Cleaning a 1911

It had been a while since I took the extractor and firing pin out of the 1911. When the books say to wear eye protection they ain't fooling! Wear goggles! It wasn't so much taking the firing pin out, as I pointed it away from my face and at cardboard. Ptop! But the struggle to depress the spring while sliding the little firing pin stop into place, that firing pin is pointed right at your face and your fingers are coated in gun cleaning solvent. Good job if you get it all back together without the pin going flying at least once. It flew 4 times for me.

And OH MY! That was a lot of carbon in there. And as fine as face powder. A q-tip did a good job dragging that filth out of there. I probably had the pin out for cleaning... maybe 1500 rounds ago? It was an impressive amount of filth. It felt good excavating it out of there.

Ok, here is a question. The lands and/or grooves nearest the breech are getting dirty and resistant to cleaning. I was waiting for this. Lot of patches, lots of brushing, lots of solvent... What gives? I wanted to check with the peanut gallery before I attacked it with a stronger chemical.