I went to the range today with my nephew, who had never seen a 3rd gen. Smith before.

Despite the fact that he grew up in a non-gun family, at the age of 22 or 23 (I don’t ‘member), he has already obtained a Shield and an XD, both in 40 caliber.

After singing the praises and extolling the virtues of the 3953 I had with me, it proceeded to fail to return to battery after almost every shot. Hmm, what’s happening here? I know I’m tired, but am I so tired that I’m limp wristing it? Choke up on the grip and...same thing.

I took it apart and realized how BONE-DRY (think: Gobi Desert) it was, as well as how filthy dirty (think: DNC/mainstream media) it was, and since I’m the one visiting, I don’t have my range bag with me. As luck would have it, he had a sample pack of Lucas Oil’s gun oil with him.

I put a few drops on the inside of the slide (read: way more than was necessary) and racked it back & forth about a dozen times and...VOILÁ, no mas problemos! It was miraculously back to being a, well, a boringly accurate & reliable 3rd generation S&W 3953, albeit one with an oily sleaze oozing from it.

Picked up some cleaning supplies and went back to his house for a cleaning session, where I showed him a few things he didn’t know & had no one to teach him.

The irony here is that on the way to the range, we were talking cleaning, etc. He is like I once was-he religiously cleans his guns after every range session. I told him “I used to do that too, but now I just clean ‘em when they need it but I do make sure to keep ‘em lubed...”.

I got to thinking about it and IIRC, other than when I first bought it (used), I don’t think I have EVER cleaned it since I got it...my bad, as the kids would say (said? Do they even still say ‘my bad’? I dunno). Anyways, it was a good lesson for both of us, especially me, and the moral of this story is this:

EVEN 3rd GENERATION S&W’s NEED A LITTLE MAINTENANCE, NOW & THEN! Whodathunkit?

Sam

That’s the one thing on Autos I’m paranoid about is lack of lube. Excess wear on the rails from lack of lube can ruin a good shooter.

Stainless steel sliding on aluminum without lube is trouble no doubt!

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USS ZELLARS
DD-777

The 3953 didn't let you down, you let it down.

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Can open, worms everywhere.

^^^ Yup. A firearm that will not function dirty is a problem, and should not be tolerated. A firearm that is expected to run dry is a user level problem. A quality AR should go many thousands of rounds without cleaning, but you have to run it WET. I would expect a 3rd generation S&W like yours to go at least 1000 (probably closer to 5000) rounds malfunction free without cleaning, but I would not expect it to go more than 50 without proper lube. The same should apply to any quality firearm, although as one comment noted, the construction of your pistol would make it more sensitive to lube.

As for cleaning, I am not referring to the counterproductive fetishistic practices of some entities, but a 5 minute field strip/wipe off/lube then reassemble and drive on.

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NHI, 10-8.

Yep.

Sam

Bingo! Semi-auto's need a certain amount of lubrication to keep the sliding parts gliding and not seizing. You can do a lot of damage to an aluminum receiver by shooting it without proper lubrication.

I'm sort of paranoid about keeping my alloy frame (which is all but one) 3rd Gen guns lubed. Since the frames are neither repairable nor replaceable, I'm always concerned about wear from the stainless barrel lugs and slide rails.

The other part of that is replacing the recoil springs.

In any case, I've never had 3rd Gen fail to fire flawlessly.

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Can open, worms everywhere.