Here’s The Real Reason You Need to Clean Your Handgun on a Regular Basis
Should you clean your handgun after every use? Most modern-day service handguns are built to handle tremendous abuse; they’ll continue to function even when they’re filthy dirty. Just Google your favorite polymer pistol and the words “torture test.” So why not wait for a leap year to clean your handgun? Or simply don’t clean it at all?
Most folks clean their handguns because everybody tells them if they don’t the Baba-Yaga will come for them. That a dirty handgun is a hundred thousand times more like to malfunction than a squeaky clean pistol. You’ll aim your filthy firearm at the bad guy and…CLICK.
That ain’t it . . .
While a clean gun is a happy gun — and yes, somewhat less likely to stop working than a dirty gun — as long as you keep it lubricated, the main issue you face is simple wear and tear.
Guns are mechanical objects. Mechanical objects degrade with use. Parts can and will give out. It’s only a matter of time. Maybe a lot. Maybe a little. But there’s no avoiding it. In some…. If you
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Great advice, Jeff!
Sure be nice to see you back up here in rainy Washington State sometime!
Thanks for the kind words, you will be hard pressed to see me in those parts these days. I have only a handful of classes on the road, everything else is in our new home range in Austin. But, check our travel schedule, closest we have to you is Los Angeles.
It’s funny but I’m cleaning my new handgun right now. Does it need it? Probably not but I’m kinda’ OCD about cleaning:)
I always cleannes guns. Plenty of them have grease or debris left over from the manufacturing process
You tell us you’re cleaning your new gun and give us no details as to what it is? I cry foul.
I’ve discovered the importance of this myself, recently.
It’s amazing how much of a difference it can make in the trigger sometimes, to have a clean gun.
Cleaned a carry pistol for someone… the amount of carbon and grime I got out of it… after oiling, the safety, trigger, etc all felt a few pounds lighter…
Yep! It’s amazing the amount of crap an EDC picks up. Esp. if you pocket carry. wad of lint in the barrel, yep it can.
I knew a guy who would “clean” his EDC with a can of keyboard air to get rid of the lint. “If it works on a keyboard, why won’t it work on a gun?” “Well, Sherlock, the term ‘keyboard warrior’ isn’t literal…”
I have no idea if he still does that kind of nonsense. I don’t need those kinds of people in my life.
I don’t know how I would get my guns clean if I didn’t have an air compressor.
That’s what I do too, couple of times a month!
“I don’t know how I would get my guns clean if I didn’t have an air compressor.”
Effective, but if you make regular use of compressed air, you may want to consider using hearing protection.
Compressed air does most of its damage in the high frequencies, where most of the ‘information’ in human speech resides…
What?
So, what exactly it the problem with doing that to blow lint out, sherlock?
Please phrase your answer in the most condescending form possible so you continue sounding like ‘that guy’ at the gun store.
LMFAO
Canned air tends to be exceedingly cold after not much time. The kind of cold that causes metal to brittle. Maybe fine once, but imagine 20 times, etc…
Also, that stuff will dry everything. So if that’s the only cleaning method, old oil and such will just dry.
Alas, TTAG doesn’t properly notify me of responses like TFB does, so I’ll likely not see that.
That’s literally the entirety of how he cleans his gun. At no point does he disassemble it, re-oil it, do any kind of deeper cleaning. It’s not the using the compressed air I have a problem with, it’s that being the ONLY thing he does to clean his gun. He’s just cramming lint further into it.
I should have been clearer about that.
I pocket carry about 2/3 of the time, and the amount of crap that sticks to the front of the slide and barrel, inside the barrel, and everywhere else is astonishing. I clean it about once a week now.
The gun in that photo can be sufficiently cleaned with a nylon brush and a clean rag with RemOil.
decades ago when I was in the Coast Guard (before changing services) I would regularly go to the range for qualification with NYPD officers. They were still carrying S&W mod 64’s if I remember correctly. One of the officers took his revolver out of his plain brown holster hanging by his crotch and opened the cylinder to put in the range ammo. His duty ammo was corroded, brass was green, and the rounds wouldn’t come out of the cylinder. He obviously hadn’t taken the rounds out since his last qual (how many years earlier?), or cleaned his service gun, just stood out in the rain, snow, etc without a care in the world.
