How Bill Wilson Maintains a 1911
- Thread starter Amp Mangum
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Not very well, it seems by the video...
The take away from this should be as he stated several times...lube is way more important than clean.
"I like my guns how I like my wimmins"
My Dad used to be a guy that cleaned his guns after every trip regardless of round count. At some point he started cleaning his range toys only when they malfunctioned and realized how well a dirty gun would operate with some lube.
I am in This camp.
I use this on my motorcycle chain and it has been tested for collecting dirt and does great. Also hard to sling off. may have to try it; I'm kinda the pioneering type.
Personally, I clean and lube after each range session. I also love shooting my old milsurp pistols and they often come to me with pitted barrels. These generally shoot well with jacketed ammo but "lead up" quickly with cast or coated bullets and that does affect accuracy, so I am concerned about pitting.
I have some questions for the "dirty gun" folks. After a range session do you at least run an oily patch down the barrel or really leave it untouched? Does leaving the barrel dirty eventually lead to pitting? Are we talking about leaving just the barrel dirty or the whole gun?
Your opinions will be greatly appreciated.
In my opinion, this depends on what you are shooting at the range. If you are shooting a glock with cast lead bullets, the yeah, you need to clean it out and check for lead being left behind. But if you are shooting standard jacketed ammo, then there will/should be no lead left behind. Carrying a firearm daily in ones waist band leads to more moisture being deposited into the barrel than shooting some rounds through it. And even then, most barrels are treated steel so them rusting/pitting is only going to be much of an issue if it gets wet and left for extended periods of time.
Often, in the older mil-surp firearms the ammunition used often had salts in the primers that lead to much of the pitting.
As far as my take on cleaning...I wipe down all of my firearms that I take to the range before putting the away. If I have shot something that I shoot very rarely then I will add a bit extra gusto to my cleaning and application of oil as it may be a while before I inspect it again. But my carry/competition firearms get a field strip and a wipe. Not only to check for cleanliness, but to check for any mechanical issues that may be arising. Never found one yet, but it doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
That...and I enjoy cleaning them.
Back in ‘04 my agency issued the Glock 23 as the standard issue sidearm. I bought a personally owned G23 for use as a practice gun and basically followed the same routine as your Dad did with that one. I kept my duty gun spotless but the personally owned Glock got cleaned maybe every 2,000 rounds or so but kept it well lubed. I never did have a failure with that practice gun in over 10 years!