Gun cleaning & Maintenance

   After shooting your gun, to clean it, is like going fishing and catching a fish. You've got to clean them.

   You should feel it's a privilege to be handling the firearms one last time before putting it away. Completely cleaned & oiled and ready for the next beautiful day on the range. And you WILL be cleaning pistols as this course goes on. It'll give you a deeper appreciation for the pistol.

     
   A pistol can be kept in good shape for many years, if not for a lifetime. Most are made of good solid stuff, the kind of which needs very little attention to detail in the way of cleaning & maintenance.

   Similar to the ones above and to the right, you'd be hard pressed to find a spot of rust, dirt, or gunpowder residue in any part of these pistols. And I can tell you for fact, that these guns have seen countless thousands of rounds, each.

  A man once told me; "..you never let the sun set on an unclean gun"  In other words you clean the gun today, not tomorrow, or tomorrow will be too late. Well, that probably was true back in the 1800's when they used black powder and later corrosive primers. But that isn't the case today.

   Truth be told if you shot a modern gun today, stored it away in a climate controlled safe for a year or two, it'd fire just the same as when you put it away. And then you could clean it..

   Or, if you happen to have a gun safe WITHOUT a dehumidifier unit in it because you figure "ah, what the heck". You may have a surprise coming when next you take out that $3,000 pistol and find corrosion all over it. No, the special plating that seals the finish did NOT save the gun as can be seen at left.

   The old saying goes; "A gun's 2 worst enemies are politicians & rust"

   So it goes without saying that if you don't have time to clean your pistol today, don't shoot it today.