Ever take your pistol swimming?

Cape Fear

Cape Fear

Atomic Amish
2A Bourbon Hound OG
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I missed a step from the boat to the dock and fell in the river around midnight last Saturday night! I had my EDC and a spare mag in my pocket when I went in. I didn't have half a day to detail strip & clean it until yesterday, so +/- a week. There was a little surface rust on the carbon steel parts but it wasn't too bad. I put all the steel parts in a container with some soapy water & steel pins from the wet tumbler, then shook it by hand for about five minutes. Sprayed everything with brake cleaner, dried, oiled everything up really well & reassembled.

This was my first time tearing it all the way down so I was a little nervous. Every spring & all the little pieces inside had to come out. I may or may not have removed the mag disconnect while I had it apart... I ran a full mag through it after I got it back together and it performed flawlessly.

I didn't take any pics while I had it apart, here it is all cleaned up:

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Anyone else ever done this? Let's hear your stories!
 
Cape Fear said:
Anyone else ever done this?
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I had a gen3 Glock 19 I buried in sand two separate times before a mag dump and then gave it a proper baptism in the pond before another mag dump. 2 failures to go into battery from the sand but no issues. I cleaned it the next morning.

I've been lucky enough to stay in the boat fishing. Glad to see the little Ruger survived.

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Each and every little bitty piece and spring had to come out. It took me four hours to get it apart, cleaned, and back together. I'd never done it before, and I am no gunsmith. I could probably do it all in two now.
 
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Squanchy said:
I had a gen3 Glock 19 I buried in sand two separate times before a mag dump and then gave it a proper baptism in the pond before another mag dump. 2 failures to go into battery from the sand but no issues. I cleaned it the next morning.
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LOL at least mine was an accident...
 
Cape Fear said:
Each and every little bitty piece and spring had to come out. It took me four hours to get it apart, cleaned, and back together. I'd never done it before, and I am no gunsmith. I could probably do it all in two now.
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I would abuse my p01 if it wasn't such a pain to take apart. I need to try my m&p and see if it works as well as the Glock did. No magazine and I left the slide open as safe for the dirt part. Looking back it might have skewed my testing results.
 
Knew they would. I’ve had rounds go through the washer and dryer in my pants pocket. They all went bang.
 
Walkabout Dan said:
Yep, it’s the wallet that took it the worst.
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I carry a minimalist these days, so I just emptied it and let everything dry then put it all back together a few days later.

I had a BRAND NEW Pixel 7 Pro on me too, it never skipped a beat. I didn't plug in the charger for a couple of days just to be safe. I was kind of sweating that one.
 
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I had a Sig P229 and S&W 340PD on me during Hurricane Sandy (2012) rescue operations. Both were submerged in salt water for long periods of time throughout the ~15 hours (we even had to bail-out of our Nat. Guard Hummer when the water rushed in up to our chests and HALON system activated). I sprayed them with tons of BreakFree, then after some rest, both got an armorers break-down and cleaning. No issues whatsoever.
 
Was hauling two guns out of the bear woods a year or two ago. My Remington 7600 and my son's Winchester 94. Was slogging through the swamp and my feet got tangled up on a something, it seemed it took 5 minutes to fall all the way, it was plenty long enough for me to decide whose gun was going underwater. Not mine!
 
alpharius said:
You should have fired it before cleaning it. That would be an interesting test.
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I shot the 15 rounds that went swimming before I cleaned the pistol. No malfunctions of any kind. It had been drying for a week though so not wet.
 
Just Tripp said:
Nope, but I have gone in after I dropped a rod and reel. In January. Coldest ride I’ve ever taken in a boat.
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I was really thankful this happened in the backyard. I was in dry clothes & back out by the fire in less than 30 minutes.
 
I took my old Glawk 32-turned-23 "wading" inna red clay mud puddle and ran over it with the truck 3x. Does that count? 💩

Rollin out down thru the club for a rainy mornin hunt and got hit with that "pressing bidness" so pulled it over and deployed Uncle Boogers Bumper Dumper. And as usual set my Glock on the bumper. Got inna hurry with the rain and hunt anticipation. Forgot it was on the bumper and drove off. Took me about 500 yards before I figgered out I was a coupla pounds lighter than expected after dat bidness. CHIT! So I went rollin back n forth 3x before gettin off my ass and hoofin it. Stepped on it in the first big mudhole. It had been squished into the mud pretty good.
Field stripped it. Knocked out the big chunks, rinsed it and the mag out with copious amounts of water from the jug, shook off he excess and reassembled. Mag in, charged, blam, blam blam.. No problemo.
To this day that Glock has a lil patch of dried red mud on the grip I will not clean off as a reminder of Glocks legendary "tolerance of dipsticks". 🤪🤡
And that's one that'll literally hafta be pried from my cold, dead hands.. :cool:

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I usually wear mine flatwater kayaking and it always gets wet, sometimes submerged. Lake water though, not salt water. I've been kayaking for many years, so this covers several compact handguns. Typically all I do is a field strip and wipe down/lube. If I forget to do it same day I can expect to see some rust on grip screws and any places on the slide where the finish is compromised (unless it's stainless). I've never found any rust on internal parts, guess they've all been stainless?
 
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