Dirty rifles

[Willie Lowman]

After reading the necrothread about proper lube of an AR I started thinking about the utter neglect of rifles. I recall reading the article about the "filthy #14" that had 30,000+ rounds through it with only one cleaning. It goes against my nature to let a rifle go that long without cleaning but I have neglected a few in my days.

In shooting classes I have fired 600+ rounds a day without issue but I always clean my rifle at the end of the day. I once had a RRA carbine that I neglected for close to 1000 rounds and of course an AK that I never bothered to clean... ever. I have a shooting buddy that claims to only clean his HK 33 and MP5 once a year.

What guns have you seen first hand continue working despite a lack of cleaning or minimal upkeep?

[jad0110]

I remember filthy 14. Proved beyond a doubt that ARs don't have to be kept surgically clean to run well - they just need decent mags - like any other semi or full auto arm. Odd, that ! They don't even have to be run wet - very mildly damp . Like my AK .

With my AK and ARs, after a shooting session I typically wipe down the bolt, carrier and other internal areas with a shop towel, pull a bore snake down the barrel a few times, relube and that's it. Wipe down the exterior of course. They all run just fine. Takes about 5 minutes.

[DaleA]

I've mentioned this before, in my younger days I shot at clubs that provided the rifles to us. They were target .22 rifles and we cleaned those guns once or twice a year AFTER we were done with any matches. They were generally shot 100 to 200 rounds a week.

[Rothdel]

I know its not the theme of the thread..... but.....

I have a MK2 22/45 that was the first gun I ever purchased. Thing shot like a dream and was almost like you could think the bullet where you wanted it to go.

After several range trips I broke the entire gun down, cleaned it thoroughly, went through the gymnastics to put the entire thing back together. Next time I got to the range I could not hit the broad side of a barn from inside the barn.

An old timer standing next to me wandered over and had a try and same thing shooting air. He told me I got a dud and to send it back. I explained it could not be as it was a fine shooter several days prior to cleaning.

With a look I will never forget he exclaimed - "you never clean these MK guns. Just run em. They shoot better dirty"

Now I seriously doubt he was correct but I'm superstitious so I made several range trips with that gun and over time it got better and better and better.

That was almost 18 years ago now. I run a patch down the bore every few trips and run some rem oil in the action. I have never dissembled that gun since and its still my most accurate firearm.

[Steve in PA]

My Bushmaster AR and a Sig P220.

I'll shoot my AR all year and only make sure it's properly lubed.

Same with my Sig. It's my training/range gun. Ensure it's lubed and it's good to go.

[rickyrick]

Never abuse or neglect it, but my Mini14 spent lots of its life pretty dirty. In all kinds of dirty ways: mud and blood and ice and rain and moist September cow pie.

[Slamfire]

At the local gun shop, I run across firearms owned by the “don’t clean it types” all the time. Filthy, often rusted, sometimes pitted barrel, sometimes not. Those who don’t want to clean their firearms, come up with stories and logic justifying their behavior. And I don’t buy it.

Firearms are machines, they get to a certain level of dirty, they stop functioning. If all you are doing is busting rocks, who cares if the thing jams. I don’t know about the filthy 14, and I don’t care. That guy, if he had been deployed, would have been an entire risk to the squad, and I would not have wanted to be in any unit that relied on him. Sort of reminds me of Private Jessica Lynch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Lynch. She was a fueler, her unit was a tank truck unit, they never thought they would ever get shot at. I saw her on a TV show, she had not cleaned her weapon since the unit arrived in Iraq, and it jammed first shot. She said, “it jammed”, she was totally clueless about clearing a jam in her weapon. The soldier who saved her life, by engaging the Iraqi machine gun unit shooting at them, he had not cleaned his weapon either. He did not even know what the forward assist was called, but he showed how he kept his weapon going by waving his right hand, to show how you close the bolt by hitting the forward assist. The web says nine soldiers died, I have not found any details about how many of the unit soldiers had functioning weapons, if they were all like Private Jessica, all their M4’s were jammed.

I keep my weapons clean, I don’t like rust, so I clean my firearms. I have seen enough clean weapons malfunction with good ammunition, and I have had enough malfunctions with bad ammunition, that I don’t feel like pushing my luck with dirty weapons in a life threatening situation. Maybe you do. That’s fine. Just don’t cross the median and hit my vehicle as you text message.

[turtlehead]

It's just laziness. There, I said it. They probably don't shower much either.

If your barrel needs to be gunked up to shoot better groups there is something wrong with your barrel.

[marine6680]

There is a difference between not being overly zealous about cleaning...

And neglect...

I do not neglect my firearms... but I do not clean them after every single trip to the range. I let at least a few hundred rounds go through them before I bother.

