Quote:
Originally Posted by Alpine Matt
The Italian Breda Model 1930 and the 1937 had to have oiled cartridges in order to avoid cases sticking in the chamber. Not a good thing to require when fighting in Libya and elsewhere in North Africa with all that talcum powder like sand. Then again the Italians were speed bumps for the British anyway so I don't think it much mattered...the Afrika Korps on the other hand...
Could you imagine if the M240 & 249 required oiled cartridges?
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The main competing design against the early M1 Garand prototype was the .276 cal Pedersen T1. It also used a lubricated round, and this was the main reason that the Ordnance Department selected John Garand's design for further development over Pedersen's. (The .276 cal was also a dead-end design, but Pedersen's failure was about the requirement for lubricated ammo.) So, even in the 1920's the Big Green Machine (hmmm... maybe the Big Khaki Machine?) saw lubricated ammo as a dumb ass'ed idea. (Even the regular Army gets something right every now and again.)
IRT the original topic, though, gun cleaning and lubrication is really not that complicated. There are no magic formulas for rounds fired vs. cleaning frequency or mystical potions that can be applied once and never touched again.
It's very simple; if you fire it, clean it. After you clean it, lube it. If it gets dirty too quickly because you have too much lube on it, use less lube or clean it more often. If you don't have time to clean it thoroughly, clean it as best as you can until you do have the time. Then when you do have the time, clean it thoroughly.
Clean means that there is nothing on the gun's parts that the manufacturer didn't put there or that isn't lube. How do you know when it’s dirty? Look at it. Does it have dirt on it? Have you fired it? If the answer is “yes” to either question, clean it.
Sometimes you have to clean your guns every 30 minutes, and sometimes you don't have to clean them for a year. It just depends on how dirty they get and how fast they get dirty.
Clean guns are more reliable than dirty guns. Reliable guns are better than less reliable guns, therefore, clean guns are better than dirty guns.
If you have to worry about wearing out a gun because you think you're cleaning it too much, then you're in the wrong line of work, or you need to get a new gun when you wear this one out.
There's entirely too much hype and too many snake oil salesmen trying to pawn-off the latest greatest gun-goop and gadgets. Adhere to the KISS principle and stay old-school, and you'll be just fine.
If it seems like it's all just too much work, well, nobody said it would be easy except the guy trying to part you from your hard-earned cash by selling you some patent-medicine potion that will eliminate forever the chore of cleaning your gun. If it still seems like too much work to clean your gun when your ass depends on it, then, again, you're in the wrong line of business.