by Chris Cerino
Have you ever heard shooters argue over gun maintenance? Heard it, heck, you’ve probably been part of one or two arguments yourself. I know I have.
We have a friend who used to be an extreme gun cleaner. Still is for the most part. At precision rifle matches it’s not uncommon to shoot as few as 25 rounds a day. Quite often it’s less.
My friend would not only clean his rifle during lunch, but bring it back every night, and scrub the dickens out of it.
That barrel lost more than half its life to a patch on the end of a cleaning rod.
Many days have been spent firing on a long range, competing or training rifle skills, using both bolt action and semiauto guns. I’ve seen and heard some really crazy stuff over the years. What I’ve come to find out is that you can shoot hundreds of rounds through those guns before you need to clean them.
These days a great many competitors use sound suppressors on their guns.
Not only do they change the entire shooting experience, but they change the entire cleaning experience. The gasses that come back through the barrel into the action are hot and dirty; so filthy and sooty that you not only need to clean your rifle more often but you need to clean your face and shooting glasses too. Even with a suppressor on the end of my rifle, I won’t clean it until the action starts to get sluggish; right around 500 rounds or more. Rarely is it less.
The greatest loss of accuracy on precision rifles comes when they have just been cleaned. If you just fired 500 perfect shots through a dirty barrel, what would you expect after cleaning it? You’ve just changed something with the gun. After cleaning any rifle that is intended to have first round accuracy, I get it out and shoot several rounds through it before putting it away. At least 5 rounds! You’ve got to re-season that bore. Not a believer in the cold bore shot, my experience has shown that it’s more of a clean bore, cold mind and body shot.
Pistols and Carbines When it comes to pistols and semiauto rifles my mind sees them as machines or engines. Heat, noise and metal against metal, thumping in sync, depicts a machine. Modern semiautomatic pistols and rifles are just that, machines! Oil is not a dirty word. What does oil do for machines? Oil lubricates, cools and moves dirt. If you’ve ever seen a machine shop, you’ve seen oil used by the bucketful. Tools and parts are cooler when using oil on cutting tools and surfaces. They also get longer life out of their tools. Oil is pretty amazing Yet, we still have people in training that like to run their guns dry, with minimal oil.
Certain pistols and rifles turn to garbage when the oil is spared. Two that come to mind are the 1911 and the AR15. Both are close tolerance guns that have high heat and extreme pressure when firing. Myriad reasons abound for not using oil no matter where we are in the country. Some say their gun runs great dry. Maybe sometimes it does. Others don’t want dust to collect on the oil, so they oil it like they’re taking it to a gun show.
Just a wipe of oil here and there. When it fails we stop, puke some oil into it and don’t hear from them the rest of the day.
Enemy #1 – Heat Have you ever had a hot piece of brass go down your shirt or even hit you, stick and burn? It’s hot! A 5.56 or .223 case cooks off at 1200 degrees.
How else could it get hot enough to eject from the gun and stick to your neck like a skillet used to cook fajitas? Oil needs to resist heat. When oil burns off it turns to carbon. Carbon builds up and metal surfaces dry up. No lube, no cycle, no reliability.
When oil burns off, you end up with carbon build up and dirt that just sits. This attracts more dirt, causing excessive wear. Thin spray oils are great for storage and corrosion protection, but they burn up fast, leaving their carbon remnant behind.
Oil needs to stay around to prevent carbon build up. Long ago, I was introduced to a special blend of cleaners and lubricants. The concoction consists of synthetic automatic transmission fluid, synthetic motor oil, gooey engine treatment and good old Hoppe’s #9.
Honestly, it works great, but it smells like garbage. It does what those oils are designed to do by providing lubrication, heat resistance and movement of dirt.
My guns always run and I shoot all over the country, in all conditions.
Grease is not the word Although it’s common to use some grease on bolt action gun locking lugs and cocking surfaces, grease is not a good engine lube. Pistol slides and AR bolt carrier groups covered in grease show up at training from time to time.
It’s usually a case of people wanting lube to stay in place longer, so they step up to grease.
Grease is not a wise choice for one simple reason, it stays in place. Grease is used for wheel bearings for cars though? The evolution of the wheel bearing brought us “sealed” bearings and/or dust covers on those bearings for a reason. Because, when grease gets contaminated by water or dirt, it goes bad. Oil is designed to grab dirt and move it down the line. That’s why motors have an oil filter. Grab dirt, move dirt, get cleaned up and back to work to move more dirt. The dirt in your gun needs to be moved along by the oil and extreme pressures created when firing. A typical .223/5.56 round fires at pressures ranging from 55,000psi to 62,000psi. That’s a lot of movement, but a film still stays to lubricate.
Grease will trap dirt and carbon, hold it in place, and create a pumice type of abrasive. This can cause unnecessary wear of parts. I’ve seen it happen and it’s actually pretty impressive. It also has to be removed and replaced, and that takes more elbow grease or solvents.
In the end, it’s up to you how often and how you want clean your guns. The reality of it is that most people clean too hard and too often. You can choose your methods, but please don’t spare the oil and spoil the shoot. Take it from someone who learned from experience.
It’s all about the fundamentals!
Chris Cerino is a nationally known firearms instructor, competitor and TV personality who’s been training law enforcement officers and military for more than 18 years. Chris has worked in peace keeping positions for municipal, county, state and federal agencies spanning more than 22 years. A majority of those years have been spent in tactical and firearms related fields. Literally immersed in pistol training for years, his skills are founded in life experience. Chris is the director of training for Chris Cerino Training Group LLC, teaching in a “do as I do” fashion. Chris is a current peace officer and remains immersed in the firearms industry by teaching, competing and working across the nation. You can email him at: chris@cerinotraininggroup.com or phone: 330-608-6415.
