Gun maintenance

Yall made some cool comments on the last post. Andrea, the entire reason I got a gun was because I go riding all alone so far away from civilization. Dear god, I hope I never have to shoot my horse.. but I can't think of anything more horrible than waiting hours for a vet to four-wheeler out to me to put down a horse with a shattered leg. That's how I picked my caliber, too - I asked around, and gun experts agreed that a 9 mil would probably kill a horse but a .40 definitely would.

Ugh. I don't even like thinking about that.

Anyway, I've never shot a long gun but I've heard enough horror stories from women who got knocked down that I'm gonna be careful when I learn. Don't be scared to shoot a pistol, they don't have much recoil at all! Yesterday I let S shoot my gun, and she's maybe 100 lbs - tiny little teenager - and she had no problem with it. All of yall have been jerked harder by a horse on a lead rope than a pistol will kick.

So. I have a Smith & Wesson M&P .40. I wanted a .40, and I wanted something lefty-friendly, and that pistol fit my requirements at the gun store I went to. It's got a switch inside it somewhere to swap which side you eject the magazine from. It's a pretty good gun - it's full size, which should make it marginally more accurate and definitely makes it easier to hold with gloves on. It's a bit persnickety; when it's dirty it tends to misfire. This is really annoying but makes me keep it clean! Here's how I clean it.

Make sure it's empty and assemble your stuff. Here's my gun (unloaded), some vile-smelling gun solvent, gun oil, and a screwdriver. Not shown are nitrile gloves and a chunk of an old flannel pillowcase.


WAIT! Stop what you're doing and go open the door. Or do it outside. I'm not kidding about how horrible the solvent smells.

Rack the slide back and pull the Pointy Thing out of the grip.


Look down the top of the gun. See the yellowish thing?


Use the Pointy Thing to flip that down/forward. Also my hands are pretty dry.


Look on the left side of the gun. See the little thing above the trigger that looks like a wing?


Flip it down toward the trigger, and you can move the slide completely forward off of the gun.


This is the underside of the slide. The spring is sitting on top of the actual barrel. To the right of the spring you'll see some golden colored metal - that needs to be cleaned.


Here's the body of the gun after you take the slide off. All the flat surfaces on top of the gun need to be cleaned and lightly oiled.


So, when you buy your gun you're going to buy a cleaning kit with it. Unlike me, you won't immediately lose the cleaning kit. You'll have plastic rods and brushes and pretty white cotton swabs. I, however, can't find half the rods or any of the white cotton swabs. Therefore I am using a screwdriver and part of a flannel blanket. Put your nitrile gloves on. They tell me that gun solvent will eat latex or vinyl gloves. Dip the swab in the (horribly nasty smelling) solvent, so the swab's completely saturated.


Use your cleaning rod to shove the swab completely through the barrel. It'll come out dirty. Repeat, with clean solvent swabs, until it's not dirty anymore (took me three passes).


Take a look down the barrel. It should be pretty clean. The swirls are rifling; they make the bullet spin as it comes out of the barrel and greatly increases accuracy.


Get another swab with some solvent on it and scrub off all the parts that look like they slide together. With some good light you'll see black crud in various spots, just scrub it off with light pressure. Wipe all the bits of dirt off your poor gun, too, you silly redneck.

Now that it's dry, you want to oil it. Less oil is waaaay better than too much oil! The oil lubricates the moving parts a tiny bit, and it keeps the shiny metal from rusting, but it also attracts black crud (GSR) and makes your !$#@$ gun jam.

You can click on this picture and go to "all sizes" on the flickr page - this is oiled enough. I put a drop of oil on either side of the slide, then smear it out with another (clean) swab.


Now look down the handle, where the magazine locks in. Pull the trigger and note where the trigger gears move. Put one drop of oil on the trigger gears and pull it a few more times to distribute the oil. Oil the flat metal pieces on top of the back of the gun while you're there.

Put two drops of oil on the barrel and smear them all around with a swab. It won't look like much, but it's enough. This is half-oiled. The inside of the barrel doesn't need oil.


Here's everybody's favorite car repair manual phrase: "Reassembly is reverse of disassembly." You'll probably want to check the manual! Drop the barrel in the slide, put the spring in (it only goes in correctly one way), get the slide back on the gun locked back, find the Pointy Thing and put the green lever back where it was, and you should be able to rack the slide and NOT have the slide fall off. Put the Pointy Thing back in the grip. Dry fire it (pull the trigger) just to make sure, then you're ready to reload and store it.