How Often To Clean

How often to clean your firearms. Specifically how often should I clean my firearms.

Some never do, as a test to the funtionality of their pistol. "This Thunderboomer has gone 8732 rounds without cleaning and hasn't malfunctioned once."

Personally I do after each range session. Even if I only shot 50 rounds of relatively non-dirty ammo. Probably nothing wrong with that. It gets me familiar with my equipment. But I don't HAVE to.

Even then I don't get all the dirt when I clean with various solvents and even anti-guilding compounds. After my most thourough cleaning work, here is always a nook or cranny I can't get to, or don't want to disassemble the gun down to detail level to get to.

And there is caked on film of carbon on the revolver that is much easier to see because the gun is stainless steel. It's there on the other guns, but not seen as easily because they are matte black in color.

Now if I ever used anything with corrosive primers I'd certainly clean every sessions, and then right quick. Corrosive primers are made with potassium perchlorate, these primers are corrosive because they are a salt and that is hygroscopic, and that means it suck humidy out of the air, aiding in oxidation of iron. Your gun is made of iron, in part. But that worry is only with ammo older than 1960 or so, generally. New, domestic, production ammo doesn't have this issue, as they have some lead-based primer. Some new imports from the OTHER side of the iron curtain is questionable.

For corrosive primer it is important to clean quickly and perhaps swab some ammonia based Windex window cleaner through the barrel before the session starts to get them salts on out of there.

Black powder shooters have a dirtier ammo to deal with and it may well be salt (saltpeter is hygroscopic maybe?) filled too, so their fastiduous cleaning job is cut out for them.

I don't think I need to invest in one of those sonic cleaners. These use sound waves to agitate a pan of solvent that you put metal parts of your dissambles firearm in. If I ran a gun shop and wanted to sell squeaky clean used guns that would be a worthwhile get.

I use anti-guilding solvent on well used guns once a year. This is a VERY strong cleaner that smell of ammonia. It is there to help get rid of copper rubs on the inside of the barrel that the full metal jacket copper bullets leave behind.

Is there something else I should be doing? I use Break-Free or Tetra or RemOil cleaner, with several applications, including a period where it just sits on the dirt for some time to wet it down. I use flannel bore patches to swab out the crud. I use nylone and copper bristled bore brushes and scrub brushes. I use spare patches and cotton swabs to get the small spaces as much as possible. I use boresnakes as extra good measure down the barrel a few times.

What am I missing? What could I add to the regime?

~~~~~~~~

As for how often to clean other things, I don't NEED your advice. I take that one bath every Saturday whether I need one or not.