Filthiest cleaning job ever

[LordTio3]

Okay... I've had some filthy gun-cleaning jobs in my time, but this one took the cake.

I recently went to a relative's house for a cookout, and during the course of the day, the subject of shooting came up. My cousin saw my Glock 19 on my belt and asked, "Is that thing a 9mm?" I of course confirmed this. "Want to help me test some ammo?"



He brings out a standard box of 50 rounds that I've never seen before (faded black box with 1 orange and 1 yellow stripe). They are standard brass with darkened bullets (look "tarnished" from handling). He said that he found 4 boxes at a garage sale and wanted to test them out. They don't look overtly dirty, just kind of old; and a quick wipe with a handkerchief confirmed no loose dirt. I drop out my HP's and load up with these things.

30 rounds into an old railroad tie at 15 yards later and they seem to be pretty accurate to me. No jams (obviously) and a pretty nice "little" group.

What I didn't expect came when I got home. I took apart my weapon and began cleaning it; like I do after every shooting session. All I have to say is that this had to be the filthiest freaking ammo I've ever put in a magazine. After only 30 rounds, it took me almost 30 patches and 45 minutes to clean the barrel alone, and I usually work pretty quickly. I thought I could get away with a field strip, but ended up detail stripping the gun and found bad GSR everywhere. After taking out the extractor, the Firing Pin Safety hole was even dusted with the stuff.

I'm not quite sure who made this stuff, or where they are, but it is some of the filthiest ammo I've ever seen in my life. Is it possilbe that they found explosive dirt and packed that in the casing instead of powder? Burning coal dust? Crude Oil?
I've not gotten a chance to speak with this relative about this again, but if anyone else's bell rings on this, I'd love some input. I wouldn't dream of taking this stuff to the range or practicing with it.

That being said, anyone else have any auto-cleaning horror stories? I've got a few, but this one takes the cake.

~LT

[Uncle Malice]

Ironically, this would actually excite me.

I feel so much more accomplished when I make a filthy gun spotless than when I give it a quick blow out with brake cleaner, run a bore snake a few times and lube accordingly.

[LordTio3]

I've just got to share this one too. It didn't happen to me, but I was at least involved.

Last year I was at a local outdoor range on a nearly empty day. There was a gentleman a couple of booths down from me who seemed new to shooting judging by his stance and grip. After a few magazines, I decided to wander down and strike up a conversation during the ceasefire, which I enjoy doing with new and old shooters alike. He was at the range with a black Bersa Thunder 9mm.

After introducing myself and talking for a bit, he mentioned that he was having a lot of problems with jams. I moved a couple of booths down during the next firing section to watch and see if I could spot an obvious problem, which I didn't really; but he was still getting FTF's almost every round. Next cease fire I asked if he would like me to take a look at the weapon, to which he thankfully accepted. During my initial safety check, racking the slide felt INCREDIBLY gritty, and I noticed a marked resistance on the slide when slingshotting forward. I looked up at him and asked immediately, "When did you last clean this thing?"

"Clean it??" "Never... why?"



We field strip it and just taking the components out my fingers are black with GSR. "Yup... that'll do it."

I didn't have time to show him to detail strip and clean everything like it needed, so I gave him the basics for future reference and the name of a local smith who would do damage control on how bad it was currently for cheap.

Had the thing for 4 years with no instruction, no pointers, no cleaning, and no one that offered any advice or help. His target didn't look too bad, but that weapon and his stance were atrocious. Literally 15 minutes and this guy is years ahead of where he was when he woke up that morning when it didn't matter how you stood and cleaning guns was completely unnecessary. I jump at those opportunities and love it when others do to. It's days like that where I'm proud to be part of this community.

~LT

[Uncle Malice]

Ha! That's an awesome story.

My coworker got a P229 Equinox a little before I got my P229 Elite and after the first 200 rounds and cleaning he decided he wasn't going to clean it until it started having problems.

Basically, just a test to see what the gun will tolerate before having issues.

I'm not exactly sure what the count is right now, but he rarely goes to the range without me. I think we are currently somewhere around 600-800 rounds without cleaning. Still holding excellent groups. Still functioning flawlessly. Being a Sig.... I'm not sure I'll still be alive when that thing starts to fail!

[Doyle]

LT, if you were shooting a real gun (steel instead of plastic), you could have simply sprayed it down with brake cleaner, blown it off with compressed air, relubed, and reassembled. Ah, the beauty of old-school simplicity.

[Uncle Malice]

if you were shooting a real gun (steel instead of plastic), you could have simply sprayed it down with brake cleaner, blown it off with compressed air, relubed, and reassembled.

