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David
Guest
What is everyone using to learn their firearms with? How often do you clean them? Just trying to figure out some common maintaince schedules everyone uses.
Depends on the firearm. The pistols I use a molly grease on the slides. Bolt guns I use wheel bearing grease on the bolts, same with the non AR semi-autos. The AR15/10s get Mobile 1 synthetic on the bolts. As far as the cleaning solutions I use Ed's Red (recipe on the internet) and 50 BMG to remove the copper. Kroil works very well also, if I bring stuff along to clean at a match I'll bring the kroil as the Ed's Red is in a quart mason jar. If I want to remove everything the blue JB.
As far as a cleaning schedule it really depends. Usually on the prone rifles I will just run a patch or two through after a match to pull out some of the carbon. I'll go in with the bore scope and do a complete scrub if it looks like I'm getting some build up. If the grease looks good I won't clean it out but I keep the lugs well greased. I've gone a couple hundred rounds without.
Course rifles (AR10'15s) I'll pull the carbon out like above but then I'll also clean and relube the bolt after a match. I've let them go to long and they have a nasty habbit of not locking when it starts getting cold and their gunked up.
The M14/M1s just get the barrel cleaned. Since the match rifles are bedded I don't tear those apart to clean off the parts. I just clean the barrels, add more grease if needed and call it good.
On any of the rifles I've gone a couple hundred rounds before I've cleaned and they shot just fine.
Pistols I will run a patch through and call it good. Maybe if I've been doing a lot of shooting I'll strip them and regrease but the molly grease stays put and does its job.
Bottom line you need to keep them clean, but more barrels are worn out from cleaning and improper cleaning than from shooting.
As far as a cleaning schedule it really depends. Usually on the prone rifles I will just run a patch or two through after a match to pull out some of the carbon. I'll go in with the bore scope and do a complete scrub if it looks like I'm getting some build up. If the grease looks good I won't clean it out but I keep the lugs well greased. I've gone a couple hundred rounds without.
Course rifles (AR10'15s) I'll pull the carbon out like above but then I'll also clean and relube the bolt after a match. I've let them go to long and they have a nasty habbit of not locking when it starts getting cold and their gunked up.
The M14/M1s just get the barrel cleaned. Since the match rifles are bedded I don't tear those apart to clean off the parts. I just clean the barrels, add more grease if needed and call it good.
On any of the rifles I've gone a couple hundred rounds before I've cleaned and they shot just fine.
Pistols I will run a patch through and call it good. Maybe if I've been doing a lot of shooting I'll strip them and regrease but the molly grease stays put and does its job.
Bottom line you need to keep them clean, but more barrels are worn out from cleaning and improper cleaning than from shooting.
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