I used to carry one of those on the coast- sea spray, fog\mist… if you didn’t take care of them they would rust up incredibly fast. One guy found that out the hard way when his stopped working at the range and, when opened, revealed that every single part inside was just caked over by rust.
Good thing he didn’t have to actually use it before that day…
Oh, be nice. I did the same thing in Vietnam, I guess it was a Combat Masterpiece, and I arrived at the headquarters area after being in the forward location for only a month or 6 weeks, sure enough I couldn’t get the rounds out of the cylinder, corroded and green. The armorer assured me that was his job, took over, and when I left a day or two later it was all slick and nice. Now, that was a notoriously awful climate for firearms, but it certainly doesn’t NECESSARILY take a long time.
I used to work in a gun store and replaced the grips on an ncis issue sig 229. It was filthy with lint and other detritis. I asked the agent if i could please clean it for him. He told me they werent allowed to even take them apart.it all had to be done by their armorer I did a 5 min speed clean for him. I offered to clean the other agents. He smiled and said “mine dosent look like that”
I concur wholeheartedly. As an instructor I run across many folks who insist on thoroughly cleaning their firearm after every use. Consequently they will shoot less often because they hate the chore of cleaning. Clean less, lube more.
Therein lies the problem cleaning guns should be a relaxing and enjoyable part of the shooting experience. I love sitting down and taking apart a dirty piece and the smell of hoppes number 9. It’s cathartic.
It’s a neurotoxin… (may I advise switching to a non-toxic cleaner that won’t damage your nervous system?)
Yup, disassembled guns and lots of CLP reminds me of cleaning up after an Exercise. Lots of good memories.
Of course now I know not handle pizza and CLP at the same time.
Cleaning my guns is therapy. About every 400-500 rounds.
Defens
I’m just visiting my Washington now but over rain. Will probably stop when we head south next week.
Good advice on the cleaning though. I meet new shooters at the range almost every trip who are wondering why their new toy has stopped
The army probably overdid cleaning but I can still remember how to clean M60 etc years later
Thank you.
You should definitely clean the polymer off of your pistol, save Polymer for your holster, don’t let it get any closer to your pistol.
Punch the barrel, check the feed ramp and return spring?
clean your mags if they are gritty, if you don’t have no-tilt followers then spike them on the ground..
I actually enjoy cleaning my guns. I find it relaxing.
Yep… And besides, I love the smell of Hoppe’s No. 9 in the morning! /;-)
Use care with certain solvents or cleaning sprays as they may damage the finish on wood or even some plastics.
A friend of mine just told me about a guy who washes his pistols in the dishwasher and then oils them. He says the drying cycle dries them out properly and then just oiling them is enough. He does this after every range visit and cleans by normal breakdown every 1000 or so rounds.
Does this sound legit?
I used to clean a black powder cap and ball in the dishwasher. Worked fine for several years, then came the day the hammer flopped back and stayed there.
Bits and pieces and springy things live under the grips. They are necessary for the hammer to go snicker-snack and the cap to pop so the ball goes down range. Those tiny bits don’t get thoroughly dry in the drying cycle of a dishwasher.
So I will prophesy a rather expensive repair bill in your friends’ future unless he tears his pistol down a lot further than most people ever do.
Of course, if you are shooting a second hand cap&ball you paid <$100 for it may not matter. That was never my carry gun…
Another reason to keep spares is that you can compare your old part to new one to see if something is broken. I chipped an extractor on my Glock 35, but couldn’t immediately tell what was wrong (except the intermittent failure to extract) until I compared it to a new one.
Cleaning a gun isn’t a chore. It’s a nice 15-30 minute diversion. Enjoy it.
15-30 min? Don’t tell my wife. She doesn’t know how quick it can be and that I somehow managed to make it an all day event. Maybe she enjoys some down time from me as well.