If they get wet or other circumstances, they get cleaned as soon as I can.


Filthy 14 was from a rifle training course... It was a rental unit used if a student's rifle breaks.

It was done deliberately as an experiment.

[rickyrick]

As long as the critical spots are taken care of, there may be parts of some rifles that would never need to be cleaned.

[shootniron]

Not a rifle, but I have a Ruger MKll that has not been cleaned since the late 80's. It has been wiped down to prevent exterior corrosion, but that is it. On a couple of occasions, it has had light primer strikes and I have just sprayed lubricant on the bolt face and it went right back to firing. And, this little gun has been shot THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of times...it is still very accurate.

[hdwhit]

Willie Lowman asked:
What guns have you seen first hand continue working despite a lack of cleaning or minimal upkeep?

About the time he turned 90, my father pretty much quit cleaning his guns. I live 500miles away. I am an only child. So, those guns get cleaned when I am able to visit him - and when i think about cleaning his guns amongst all the other things I have to do to keep him living independently from afar.

His Ruger Mini-14, Marlin 60 and New England Firearms 12 gauge all seem to keep on working regardless of when they get cleaned. No doubt the irregular cleaning will impact their service life (on the New England 12 ga. I am constantly fighting rust around the trigger guard), but my father knows they will out-last him and will be my concern some time in the future.

[Art Eatman]

My approach has always been to avoid rust on the outside and gunk on the inside. As to the bore, what has been mostly adequate for me is to spray WD40 on a patch and run it through a couple of times. Then, spray some RemOil on a patch and run it through as a rust prevention.

Thousands of rounds, several decades from back in the 1960s.

[imashooter]

Purchased the basic plastic / stainless 10/22 in the late 80s. Thousands upon thousands of rounds through it. Noticed last year the accuracy wasn't quite what it had been. Cleaned it for the first time though it wasn't nearly as nasty as I thought it should be. Always kept it a little wet but not stupid wet. Accuracy came back. All other firearms I'm an OCD cleaner. Just something about that 10/22 made me evidently say screw it.

[JohnKSa]

There is a difference between not being overly zealous about cleaning...

And neglect...

I do not neglect my firearms... but I do not clean them after every single trip to the range. I let at least a few hundred rounds go through them before I bother.

If they get wet or other circumstances, they get cleaned as soon as I can.

Well said.

There are people who don't/can't understand what proper maintenance is, or don't want to have to learn/think about when it's necessary to clean and when a wipedown is sufficient. People like that are well-advised to clean their guns after every range trip. The routine simplifies things. No need to explain when a gun should be wiped down, when it needs to be lubricated, when it needs a patch or two through the bore, when it needs a thorough cleaning. Just one simple recipe is required: clean it thoroughly after every shooting session.

But reality is that sort of routine is not generally required to insure performance as long as the gun is properly maintained. It's just that now it's necessary to learn/think about what the gun requires instead of just following one simple rule.

It makes perfect sense why the military takes the first approach--here's your simple routine that you should always use no matter what. But for people who aren't being paid to clean their weapons when they don't actually require it, there is a more efficient approach that is just as effective.

By the way, I don't mean to imply that everyone who religiously cleans their guns after every shooting session does so out of ignorance. Some people were taught that way and continue to do what they were taught, some people may just enjoy the cleaning, etc.

In shooting classes I have fired 600+ rounds a day without issue...

This is the kind of thing that should make it clear that frequent/regular cleaning is not a hard & fast requirement.

If a rifle can go 600+ rounds in a single range session without stopping frequently to insert cleaning intervals, then it can go 600+ rounds over 5 shooting sessions without being cleaned after each session. Of course, that doesn't mean that the user can neglect all maintenance, a wipedown before storage is advisable, lubrication may be required, and, depending on the conditions of the session and storage or the peculiarities of the specific rifle, additional cleaning/maintenance may be prudent.

[stagpanther]

My personal opinion on cleaning--as long as you know for sure that each and every cartridge you fire is leaving no debris/build-up in the chamber or bore--and that you absolutely controlled all the elements entering and leaving the weapon every second of the day in it's life--why bother cleaning it??

[jad0110]

There is a difference between not being overly zealous about cleaning...

And neglect...

Yep. See my post #2 ... if you look at my AK or AR after a 5 to 10 minute range trip cleaning, they look clean ... but they aren't spotless. Running a white glove around the inside of my ARs and AK will result in a somewhat less white glove . Some guys spend hours with cue tips getting out every spec ... and that's fine, not knocking that because I understand some really do enjoy it. But I think some of those guys are retired and don't have kids to take care of either or a 12 page honey do list .

