several hundred rounds through it early in that period (although after such treatment I always clean my carry weapon).

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  2. Over lubing is a big problem in semi-autos, so you have to be careful.

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  3. I clean and then lube my firearms after all practice sessions. I also oil the firearms once a year: gun oil on metal and wood oil on the stocks. Standard maintenance.

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