Maybe the grunts beat me stupid but I spend anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours depending on what I’m cleaning..
I find clean a handgun relaxing! I clean the ramp after every use and then give a good cleaning with Frog CLP. Also use a leather cleaner lube on all my leather holsters. If they don’t get that lubricant, dry rot will set in
I have a number of holsters that paid $165.00 plus s/h. All are good looking, life is too short to carry a handgun in an ugly holster. I don’t have or need plastic holsters!
All are outside carry with cover garment!
No fair mentioning your leather cleaner lube without telling us it’s name. If you have used it for years and are happy with it then some of us, or at the least one of us, wants to know what you use.
Hah, I just thought of the next TTaG article: top 5 spare parts to keep on hand for a semi-automatic pistol.
Some nominations include:
— main recoil spring
— extractor
— sear
— magazine spring
— magazine follower
And I am sure that I missed some big ones … anyone else have any nominations?
That’s a good top 5. I’ve got extra striker springs, sights, Q tips to clean sights, takedown levers, whole trigger assemblies, spare barrels and such, but you have a good top 5 list.
Oh, there you go … you should keep a spare firing pin or striker — as well as a striker spring.
That is what makes the list fun … it would be really hard to narrow it to just five items.
What about when keeping guns cocked for extended amounts of time? I’ve heard that could damage the striker or firing pin springs. Is that a real concern that would merit keeping extra parts on hand?
No, springs don’t degrade from being left compressed for any length of time – they degrade by going through compress/decompress cycles.
Yeah, that myth is out there all over the internet, I see it constantly…springs don’t care whether they are left compressed or not, it’s the total cycle count that matters.
Beretta 92 / 96.
If you have that spare, you won’t need the weapon that needed the spare.
; )
Over the decades, I cannot imagine how many “spares” I have bought, and stored, for firearms and so many other things, as well. Hell, in the late ’60s I had most of a complete set of spark plug wires riding around in my trunk, although to be fair, I remember that since 1500 miles from home I needed one of them and had the car fixed in seconds. Usually, though, when something went wrong, it was invariably something I did not have a spare for, or could not find where I put the spare for. Gave up, no spares except for a spare gun. If main gun has a problem, switch to spare and have main fixed.
Most gun cleaning “experts” I’ve ever met have a bad case of OCD.
How often do the manufacturer’s say a cleaning is needed? A few squirts of WD40 does wonders.
After shooting I field strip any auto and wipe out the carbon and at least least run brush then a patch through the barrel. I use RemOil on all my guns and don’t leave it dripping.
My pocket LCP gets broken down to harvest dust bunnies and re oil every week or 10 days.
Revolver get chambers and barrel cleaned after shooting. I don’t strip it unless it’s really dirty or been in the elements a while.
If your gun is not at least kinda clean, it’s makes it tough to figure out a problem when something goes wrong. I most often see extraction failures and failure to go into battery from dust bunny attacks.
Your gun … your risk
Ya id like to know what parts to keep if one of my glockz break. I refuse to clean them.
Not sure if this is /sarc, but to answer your question/inquiry:
Recoil spring/guide rod assembly
Trigger spring
Extractor
Extractor spring/plunger/ball detent
You can get the last bit for about $15 for Gen 3’s. total, for all of it, about $45-$50. My experience has been the extractors are the first piece to go, followed by the trigger spring.
You shoot the gun then that means you clean the gun. PERIOD. Why in the world would you even want to put a dirty ass gun in a quality holster? I NEVER shoot less than 50 rounds in a range visit and usually it’s 100+. Every handgun I’ve ever owned (and that’s probably 40+ by now) ALWAYS has powder burns and other grime on the gun from shooting no matter what ammo I use. Why would you want to allow that crud to transfer to your holster?
If your kit ain’t at least a little dirty, you aren’t using it enough.
I mean, I’m not saying that you should abuse your gear, but if you’re so worried about a little bit of carbon getting onto your quality holster, maybe you should reconsider the mindset you’re bringing to carrying.
