How often should you detail strip and clean a .45?
After every range session I field strip my pistols. Remove the slide and barrel from the frame and go to town with the cleaning. Apart from the important bits, the inside of the barrel, and the feed ramp, and grooves the slide rides in, the gun is often pretty shmutzy in other areas. A tooth brush and cotton swabs get's most of these other areas that I can reach, but it isn't too critical to get them as clean as the important areas.
But eventually, I'll have to get all the other part taken down. Grip may get in the sear causing the trigger to be crunchy. The extractor and firing pin are easy enough to take down and clean, but the other parts can be a challenge. To re-assemble, if not to take down. It's do-able, though.
Is there a rule of thumb on how often to detail strip?
And should I just soak all those metal parts in kerosene or paint thinner or something else overnight? There is a lot of nooks and crannies to blast carbon out of.
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2 comments:
Once a year. Even if you don't shoot it.
I will second what JB Miller said:
Once a year is enough, even if you do shoot often. Every time you take it apart to detail strip, you marginally loosen up various pins and pieces. Other than the firing pin hole and the extractor channel, very little crud gets into the rest of the gun under normal circumstances. This assumes, of course, that you haven't been swimming in the Potomac with your gun, or tossing it in a bucket of sand.
I would however, take off the grips every now and then, as moisture can accumulate under these and begin rusting the frame.
Regards,
PolyKahr
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