Apex says "Clean your gun"!

[rdtompki]

Apex has been helping with identifying the cause of excess over-travel on my m&P40. They have been very responsive, but the final conclusion regarding my DCAEK-equipped 40 is manufacturing variability. I already have the trigger loop almost completely closed down and all parts are correctly installed. They suggested installing the "S" trigger bar.

Now to the dirty gun I field strip and clean all our handguns every 100 rounds or so. The barrels are spotless and I use q-tips on every surface I can reach. If you look at the attached pictures you can see residue on surfaces that are extremely hard to reach without dis-assembly. So how do I get at those places without more than a field strip? Heck, before I took these pictures I didn't even know how to remove the striker assy.

I need to raise my cleaning game. Help me.

 

[Jiman]

I usually spray liberally with a liquid cleaner like MPro-7 or Frog Lube, hit it with a nylon brush, spray a little more to 'wash' away and loosen what you brushed, blow the rest out with compressed air, and wipe off.

For the barrel I make sure the chamber is clean, but don't worry about the inside of the barrel much...maybe once a year or every 1500-2000 rds. IMO, most folks over clean their barrels and frankly it doesn't do anything to improve performance and/or reliability.

I used to be one of those guys that would clean until the inside of the barrel had a mirror shine. It wasn't until I started shooting rifles and taking 'fouling shoots' before baggin' the gun that I began to understand.

IMHO, the mirror clean barrel is an old schools concept that's hung around from men who remember getting screamed at by their DI's/Drill Sergants. Ironically, knowing some USMC rifle team guys, they don't clean their barrels like they did in boot.

If you talk to almost any long range distance shooter they'll tell you the same thing I am. Out of anyone in the shooting industry they'll do anything to squeeze out the most from their guns.

The only exception where regular/frequent barrel cleaning is recommended is if you shoot cast lead bullets.

I do this with all my guns from $5k to $500 for the last 15 yrs with no negative results.

 

[Pef]

Well if you enjoy cleaning get a set of dental picks and you can use small pieces of cotton soaked in solvent to get the hard to reach spots and nooks and crannies. Then dry with dry cotton, and then lube if necessary with oiled cotton.

Totally unnecessary, though. Many enthusiasts clean their guns too often, in my humble opinion.

But....if you find it relaxing and part of the shooting experience, go for it.

 

[gunfighter48]

After a few hundred rounds at the range I run a boresnake thru the barrel, wipe down the slide and recoil spring assembly. Then put a little Tetra Gun Grease on the rails, reassemble and call it good. Every 1000 to 2000 rounds I do the same procedure but use spray cleaner on the interior parts, barrel, use Q tips to dab out gunk, put a drop of Weapon Shield where needed and call it good. I don't ever have a problem with rust or malfunctions. As already stated over cleaning does more damage than good.

 

[rdtompki]

In fairness to Apex they needed the pictures to diagnose my problem and asked that the "gun" be cleaned. It just didn't occur to me to do a more thorough cleaning once I had things disassembled. A good learning experience all the way around; Apex provided some pictures illustrating how to polish the trigger bar loop; that's clearly worthwhile, but it's not at the heart of my (minor) issue.

 

[PastureOfMuppets]

"Manufacturing Variability" sounds an awful lot like "Out of tolerance" when used to explain why a new part isn't working...

Then again, APEX has a fantastic reputation so I can't see them playing that card.

Forget I said anything.

 

[Rastoff]

You do not need to clean the gun down to the level you have in the pics. If you do, the gun is broken. In fact, the M&P manual tells us specifically not to tear the gun down to that level.

I have an M&P 40 that I have about 800 rounds through since I last cleaned it. I have no intention of cleaning it for a long time yet. It looks a lot worse than yours and still functions just fine.

 

[rdtompki]

"Manufacturing Variability" sounds an awful lot like "Out of tolerance" when used to explain why a new part isn't working...

Then again, APEX has a fantastic reputation so I can't see them playing that card.

Forget I said anything.

Apex was extremely helpful. My interpretation of what the gunsmith "said" (I didn't speak with him directly) was that they have seen a range of over-travel on M&P with their kits installed. One of my M&P 40s just happens to be at one end of the scale. As soon as I can buy a "S" trigger bar assy I'll give that a try as they recommended.

 

[dullh]

Apex says "Clean your gun"!

I learned that 30+ years ago...I thought everybody knew.

Guess not...

 

[dullh]

You do not need to clean the gun down to the level you have in the pics. If you do, the gun is broken. In fact, the M&P manual tells us specifically not to tear the gun down to that level.

There are two kinds of gun owners:

1) Enthusiasts

2) Appliance Operators

If you are an Enthusiast, and a competent one at that, you understand how your gun works and can comfortably break it all the way down to the level of a parts diagram.

If you are an Appliance Operator, you don't need to go any farther than taking the slide off the frame.

To say nobody should break their pistol down that far is asinine and unrealistic. I do it all the time. In fact, if you have ever installed an Apex kit (I've done 9 of them), you have to break it down that far.

Pick your personal category from the two listed above and go forth accordingly...

 

[shawn mccarver]

In fairness to Apex they needed the pictures to diagnose my problem and asked that the "gun" be cleaned. It just didn't occur to me to do a more thorough cleaning once I had things disassembled. A good learning experience all the way around.

With all due respect, if your gun will not function 100% in the condition in which it is shown in your pictures, then put the factory parts back in and go from there.