Not at all. I’m practical about it…I mean my holsters get dinged up from carry…the outsides do.
I had to Google Baba-Yaga….
Well played…
And I always clean my firearms after every use. Not so much worried about Baba-Yaga, but my late father and uncles (whom I used to hunt with) thumping me on the head. if I don’t.
It’s also a John Wick reference IIRC.
I always heard that certain types of dirt and crud, for example, pocket lint, attract and hold moisture more than a clean and oiled gun. This can cause the gun’s worst enemy to appear: rust. Now I haven’t put it to the test, mind you, and I really don’t intend to, but there may be some sense to that, particularly in body-carry pieces which tend to get more heat and moisture directly from the body.
My non-carry pieces get cleaned about once a month if used, lightly coated in long-term oil and some with barrel cap if they’re going to be in the safe for a while.
Also, the thought occurs to me that if I’m actually worried about an unused gun going to rust, then I probably ought to thin down the collection a bit. But that would involve actually letting go of a few. Hard work.
I’ve always had the rule that if I use a gun I then clean a gun.
5 rounds or 50, it takes the same time and effort to clean. Not cleaning is inviting accelerated wear and corrosion.
While modern ammunition is labeled “NON CORROSIVE” it is merely less corrosive than the ammunition available until the mid to late 1950s. Military ammunition still used the corrosive primers because they were considered to be more reliable in extreme conditions (especially European and Eastern Bloc ammunition).
So save your guns and give them a clean after use. It is cheap insurance for the gun and you.
Main thing for me is the carbon…it’s a very powerful abrasive and somehow seems to go right into the rails of a pistol, where most of the action happens on modern polymer handguns.
Used to shoot for the Coast Guard HQ pistol team competitively, back in the late 60’s early 70s. Would practice every day, then shoot on Sat or Sun, sometimes both days. Never cleaned my pistols during practice. I would wait until after the final competitive match of the week before cleaning everything real good. That way, whatever my accuracy was onFriday, would likely be the same onSaturday &Sunday.
That chicken-legged witch aint gonna get me. I actually don’t mind cleaning my guns and do so after every use, mostly because I don’t know how long it will be before that one comes out again.
Fired or not, I clean my weapon every few weeks. I don’t want dust and dog hair in my weapon.
If you clean your gun once every 1000 rounds, I’m glad I’m not making any calls with you
Interesting. The author is clearly very knowledgeable, but my take is that different firearms can be very different. I have a Springfield XD 9mm, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it could fire 2000 rounds flawlessly without cleaning. Not that I would know. It gets cleaned after every range use, unless the round count was less than 30.
I also have 22cal semi-auto pistols and a rifle. The Browning BuckMark Lite Grey is sweet and super accurate, but the mags (with the welded-on steel bottoms) are an invitation to fouling. I’ve had a couple occasions where these mags failed to feed properly because they had maybe 100 rounds fed thru, and the ammo lube and burnt powder had gummed up the works.
The other notion is that if you add a large amount of oil to a bicycle chain or a firearm in a dirty environment, then all that oil can or will load up with dirt and grime creating a thick abrasive sludge. One of the experienced 22cal pistol gunsmiths I have read uses either dry-lube or RemOil (almost a dry-lube) to keep the sludge level down.
Final point: The ammo maker Eley recommends that you finish your rifle barrel cleaning with an oil wet patch. But, before the trip to the range; you should run a dry patch thru the barrel to remove excess oil. I always run the dry patch as the last cleaning step, but then risk corrosion if the rifle doesn’t get used for many months.
Lhstr, I clean my carry about every 2 weeks, it just gets a lot of crap in the crevices. This happens every 2 weeks period. I shoot several times a month. Love the smell and the art of teardown! Be safe out there. Always remember if you can avoid trouble, do it, just do it.
A couple of caveats:
1. Cleaning your barrel should be done with care. Don’t drag steel bristle or bronze bristle brushes back into your bore over the crown.Pull the brush from the chamber end out the muzzle. Never reverse a brush in the bore. In .22 target pistols, you should rarely need to brush the bore at all; the bore of .22’s should be cleaned with a patch on a jag.
