the dirtiest gun I ever saw

[G.T. Smith]

My son has a Marlin model 60W .22 tube fed semi-automatic rifle. It hadn't been cleaned since I can remember. Probably about 6 or 8 years if I had to venture a guess
He always leaves it out here in the country because he lives in town and never shoots unless he is out here anyway. It really bugs me to have a dirty gun around so I offered to clean it for him last night. I had noticed a little rust starting on the barrel toward the muzzle end of the barrel and figgered it was about time to do something.
The rifle was still running just fine and very accurate. I have never seen a gun that dirty and still function at all. There was **** all the way to the back of the stock on the inside and stuff literally cooked on the internals. Gun scrubber wouldn't get it of so I had to scrape it off with my pocket knife and tooth picks.
I would hate to make a guess at how many rounds have been through that little gun but I would say several thousand at least. Must be a pretty good design?
Peace,
gordon

[Badkarma 1]

Trust me Gordon it is probably the most reliable .22 rifle ever made, short of a manually operated design!
My Dad bought one back in '78 at the local K-Mart and between him and I we had to have put well over ten thousand riunds thru it! One summer I personally put 1,000 rounds of Federal Lightning promotional shells thru it! I didn't clean it till it "stovepiped" on me, man was it crudy! Two cans of Gun Scrubber gave their all too clean it, and I literally soaked the micro-groove rifling with Hoppes! But it cleaned up good and it's still running to this day!
One thing though, Ruger 10-22 owners hate this rifle! Because it's generally more reliable that the 10-22!
Marlin Model 60: Underated and a "sleeper"!

[venomballistics]

ye olde Marlin autos ...
in my young and dumb years I had a model 60 Glenfield, my cohort a model 70.
any given weekend these things would eat well north of 500 rounds each.
we only really cleaned them when function was effected.
fouling is a strange thing, I suspect it may partially sublimate.
a month worth of 500 round weekends would not stop either, for right around 2000 rounds give or take. yet give em a 1000 round plus weekend and they would start to get goofy even though they hit the range clean.
I can only speculate as to why a single session meant half the volume prior to failures.
it was a repeatable phenomena.
Ah the good old days .. when we lit up the range .. we lit up the range baby

[scooter123]

I may be able to top that. Last year over the Christmas break I pursuaded my brother to visit a local indoor range. He decided that he wanted to take his Winchester 190 for old times sake. BTW, I also have a 190 and we used to go plinking with them back in the 70's. After field stripping it, it became rather obvious that it hadn't seen any attention since the last time it was shot, most likely back in the 70's. Pushed a spyders nest out of the barrel, scubbed the breech block clean and treated it to a good general cleaning. A pleasent surprize is that the barrel was completely free of rust. It also funtioned well at the range, only had one failure to feed, which considering the 190's reputation for fussy feed is excellent for a gun that hadn't seen one lick of attention in probably 40 years. Before we left the range, I also made sure he purchased a decent cleaning kit so he could keep the 190 and his Colt New Frontier 22 Mag in good working order.

[rburg]

The dirtiest gun I've ever seen was a good friend's M41. He was a much better shot than I was, and the M41 probably played a role. I only had a M17 at that time, 35+ years ago. We shot constantly. I always cleaned my revolver, he never touched his M41. Then one day his just stopped working. So in a minute of generosity, he sold me the gun! And he charged me the full price he'd paid for the gun. $150. I paid up.

Then I took it home and started working on it. I soaked the gun in gasoline an ATF. Then with a good supply of Q tips and tooth picks, I began my work. I had a 2 little kids, a wife working 2nd shift at the hospital, and I still worked on the gun every chance I could get. It took a few weeks to get it to a state that pleased me.

22s seem to get fed a variety of ammo, some not really idea for use in handguns. The powder selected probably would burn more completely in a full length barrel.

[Badkarma 1]

Hey scooter123 I got one of those too! It was my uncles gun, then my Grandads, now mine. Ain't put all that many rounds thru it yet, but with Christmas coming up I may just have to terrorize the local dump with it and the old 60!

[K.38]

I used to help out my friend Mike at his shop in Great Falls every now and then. The dirtiest guns I ever seen was from the reservation up north. Once their 10/22s would stop working they would bring them to Mike to fix. He would hand them to me and say will ya clean this one up.

