“I fired my pistol over 5,000 rounds and never cleaned it. Why do I need to clean guns?”
“I’ve had my guns for 20 years and never cleaned them!”
You read this all the time on the internet, and in YouTube videos, people drop guns in snow, mud, water – and keep shooting! So the question is why clean guns. Do you REALLY need to clean your gun? The answer?
YES!
Would you drive your car for 20,000 miles without an oil change? How about 50,000 miles? 100,00 miles? Would you buy a car driven 100,000 miles without an oil change? Consequently, he same logic applies to guns! What about those guys who would rather vote for Joe Biden than clean a gun? You gotta ask – how long will these guns last, and would you want to own them after they have gone round after round and year after year without cleaning?
Let’s look at the benefits of routine cleaning:
1) The barrel life is extended and accuracy maintained. When you fire a gun, all kinds of junk accumulates in the barrel – lead residue, carbon, copper. There is absolutely no way to avoid this. The cleaner you keep the barrel after firing, the longer it will last. The more you wear down the barrel interior, the faster your accuracy degrades.
2) Your gun stays in tip-top condition. When you shoot, you aren’t making popcorn. You are using a deadly weapon to send at very high speed a chunk of metal down a tube to distances out to potentially a hundred yards. You want EVERYTHING to be in the best possible condition – magazines, springs, barrels. Have you ever seen a firing pin and spring covered in old oil, carbon, and other detritus? Maybe it will work just fine – but maybe it won’t. Do you want a take a chance on a misfire or some other mishap because of slide rails or revolver cylinders that haven’t been cleaned since the Bush presidency?
3) Value is maintained. You may not be thinking about this now, but at some point you may want to sell your gun or pass it along to your kids. The worse condition you keep your gun, the faster it will degrade and the more it loses its worth. Want to turn a SIG P226 into a fancy paperweight? Don’t clean it for decades! As someone who collects older weapons, I can guarantee that I can take your breath away by showing you a P08 military pistol made in 1916 that has been lovingly cared for, with a bore that looks brand-new because its previous owners showed Teutonic obsession in maintaining it! This is literally the difference in this gun being worth $2,500 vs. $800.
OK, so why clean guns? I hope I’ve convinced you of how important it is! The biggest deterrent is that people don’t know how to efficiently clean or what products to use. We highly recommend using Ramrodz swabs and Bore Tech proof-positive nylon brushes, which we sell here on our website. Look at our blogs on gun cleaning to see how to do this quickly and efficiently in a way that is the LEAST PAINFUL. Maybe it could even be fun?? Well, I don’t know about that, but read our techniques and let us know what you think!