2. When using solvents such as Hoppes’, you should wear nitrile gloves. I’ve moved away from solvents with lots of petroleum solvents for most cleaning. We’ve learned over the years that extended exposure to various hydrocarbons isn’t good for you, and in fact can be cancerous. For general soot/carbon removal, I now use products like MPro-7.
3. Some handguns need special cleaning tools to get the job done. eg, revolvers where you’re shooting cast lead bullets. The forcing cone will tend to lead up. My recommendation for revolver shooters is to obtain a Lewis Lead Remover and learn how to use it.
4. In semi-autos, there are areas that need specific attention:
– the breech face & firing pin hole. Sometimes, a breech face has machining marks on it, and it will tend to accumulate brass shavings from the head of the case sliding up the breech face.
– Around/under the extractor.
– Around/under the ejector, if your pistol uses an ejector that comes through the breech face.
Last semi-auto issue: When cleaning a semi-auto, don’t forget the magazines. Most FTF’s I see in semi-autos are the fault of the magazine, not the gun. Many people forget to clean the inside of a magazine, no matter how hard they’ve been on the magazine. If you’re shooting IPSC, IDPA, 3-gun or other matches where you’re dropping your mags as you hop, skip, jump and squeek your way around the course of fire, then you need to unload your magazines, pull them apart and clean the dirt/mud/dust out of the magazine.
>In .22 target pistols, you should rarely need to brush the bore at all; the bore of .22’s should be cleaned with a patch on a jag.
How do you feel about bore snakes, for .22 or anything else?
They’re OK. In inexperienced hands, I’d prefer them over a cleaning rod.
Other thing I forgot to condemn above: Jointed cleaning rods. They’re the work of Satan on guns. If Uncle Sammy is buying your replacement barrel and gunsmithing, then OK, use a jointed rod. If not, get a one-piece rod or a snake. Pull it only one way – breech to muzzle. Do not reverse the brush in the bore.
Speaking of uncle Sammy, who the hell suggested to him that a (jointed) *steel* cleaning rod was a good idea?
Bought a used S&W Model 66 from an LGS many years ago that came from a local bedroom community police dept that was trading up for Wunder 9’s. It took me days to try and get all the lead out of the cylinder and the bore with chemicals and brushes. Had to buy a Lewis Lead Remover. Damn! If the Barney that gun belonged to ever had to have used it, it would have either locked up, blown up or shot sideways. Clean your guns people!
Jeff,
Fellow Sailor here, 30 yrs, but as an Aviator. Did a tour with pre-expansion JSOC on “shore” duty (ha!) and although a life long firearms guy, learned more from the Tier one guys in 22 months than in all previous years combined. I’m a bit older, with them in Panama and DS. Thank you for your service, and for sharing your expertise with all of us.
Would add a couple of minor comments to your great article. First, in addition to replacing parts prior to failure, cleaning your weapon makes it last longer. Small bits of metal, holster grit, and such are more than just debris. They can cause accelerated wear on various pieces that might not normally wear. A good cleaning and selective lube can slow down the wearing process. Second, nothing lasts forever. Eventually you are going to have to replace some parts…springs, pins, screws, barrels and slides. Occasionally you will have to retire your old favorite. Proper care can slow that eventual end…and maybe that favorite pistol will be passed down a generation or two. Some of my favorite firearms aren’t the “latest and greatest” but were passed down to me by my Grandfather and Dad. With proper care, those “tools” in your holster and gun safe today can be heirlooms for generations to come.
Be well. FWFS. JC
D.G. gives good advice, keep your guns clean.
A thing to consider, (if you can afford it) is to have an extra handgun for your EDC weapon. Small parts do break over time. I hear of folks running twenty to thirty thousand rounds, and more through their EDC for practice and efficiency. All this shortens the life of all those small parts, and sooner or later a part will fail, and leave you in a whole bunch of shit, should an actual shooting condition arise.
Consider putting a thousand rounds, or less, through your main armament, and use the spare (same model and caliber) for all your practice.