...And why, exactly, couldn't he do this with his Glock? That method is how I clean all of my guns - plastic, stainless, or alloy - until they get their full detail strip cleaning.... Actually - I don't blow it off with compressed air. It's unnecessary since the brake cleaner evaporates rather instantly.

I'm not sure what the point the this was...

[EdInk]

You can do the same thing with polymer. Except we poly-guys (with our love of new-tangled technology) use Break Free CLP. Which saves us the trouble of having to use a seperate lube. Don't even get me started on the time saving do-hickey that is the boresnake! It may make you old-timers have a heart-attack. Never aa good excuse to not "kinda" clean your guns.

[lee n. field]

He said that he found 4 boxes at a garage sale and wanted to test them out.

"Danger Will Robinson! Danger! Danger!"

[Deputy Dog]

I think his point was that some brake cleaners and gun scrubbers will eat away at the plastic frame. But if he had that "real gun" he might not have gotten those 30 or so rounds down range to begin with.

Wait for it, wait for it, wait for it, ok let them fly I have my BPV on.

DD

[Doyle]

And why, exactly, couldn't he do this with his Glock?

I've always thought (perhaps wrongly) that brake cleaner and plastic didn't mix well - brake cleaner wins and plastic looses.

[45Gunner]

Actually a good bore brush soaked in something such as Hoppe's will do a splendid job of removing the gunk that builds up in the barrel grooves and save yourself lots of patches. After running the bore brush thru a few times, take a patch completely soaked in that stuff and run it thru, letting the chemical sit in the barrel for a few minutes to dissolve whatever gunpowder residue is left. Now take the patches and run them thru, finishing up with a light coating of oil.

And the assumption is correct, if the barrel is that bad, one can bet the rest of the gun is as bad. A detail stripping is in order before any further damage may be caused to the machinery. A clean gun has a far better chance for reliability when you need it than one that is caked with sludge.

[Retired15T]

Back in 1998, my unit was working with some Texas "Special Police" guys. They had just received a bunch of new Glocks, I think they were 22's, though not absolutely certain, with the all new Saf-T-Blok piece of crap. We Army guys were also asked to use them in various training scenarios we had on tap for the day.

One of the Police guys on the very first iteration had an issue with his bloc. It had been placed so that he couldn't push it out since he was left handed. He turned the weapon sideways and and before you know it, the weapon discharged. Me, being the lucky one in his line of fire when he twisted the weapon around, received a very shallow yet bloody graze to my left forearm. How I didn't get a bullet in my ribcage or through my hand, I don't know since the grazing wound was so close to my wrist. It went from my wrist up towards my elbow starting two inches from my wrist and stopping about six inches after the initial point of grazing, towards my elbow.

I didn't even realize I had been grazed because we were doing a "stress fire" scenario where an "observer/grader" shadowed each of the three guys going through the course, slapping our heads, punching us in the arms and ribs and kicking us in the shins. As you can imagine, it was pretty aggravating and I just assumed I had been hit by the observer again. I had seen the guy in front of me be pulled off by his observer for an AD, this meant that guy left the team THAT DAY, while I continued on the course.

The last position had us dive into a prone position behind the cover of some sandbags. This prone position point was deep sand with pine needles all over the place. As I dove into the position, I noticed that a bunch of sand and pine needles were stuck to my weapon. By now, my left arm was tingling like an SOB....just about to start hurting. I shook the gun once, loaded up the first of the three mags I had for this position and fired away. By the time I finished firing those three mags, I was starting to wonder what the hell was wrong with my arm.

So I came to find out that while I had been running around all this sandy, pine needle covered area, I had been bleeding down my left arm and onto the dang weapon. By the time I fired my last shots, the Glock was covered in blood, sand and pine needles and you had to roll from side to side to fire around the cover.

They got me patched up, I insisted I was fine and I was, I was just a bit ticked off, we had some debriefs on the accident and the whole range to that point, then went on to the other portions of the exercise. By the time we finished up for the day, the Glock I was using was in horrible shape. It took forever to clean all the GSR out of it as well as my now dried up, burnt in blood.

I was not a happy camper by the end of the day. My left arm had swollen up a little bit, but was otherwise fine except for the pain I was in. That's one of the only times I gave up being a Crew Chief for our RTB flight. I went to sleep.

[Deputy Dog]

I agree with 45 Gunner, with exception of running some lube down the barrel after. Reason being is that oil will help collect dust, dust in the barrel is not a good thing, and we all know how some people dont like to properly care for their weapons like they should. LOL

DD

[ET.]

Jeesh, you have more guts than me (or less brains ). I would never shoot something that I wasn't relatively sure of where it came from or who loaded them. Those could have easily been reloaded with some store bought jacketed bullets & a heck of a lot of powder. Kaboom ...We would have seen pictures of your Glock on the next pro 1911 / anti Glock thread on every board on the internet. I hate to say it, but there are people out there that would do it for kicks.

