Cleaning.

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Hello guys. Been a lol while. put about 40 rounds thru my mp 40. When is the optimal time to clean. How many more rounds till it should be done?


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Hello guys. Been a lol while. put about 40 rounds thru my mp 40. When is the optimal time to clean. How many more rounds till it should be done?


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I think it depends on your shooting habit. If you shoot 60 rounds a week, I'd clean it after firing. I think the carbon deposits harden and get hard to remove when the gun sits around.

I shoot my 9L 6 days a week and clean it once a week (or once every 2 weeks) so the round count is between 1000 and 2400. My cc 9c is shot once a week (to keep in practice) so the round count is around 80 per week. I clean it after the range trip. So I don't have a round count in mind. I don't like the idea of a dirty gun sitting around for a week without being used.

Be prepared to get deluged with advice, this subject generates almost as much comment as "Do I carry a round in the chamber" or "How do I release the slide". Both of these subjects come up every couple of weeks and the same comments get recycled every time. :D In the end, decide what's best for you. Have fun.
 
I have heard that you should clean every time after you shoot. Truthfully I don't follow that rule. When the darling husband and I were competing years ago I think we tried to clean the guns before the first match of the month (we generally shot 2, day long matches a month). I was bad and let my old comp gun sit dirty for a few years. I stopped competing and life interfered in my shooting. I cleaned it with good old Hoppe's and I had no issues. Now I try to clean my guns every few hundred rounds or sooner if I know that it a particular gun is going to sit in the box for a while. BTW, when I say clean I mean clean and lube. Hope this helps..
 
i have been cleaning after ever range trip..usually 200 rounds or so a trip when i can find ammo
 
I clean my guns after shooting them. If I'm going to shoot every day, I might wait a few days. If it's going to be more than a week before use again, I'll clean it right away.

I take all my guns out every now and then just to wipe them down and check for rust, wipe the dust out. My carry gun gets cleaned once a week whether it gets used or not.
 
For 19 years I visited my grandparents after church every Sunday. I fired a box of .22 caps or shorts in the basement and then cleaned the gun and polished my shoes. Over the years I have gotten a little lazy but not my boys who I brought up the same way. We shot 5 or 6 different guns Friday and when I returned to the kitchen after showering they were all apart on the counter waiting to be cleaned.
 
We shot 5 or 6 different guns Friday and when I returned to the kitchen after showering they were all apart on the counter waiting to be cleaned.

So the boys took them apart and waited for you to clean them? I hope they helped at least. :D
 
Every time after shooting, if its your carry. I'd say weekly wipe down and function check between shooting.
 
I clean after each trip to the range, which is usually ~150 rounds.
 
Hardly ever. My carry gun was last cleaned about 3 months ago and has had about 500 rounds through it since. Modern guns like M&Ps, Glocks, HKs, Walters ...e t c...etc don't have to be cleaned often. This is a whole thing that's left over from the days of black powder and a little later ..finicky guns during the infancy of modern handguns.

Today's guns are usually not finicky, will shoot just about every type of bullet and powder combo and powders are no longer corrosive

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When is the optimal time to clean.

As stated, you can just shoot it til it quits, which usually takes a lot with the loose fit combat tupperware. A disadvantage of letting fired guns sit for an extended time is all that fluffy fouling turns to stone and gets harder to clean.

Optimally, I clean:
1. Before firing the first time, including all magazines. Inspect carefully.
2. After a week of practice, or if I intend to put the gun away for a week or more. Sometimes well over 1000 rounds.
3. Before a match. At the end of each day in a multi-day match.
4. For a carry gun, I clean, inspect carefully, and load with fresh ammo after each practice session with it. Usually once a month.
5. For loaners in class, after each class finishes.
 
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I go to the range two or three times a week and I usually take two or three pistols and a carbine. I have a can of CLP, patches, and a short plastic rod in my range bag so I can swab the barrels on each pistol after shooting. I run grease on slides so they stay well lubricated so I only do a thorough cleaning every two or three weeks. I also keep a 30ml syringe in my bag filled with my favorite grease in case I need to lube my gun or someone else's.
 
Hello guys. Been a lol while. put about 40 rounds thru my mp 40. When is the optimal time to clean. How many more rounds till it should be done?


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I know of an old S&W small caliber semi that has never, yes never been cleaned in almost 30 years but has only had around 2000 rounds fired in that time. Although there is some surface rust in some spots it still works flawlessly. Maybe because it's such a low power round that everything is still in tact and it hasn't exploded yet. I also have heard from a lot of people that they have never cleaned their gun, and it works fine.

However for my .40C, within a few hours after shooting I:

1. Clean with solvent
2. Clear the solvent with pure iso-alcohol
3. Lube on the specified internals
4. Buff it thoroughly
Every time.

Takes maybe 20 minutes and it's enjoyable for me. Then I de-lead my hands immediately after.
 
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