I couldn’t agree more, Jeff Gonzalez. Great article!
I find that doing the barrel and slide areas with Hoppe’s No. 9 every 200 rounds is OK, but I drop the entire field stripped pistol into a bath of Gibbs in my ultrasonic cleaner for 30 minutes every 1,000 rounds and blow it out to restore and lubricate everything to a like new condition. (Do not do this if you have wood or painted parts)
I clean 3-5 firearms every night depending on how much TV my wife and I watch! I just clean and clean along as we’re watching TV!
I clean 3-5 firearms every night depending on how much TV my wife and I watch! I just clean and clean as long as we’re watching TV!
Glock specifically warns against over-lubrication, so take care if you shoot Glocks. Follow the manual’s instructions!
To me, cleaning my guns is kind of a zen exercise. I sit in my little room and lay everything out, dissembling and cleaning my guns and my wife’s, and just lose myself in it. No worries about bills, jobs, house repairs or anything else, just me and my friends . . . my guns.
I generally put about 200 rounds through each gun I take to the range on every trip, and I generally clean every gun after about four trips to the range. The cleaning is the best way to look everything over and really get to know each gun. I keep a stock of replacement springs, clips, pins and recoil rod/spring assemblies handy in my gun gear. Pretty much every manufacturer will at least supply you with recoil rods and springs, including Glock.
I have been shooting firearms now for 54 years straight. The majority of Jethro Bodine’s I have personally known and I have personally inspected their firearms never clean their guns until they become inoperative and most could not care less how much rust and pitting develop on the outside of their firearms. Most are too lazy to clean their guns and too stingy to even buy gun oil and cleaning fluids that are specially formulated for firearms.
If you mention the word grease they panic thinking the smallest dab of grease will make their gun blow up like an Atomic bomb and they will instantly disappear in a red puff of mist. If you mention greasing the parts that are subject to high rates of friction they have not a clue as to what you are talking about as they have been taught guns are indestructible and will never wear out. If you instruct them that a gun is just a machine like an automobile is and that if you do not oil and grease it that it will fail or develop premature wear and loss of accuracy they will accuse you of being a Communist.
Most guns I examine at guns shows have not a drop of oil on them and have never been cleaned in years. Most have excess wear or pitted barrels, outside rust, stocks beat to hell and surface finish scratched, dented or worn completely off.
I once saw an expensive Anschutz target rifle for sale with a for sale sign stapled right to the stock. I felt like grabbing the bastard that had it for sale and beating him to a pulp but after all it was his gun and since he annihilated it he took the great loss for it when trying to sell it as no one would even pick it up to look at it and who could blame them. Any one who would staple a sign right to a beautiful walnut stock probably also did a lot of internal damage to the gun as well. In other words he had nothing but an abused piece of junk for sale and everyone at the show knew it.
The real shame of it is the high quality older guns are no longer being made and now the few that are left in decent condition are often bringing astronomical prices making them too valuable to even shoot let alone carry for self defense. In a way the newer made plasticky and cast iron shit is all the average Jethero deserves anyway as they soon annihilate everything they get their hands on. A least when you see the modern guns annihilated and abused you do not feel anywhere near as bad. Modern made Junk to day will always be junk tomorrow.
Last summer I happened upon a used but well kept Beretta 92 in 9mm that was one of the last Italian Guns made. I paid more for it used than I would have paid for Beretta’s newly made 92 that has a plasticky safety, plasticky trigger, plasticky op-rod and enjoyable. Yes, I am one of those who enjoy the cleaning ritual, it connects me to generations of finicky gun owners. The 1911 Dad carried across Omaha Beach still functions.
My $.02 concerns location and lubes. If you live where it is humid, lots of lube is often a good idea. However, if you live in say, West Texas/Eastern New Mexico or Arizona or some place similar that may be counter productive. I often work in those areas for months at a time. Before heading out I tear down, clean and lube the guns I will take with a dry lube. There is a very fine dust out there that gets everywhere, and it loves gun oil. And it will accelerate the wear on a firearm dramatically.