I would take it apart and start digging out the crud. They would use these rifles all the time and I'm guessing keep them in the truck and not worry about them until they stopped working. Oh yeah and they would keep spraying in WD40 to keep them working as long and possible.

[chief38]

Just went to the Range with one of my shootin' Buds and he brought along his Marlin M60 (at least 20 years old). Quite accurate, and he told me that he has NEVER, EVER cleaned it. I believe him because he does not even own a cleaning kit - how sad! The thing did not miss a beat, and he said to me ..........see, works great, who needs to clean it?

He drives me nuts! He just bought 2 beautiful Smiths, a M629 and a 4" S&W 500 Magnum - NO CLEANING KITS FOR THEM EITHER! I just don't get how someone could spend big bucks on guns and just throw them back into the safe without cleaning them.

chief38

[Fountain]

We have a friend (terrified of all firearms; won't even touch one) whose mother had a stroke, and had to stop living alone. In cleaning the house, our friend stumbled across 3 guns, and I volunteered to look at them and do what was required.

Two of them were old CO2 pistols; they were so bad, we trashed them. The other is a lever action .22 rifle. It is sitting beside a filing cabinet, in a corner of a room that was used as office. Here are the numbers:

Noble, Model 235
Noble Mfg Co, Inc
Haydenville, Mass
22 Cal S-L-Lr
Pat'd 2.598.841

I searched the internet and found that the rifle sold for about $50 new, and the company was bought by S & W.

Our friend's mother "thinks" it belonged (belongs) to a cousin. Doesn't remember it ever having been fired.

To the business at hand -- I don't think the rifle has been fired much, or if it's ever been cleaned. There's some surface rust, but I didn't look down the barrel to see if it was pitted. May not be the dirtiest, but for-sure one of the most neglected.

'Will try to post a couple pix.

[marvin the martian]

The worst I've seen is my father in laws Winchester .22. I don't think it's been cleaned since the day it came out of the box! On the other end, my buddy had a Sig Mosquito that had oil dripping out of the slide and barrel.
But nothing beats a Mosin Nagant packed with cosmoline!

[desi2358]

I have seen quite a few really dirty guns come into the gun shop I work for, some for sale and some to be repaired. I have found that fairly often a semi-auto that isn't working will be fine after no more than a good cleaning. It's a judgement call on cleaning guns the store buys, if it looks really bad it gets cleaned but if it's just a little dirty it goes out on the shelf. Don't really have time to clean all of them (and it's clear many people either don't own or know how to use a gun cleaning kit!). Besides it gives the really picky customers something to fuss over and if they want to clean the bore for me that's one less I have to do!

[Brian41]

My old buddy Jim gave me his Ruger Standard Red Eagle before he died some ten years ago. It was one of the first Rugers made and Jim hadn't cleaned it other than from the front of the barrel since new as he told me he didn't know how to break it down.
It still functioned 100% and Jim used it quite a bit. I tore it down and couldn't believe it still worked with the crud I found in it.

It's all cleaned up and in my safe now. I bring it out and shoot it on special occations in his honor and will never part with that gun.

[truckemup97]

I've bought a couple of Marlin 60s over the years, both from kids at gun shows. Both wanted to sell them to buy a "real" rifle. Both were filthy when I bought them. Both cleaned up nicely and shoot very well.

On a side note, I've got a 10 year old nephew who will receive his very own Marlin 60, brand new in the box, for Christmas. I'll post pictures of the grin that won't end after he opens it.

[MK]

My 10/22 was like that when I bought it. :/
Mine is a mutt, and is stainless "2000 model",
but with a blued barrel.
Totally filthy when I got it. I was flooding it out
with the usual liquid cleaning solutions, and have
never seen such a mess come from the innerds of
a firearm.
The little Ruger magazines were the same way..
It lives a cleaner life now.. I generally clean all
my lead spitters after each use. With the cheap
bulk .22 ammo I often use, that 10/22 gets dirty
pretty fast. And it starts to act up if it gets too
dirty. One thing that is handy with it is that it's
pretty easy and fast to break down.
The blued barrel I'm using was fairly unused, so
it was OK. It was a discard off a different rifle
where they changed barrels. Pretty much like new.