[troy_mclure]

a guy i regulary shootwith bought sight unseen kentucky long rifle.

it was his first rifle and first muzzle loader.

i was there at his second range session with it. he was confused because the patched ball would not fit the barrel, and asks me to take a peek.

the barrel was so packed with powder residue that a .490 round ball would not fit in the muzzle. you could not see any rifiling.

im guessing the guy had just been shooting blanks(patched powder load) and fouled the barrel.

it took 4 large cans of brakleen to even see the rifiling.

he finaly took it home and soaked it in hot soapy water for a few hours

he scrubbed for a few hours, and suprisingly there was verry little pitting.

[DanThaMan1776]

My filthy cleaning story isn't that bad, and it doesn't involve a handgun, but It's worth saying and pertinent to the topic.

About 5 months ago I was shooting some wolf through my RRA ar15 at a carbine defense course. The sky's perspiration transitioned between rain and sleet every hour or so, and several of us got hypothermia. Anyways, after rollin around in the muddy ice for a while, I had mud and some shredded straw EVERYWHERE in my rifle. I even had to pull some straw and scrape some mud from behind the buffer spring :barf:.

The wolf didn't help either, because we fired over 1000 rounds in two days and I didn't clean overnight.

In case anyone was wondering... I had no failures.

[chris in va]

Had the thing for 4 years with no instruction, no pointers, no cleaning, and no one that offered any advice or help.

And yet so many people are totally against required training/safety classes. Even basic 1 hour instruction would have helped.

[AZAK]

And yet so many people are totally against required training/safety classes. Even basic 1 hour instruction would have helped.

And this person was an... adult?

First two words that come to mind. Owner's manual.

Heck, even people that want to start out a new hobby, like say knitting, will seek some form of instruction; I would think, unless their idea of a scarf includes lots of duct tape and holes "artistically" placed.

Education is the foundation to most endeavors, and it is our job and privilege as community members, parents, relatives, friends, fellow gun owners to help the upcoming, and even the older, generations build that foundation and to help instill in them the lifelong desire to want to continue learning.

The old saying, something about hanging together or...

All that said, I am not for creating more "requirements" (What can I say, I live in Alaska and we do not even require a CCP to CC or OC) I am for education and especially helping to instill a love and passion for learning.

[Uncle Malice]

I live in Alaska and we do not even require a CCP to CC or OC

Alaska, Arizona, and Delaware! That's my America.

[Skans]

I used to shoot corrosive chinese ammo in my AK. That stuff was very dirty. In fact, it didn't just get the inside of your gun sooty, but it blew soot all over the outside of your gun, on your hands, on your arms, on your cloths, and even on your face. After shooting a couple hundred rounds of the Chinese corrosive stuff, I feelt like I'd been sweeping chimnies

[flight954]

My rifles get perty dirty when I'm shooting steel cased ammo with the suppressors.

[AZAK]

About my comment:

And this person was an... adult?

Upon revisiting this thread and reading through the posts, I want to clarify that I was referring to the Bersa shooter in the OP's example regarding this comment.

Rereading of my post it could appear from a certain perspective like I was bashing you; this was/is not my intention. Sometimes my fingers leave out some of the thoughts "upstairs" and the resulting words do not quite match the intended message. While we may or may not agree on many topics, I have read many of your posts and respect your opinion.

Again, I was referring to the Bersa owner story with my above comment.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming...

[stevieboy]

Interesting thread. I clean my guns after every trip to the range, whether I shoot 5 rounds or 200. However, I've also purchased a couple of used guns that were filthy. Recently, I purchased a used Smith & Wesson 625, a .45 ACP revolver, for a really nice price. These guns are hard to come by new or used and I would have bought it regardless how dirty it was. However, this gun obviously hadn't been cleaned even once since the day it left the factory. The chambers and the forcing cone were clogged with thick carbon buildup. It took me hours of brushing to clean the chambers and not even that got all of the carbon deposits out of the forcing cone. I finally had to work the forcing cone over with a dental pick, tediously picking out carbon deposits, before the gun was completely clean. I estimate that it took me about 8 solid hours' work. How anyone could allow a gun that valuable to get into that condition is totally beyond me.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Once shot my repro Rem 1858 new Army until it "wouldn't go no more", that was a nasty cleaning job.

Also made up a mags worth of black power rounds for my P89 9mm, a horrible mess to clean.

[cougar gt-e]

Got my dad's old mauser and when it turned cold it failed to fire. Naturally, it was pointed as a buck at the time Took it apart and cleaned it. The gun overall was clean to spotless. The bolt was caked up. Guess that was missed....

Never failed after that