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Old March 17, 2014, 10:55 AM   #2
44 AMP
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Join Date: March 11, 2006
Location: Upper US
Posts: 28,677
Gun cleaning habits are, like other things, very personal. And there is a huge volume of "institutional" lore, dating from the black powder era. You are seldom "wrong" to clean a firearm. However, you can be wrong with over cleaning, and definitely wrong if you clean it improperly. Damage can result.

Black powder residue traps moisture from the air, and holds it against the steel. Result = rust. And very rapidly in a humid environment. Under the right conditions, a gun can, literally, begin rusting overnight.

Moving forward in time, a bit, we have smokeless powders, where powder residue itself isn't much of a concern for rust, BUT through the 1950s, and in some ammo even today primer residue (chemical salts) were corrosive.

We may have totally non-corrosive ammo today, but old habits and beliefs die slowly.

Most people do over clean their guns. And by that I mean they clean them more often than the minimum needed to ensure reliable function. Military training puts a heavy emphasis on cleaning weapons, and for good sound reasons. Few civilian guns get treated to the abuses of combat.

Many, if not most of the semi auto rifle and pistols you see are some variant of military designs, intended to be easily, and repeatedly broken down for cleaning. Few purely sporting arms are built that way.

.22s are the odd one, for cleaning, because of the ammo construction. What has been discovered over the years is that, unlike centerfire guns, where accuracy suffers as the barrels get dirty, .22s seem to shoot better once a certain level of "fouling" is reached, and seldom noticeably deteriorate as they get dirtier. Cleaning the actions of powder residue for good function is a good idea, but cleaning the barrel of a .22LR can actually reduce the accuracy of the gun, for a while.

Also, Keeping your Glock ( or whatever) squeaky clean and running might be something important to keeping you alive. Very rare any .22LR is in that category.
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