Same cleaning regimen for my modern polymer semi autos, like my SD9VE. It gets a 10 minute cleaning to get the heavy stuff. My M1 Garand gets the same sort of treatment as long as I haven't shot corrosive ammo (then it gets a full tear down). I try not to disassemble the stock from the action, as I understand it, doing so on the M1 platform (M1, M1a, M14) negatively impacts stock / action fit and over time degrades accuracy.

Other guns get a more thorough cleaning - my blued revolvers for instance. At the end, I wipe them with alcohol to remove oils and apply renaissance wax. Same for my 1920 DWM P.08 Luger, or my wife's Colt 1903 Pocket Hammerless. And of course anything black powder gets cleaned thoroughly.

Firearms are machines, they get to a certain level of dirty, they stop functioning. If all you are doing is busting rocks, who cares if the thing jams. I don’t know about the filthy 14, and I don’t care. That guy, if he had been deployed, would have been an entire risk to the squad, and I would not have wanted to be in any unit that relied on him. Sort of reminds me of Private Jessica Lynch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Lynch. She was a fueler, her unit was a tank truck unit, they never thought they would ever get shot at. I saw her on a TV show, she had not cleaned her weapon since the unit arrived in Iraq, and it jammed first shot. She said, “it jammed”, she was totally clueless about clearing a jam in her weapon. The soldier who saved her life, by engaging the Iraqi machine gun unit shooting at them, he had not cleaned his weapon either. He did not even know what the forward assist was called, but he showed how he kept his weapon going by waving his right hand, to show how you close the bolt by hitting the forward assist. The web says nine soldiers died, I have not found any details about how many of the unit soldiers had functioning weapons, if they were all like Private Jessica, all their M4’s were jammed.

I have to wonder if there weren't other things going on with those weapons. Again, an in spec AR with good mags can still run when unbelievably filthy ... not that I let mine get that way. The military isn't necessarily the best entity when it comes to maintaining it's gear - I've seen this myself. I'm willing to bet a lot of those malfunctions could be traced to bad magazines. Maybe not terrible mags, but bad enough that perhaps lack of lubricant combined to create the issues. We've probably all experienced something like this. I have a couple of 20 round aluminum mags with the green follower that jam every 5 rounds - slap a PMAG in the same gun and it works flawlessly.

[davidsog]

She was a fueler, her unit was a tank truck unit, they never thought they would ever get shot at. I saw her on a TV show, she had not cleaned her weapon since the unit arrived in Iraq, and it jammed first shot. She said, “it jammed”, she was totally clueless about clearing a jam in her weapon. The soldier who saved her life, by engaging the Iraqi machine gun unit shooting at them, he had not cleaned his weapon either. He did not even know what the forward assist was called, but he showed how he kept his weapon going by waving his right hand, to show how you close the bolt by hitting the forward assist. The web says nine soldiers died, I have not found any details about how many of the unit soldiers had functioning weapons, if they were all like Private Jessica, all their M4’s were jammed.

You have to be careful with a blanket designation of the "military". Realize the US Army for example is a very large organization with a tooth to tail ratio of 25% to 30%.

In other words the vast majority of the military are not warfighters engaged in direct combat.

That percentage becomes even smaller when we starting about the percentage of rifleman whose job it is to engage in direct combat.

The support forces took a much higher casualty rate in terms of IED's and direct ambush casualties when compared to the warfighters. First of all, the enemy tended to bypass hard targets for soft targets.

Go down the road looking like you want a fight and you were less likely to get one. Go down the road looking like you hated being there with your vehicles all buttoned up with nobody "guns out" made you a more desirable target for the enemy to attack. In helping our support guys reduce their casualties to IED's and roadside ambush, that was the number one factor.

The fact is the soldiers like Jessica Lynch were not warfighters. Not an excuse, just the reality. It does nothing to diminish their heroism or actions on the battlefield, in fact it makes it more heroic in my eyes. It is one thing to do a job you are trained/equipped to do and quite another to have to wing it.

Every man is a rifleman works for a small organization like the Marine Corp but not so much for a larger one like the Army. It is very hard to convince Congress you need billions of dollars so that a clerk typist can learn to close with and destroy the enemy.

[odugrad]

I'm one of those that enjoy cleaning. I love the detail and I find it therapeutic. So I clean my rifles after each range trip.

That said, I had a DDM4 V3 that I decided to run dirty for a while to see how it went. It went a couple thousand rounds without cleaning and ran flawlessly. Each range trip I would just douse it with CLP and run it. Now, a couple thousand rounds isn't a lot, but it was all I needed to see. After that I had to clean it.

[xandi]

I want to be able to afford range trips that require all the guns to have to be cleaned.
I just take care of what looks like it needs to be cleaned( like the bolt face and extracter on rimfires) maybe snake the bore