The M&P is a rugged pistol, and it should be 100% reliable even after 1,000 or 2,000 rounds without cleaning (lube as required, yes - cleaning no).

Anyone can do whatever they like, but for its intended purpose, the factory parts are the way to go. Tiny variances in over-travel, or a slightly less heavy trigger pull will make absolutely NO difference in a defense scenario. In a gun fight, you will not know the difference.

So, if this is a "fun" gun or a "match" gun, have at it. Never trust such an arrangement for a true carry or defense gun as there is no excuse for anything less than 100% reliability in a defense scenario, especially with the M&P.

 

[Trons]

Well, I used to be one of those guys, being new to guns, that cleaned after every outing, whether it was 50 rounds or 200 rounds. I've since stopped that. I'm closer to 500 rounds of my shield with no cleaning, but mainly because we've done that in the last 2 weekends. My .22 I still clean after every weekend we shoot, but mainly because each weekend is 300-500 rounds.

 

[ladyT]

Apex was extremely helpful. My interpretation of what the gunsmith "said" (I didn't speak with him directly) was that they have seen a range of over-travel on M&P with their kits installed. One of my M&P 40s just happens to be at one end of the scale. As soon as I can buy a "S" trigger bar assy I'll give that a try as they recommended.

You know for the cost of the trigger you would expect it to function, not introduce problems.

 

[Rastoff]

To say nobody should break their pistol down that far is asinine and unrealistic. I do it all the time.

Maybe you misunderstood what I said. It's not me that says you don't need to strip your gun down to that level, it's S&W. If you had read your manual you would have seen that on page 22. Since S&W says that the user should never disassemble their gun beyond the field stripping process outlined in the manual, the gun should work without having to take it apart any further than that. Don't you agree?

Yes, there is a field strip and then there is a detail strip. Based on how the gun was made, a normal user shouldn't need to do a detail strip just to keep their gun working. What's unrealistic is to suggest that without a detail strip level cleaning the gun won't work right.


Let me say this one more time (just in case the other three times didn't sink in), a normal user shouldn't NEED to do a detail strip just to keep their gun working. The manual clearly states that. If you want to detail strip your gun, have at it.

 

[Rastoff]

Oh yeah, one more thing.

I maintain all my guns in a very clean condition. My M&P 40 is a test. I want to see how long I can go before a malfunction.

 

[PastureOfMuppets]

As soon as I can buy a "S" trigger bar assy I'll give that a try as they recommended.

Yeah, that's pretty much where I would draw the line. Buying a second product from a company to make the first product work.


The problem is not that you gun doesn't fit their trigger...

Curious to see how this works out. Well for you hopefully.


On different tangent.... "Enthusiasts" and "Appliance Operators".

There is an third personal category...

 

[rdtompki]

You know for the cost of the trigger you would expect it to function, not introduce problems.

Given I installed the DCAEK into four M&Ps and the excellent reputation of of Apex I'm inclined to believe that S&W manufacturing variability caused this one frame example to exceed the parameters for which the DCAEK was designed.

The gun functions well after thousands of rounds. The over-travel which barely exceeds 1/8" may have no practical consequence, but in an ideal world per Apex one would be able to close the trigger bar loop to reduce the over-travel and reduce the sight jump; my POI is not to the right and is probably not at issue.

 

[Don 73]

Maybe you misunderstood what I said. It's not me that says you don't need to strip your gun down to that level, it's S&W. If you had read your manual you would have seen that on page 22. Since S&W says that the user should never disassemble their gun beyond the field stripping process outlined in the manual, the gun should work without having to take it apart any further than that. Don't you agree?

Yes, there is a field strip and then there is a detail strip. Based on how the gun was made, a normal user shouldn't need to do a detail strip just to keep their gun working. What's unrealistic is to suggest that without a detail strip level cleaning the gun won't work right.


Let me say this one more time (just in case the other three times didn't sink in), a normal user shouldn't NEED to do a detail strip just to keep their gun working. The manual clearly states that. If you want to detail strip your gun, have at it.

I detail stripped my 3913 ONCE, only because it was a brand new gun and I wanted to polish the rough areas with a dremel and metal polish instead of waiting for a few hundred round to cycle through the gun and do a half-way job of polishing.

The gun was to be an off duty gun which was put into service immediately and I simply didn't have the time or extra money to fire enough rounds to smooth out the gun.

It took me about a day of working slowly and deliberately, but when I was done, the DA trigger was MUCH smoother as was the action of the decocking lever and other moving parts after a mirror shine was put on them, the gun lubed and reassembled.

Would I do this to my M&P, not likely, way too many small springs and parts to lose.

 

[rsrocket1]

I field strip and do a light cleaning after each range trip (about 400 rounds). I've run about 22k rounds through my M&P 40 and have detail stripped it once and that was to install the Apex FSS trigger kit. At that point I wiped down whatever was dirty and that was about it.

I did remove the extractor and cleaned that cavity out. It was fully caked in soot and I believe was one of the culprits of occasional light/off center primer strikes (maybe along with needing a new recoil spring).

 

[MSG Glenn]

I feel that's a cop-out on Apex's part. I don't know anyone who cleaned their M&P beyond the S&W factory recommended cleaning before installing any of their parts. None of them had a problem.

Since I use my M&P40 & 40C strictly for defensive carry I find the trigger to be just right for that I don't feel the need to make any modifications. All I did was polish the trigger bar to get rid of a little bit of grittiness. That was a 5 minute trigger job. My triggers measure slightly less than 6.5 lbs of pull on both M&Ps which to me is just right.