The LTT Instagram has a 1301 disassembly and maintenance video up.
The LTT Instagram has a 1301 disassembly and maintenance video up.
Likes pretty much everything in every caliber.
LTT cleaning video. https://youtu.be/5ogp1v8z5dU
Having owned a 1301 since they were first released years ago, no you are not alone. My cleaning regimen is to wipe the receiver and bolt down with a paper towel and re-lube. Maybe once a year pull a bore snake through the barrel a couple times. I’ll hose the trigger group out with gun scrubber or similar occasionally.
My A400 duck gun gets the same treatment about every other year.
Once folks understand that grease is just oil with a binder, and that the oil component creeps, evaporates, and moves leaving nothing but the binder behind that debate usually stops, too. Shotguns are not a great idea for grease because they typically shoot very dirty and the binder will just sit around and collect crud turning it into a lapping compound. No es bueno.
If you need lubrication that doesn't float out when the gun gets submerged in water, grease works. (That's why the M1 Garand called for grease) Short of that, stick to a proper oil.
What I do for cleaning the gun:
Remove barrel, remove bolt assembly, remove piston. Wipe down bolt assembly with a blue towel and some Amsoil firearms cleaner. Use a typical Brownells plastic scrub brush with some of the same firearms cleaner on the recesses where the bolt lugs lock into the barrel extension. Use the still slightly wet brush to scrub the gas piston and the gas piston's housing. Dry the piston and housing thoroughly. (Occasional efforts to de-lead may be necessary if you shoot a lot of slugs)
Once a year or so I'll take the trigger plate out and clean inside the receiver usually using a spray solvent or something to blow a lot of that crud (unburned powder, other debris) out of there.
Cleaning the bore:
Brownell's chuckable shotgun cleaning rod and a tornado brush with a little BoreTech shotgun blend. I usually clean the bore once a year or when my patterns start to get weird.
Lubrication:
I put a drop or two of Amsoil gun lube (made from genuine group 4 base stock) on the neck of the bolt, on the raceway the cam pin rides in, and a drop on each of the bolt lugs. I put a drop on each of the forend welds of the bolt carrier as they ride inside the receiver and experience some friction. (The armorer's manual calls for lubricating these points) I'll also put a drop anywhere else that's shiny from wear.
I put a couple of drops on the recoil spring so it moves freely. (The armorer's manual calls for this, too)
Suitable lubricants:
Use something that doesn't suck or leaves behind sticky residues. RemOil evaporates if you look at it funny. Slip2000 works great...and no, you don't need the EWL stuff. Regular ol' Slip works beautifully.
I personally use Amsoil gun lube, but I put it into individual needler bottles so it lasts a ridiculously long time.
Last edited by TCinVA; 08-14-2021 at 07:07 PM.
3/15/2016
One of the benefits of buying a Beretta semi-auto is that they come from hunting guns that aren't treated even that well. A friend tells me he regularly gets guns in for service that were purchased more than a decade and a half ago that were taken out of the box and directly into the field where they shot hundreds of rounds for a bird season and were then shoved in a closet or a truck until the next season, wash-rinse-repeat with absolutely no cleaning and hardly ever any lubrication. And the reason the guns come back is because the stock is broken, or the gun won't cycle because there's a dead lizard inside the action that the owner didn't know about.
The 1301 is remarkably unconcerned with downright abusive lack of maintenance.
Obviously it will give its best and longest service when properly maintained, but it's not one of those finicky guns that will shut down if you didn't clean it after the last time you shot. It's the honey badger of semi-auto shotguns. Gives zero fucks.
3/15/2016
Yeah, I knew trap-shooters that would clean their semi-auto once a year with kerosene or gasoline. Maybe 500 rounds a week, 25000 per year. The guns ran pretty well.
"Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master"
Almost done with my 1301T build and been looking for Federal LE133 for a while now since that seems to be the go to for 00 buckshot defensive rounds. Every now and then I see the LE132 9 pellet in stock. Is the LE133 discontinued? How does the Hornady Critical Defense 8 pellet compare? Currently its loaded up with standard buckshot. Patterns ok but nothing like the flite control.
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