Thank you. If you ever see one of my competition cars, you will see I agree entirely about shiny versus well cared for with evidence of use.
What do I need to scrub off any corrosion - something like fine or very fine steel wool?
I have a dry Teflon lubricant I’ve used on motorcycle chains. Wonder if that’d be ok for the mags.
Originally Posted by Clusterfrack
What has worked for me is to go over it first with some oil on a soft cloth and remove as much of the rust as you can. Then if needed use some fine steel wool. If you accidentally remove some of the blued finish you can touch up with cold blue (e.g. Super Blue).
Canned air/compressor, then perhaps warming a bit with a hair drier can remove moisture quickly and effectively.
99+% Isopropyl alcohol (Amazon - I buy in bulk and distribute to friends) cleans, dries and de-greases as well. I mostly use this and then occasionally I use non-chlorinated brake cleaner to quickly flush out areas like sear cages without detailed stripping. BUT, just like ultrasonic it de-greases perhaps a little too well and re-lubricating and protecting becomes more important or you will be more prone to corrosion the next time around. A thin dried layer of (aromatic!) Eezox is a great protectant for surfaces prone to rust; I'm not big on it as a cleaner or lubricant though,
Clean it as best you can, re-lube (I'm liberal with EWL), have confidence and go shoot!
I honestly don't do much with magazines, maybe a once in a blue moon cleaning and dry lube of some sort. I bought some MagSlick, haven't used it.
Last edited by GuanoLoco; 04-12-2019 at 01:31 PM.
Are you now, or have you ever been a member of the Doodie Project?
About mags. Protection is easily obtained. I have had success with wiping the interior with a silicon treated rag. Another method has been using Flitz polish by applying with a rag and then polishing the surface and following up with a clean rag. The result is a super slick finish having the micro coating of Flitz. Some might apply a solvent like gun scrubber which will remove all oil and any other protective film. If the surface is not retreated with some type of protectant, then rust will appear. Sometimes we overthink cleaning. Cleaning by wiping with a cloth should suffice. The following I know from having seen it. When oil is removed from steel surfaces, rust will soon appear, I have seen the rusting process occur within minutes. Removing all oil or other surface protection from stainless steel firearms will cause these surfaces to rust. Stainless is rust resistant, not rust proof. Our gun rags in most cases have some degree of oil on them. When we wipe or clean with these, then we are spreading a protective film.
About detail stripping. If I had a fine custom 92 such as Rapid Butterfly's pistol, I would allow the person who put it together to detail strip it. I would not allow any other person to do so. I would fear having holes in frame enlarged by using the wrong size punch. I would fear poor technique carried out by the uninformed and unschooled or the ham fisted. Having spent a life time interacting with and using gun repair persons, I can say with authority that extreme variation exists within this group. This statement applies to factory techs also. Once I knew a renowned stock maker who repaired and made stocks for high grade manufacturers here and abroad. In one instance a company in England whose long guns cost more than BMW's and Mercedes shipped him a matched pair of double shotguns. Before completing the project, he made the supreme error of mixing up frames and barrels. Try as he might, he could not unbreech either. The maker said send them back. Don't attempt to fix. He did, they fixed, and then returned same to him for stock repair. They feared the untrained and ham fisted.
If I had a fine custom Beretta 92, I would value it as highly as the prince or king or rich man who owned the pair of high grade doubles-maybe even more so.
I’ve done lots of courses in the rain. It’s a good way to test gear and clothing options.
For training, if I know it’s going to pour I bring a sun shade/canopy to keep my range bag and targets dry. I use a shower cap over my gun and holster to keep it dry, and the rain jacket to cover the mags, just as I would at a match. Gear only gets wet when I shoot a drill/test. Keeping gear wet unnecessarily doesn’t really approximate any match conditions I would likely see.
"Next time somebody says USPSA or IPSC is all hosing, junk punch them." - Les Pepperoni
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Would it be fair to say that, this being a USPSA match, you're going to carry openly and not concealed?
If that is the case, pretty much the only time you'll have to worry about water getting into the wrong places is while you're waiting to shoot (which I hope you'll be doing under some protection from the rain). When you're shooting, most if not all of the water will be flung out as your pistol fires and reloads.
Therefore you should have little to no water getting into bad places (assuming your gun is kept out of the rain while you wait to shoot) and a simple field strip and drying with a cloth should take care of everything.
P.S. If I remember correctly, Ernest has some videos where he nearly detail strips the gun, maybe those could help?
P.P.S. I've shot matches in the rain before and never had to detail strip the gun afterwards. Mind you, it was a Glock which is pretty weatherproof (then again NP3 on the internals is pretty weatherproof too) and I also shot the matches from concealment (just to make things harder on myself), but, unless you drop your pistol in a deep puddle, I wouldn't worry in the least about trashing your gun by shooting in a match in the rain.
Last edited by Wondering Beard; 04-12-2019 at 02:52 PM.
" La rose est sans pourquoi, elle fleurit parce qu’elle fleurit ; Elle n’a souci d’elle-même, ne demande pas si on la voit. » Angelus Silesius
"There are problems in this universe for which there are no answers." Paul Muad'dib
+1 on the alcohol idea. Flush the gun thoroughly with it after it gets wet. The alcohol will mix instantly with any water and then evaporate at a much faster rate. Blow it out with compressed air if you have some, but be sure to do it in a very well-ventilated area, because you'll be aerosolizing everything. Relube with your preferred gun lube.
+1 on the Hornady One Shot lube. I use it on all kinds of stuff, even non-gun stuff, and it works great here in swamp-arse Houston. However, to really work well, you need to be able to wipe the surface to ensure even distribution of the oils. It comes out the can with a ton of solvent, which can actually degrease the surface and leave it dry after evaporating. Wiping it redistributes the oily components, and leaves an even coating of the right thickness. I use it mainly as a non-oily metal protectant. E.g. pruning shears: after an hour or two of using them with rinses in Dawn solution between cuts, the steel blades still beaded water when I rinsed them under the hose.
I use other oils for action parts, though. Weapon Shield for rails. Hoppes oil actually provides a very smooth trigger once things are smoothed out, and is all I use on revolver gubbinses now.
Also, if you can work on your race cars, you can do whatever needs doing to detail strip a B92. The military armorer's manual is available in PDF form. I'm pretty sure it was posted in the B92 Compact/general love thread when discussing trigger press specs or something. The only issue is things that get staked - you don't want to do that unnecessarily. But there aren't many. The rest of it, for the most part, is devoid of press fits - it's just like a 3D puzzle that comes apart with minimal force if you get the procedure right.
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Not another dime.
I have rinsed actions with very hot, almost boiling water which would evaporate very quickly, and then I would spray and finally hit with compressed air.
Does reassembly of a detailed stripped B92 require excellent manual dexterity? I would think so if avoiding dinging and scratching the metal is to be avoided. Brownels sells an armorer's tool kit specific to the 92 for about $220. Beretta USA offers an armorer's block.
Working on a car is different to working on a firearm in terms of little bitty parts. I have no doubt I could learn to detail strip a 92, but I’m not all that eager to do so, especially on my own with no human interaction / oversight. Maybe some day. Maybe not.
I did the shower cap trick (over the weapon and another over the mag carriers) on the day of the match, when not shooting - was handy when taping between other competitors , and other than a stage where I had to basically put her in a shallow puddle on a table, she stayed reasonably dry. Got her home and cleaned & dried as per suggestions here. She came thru just fine. I feel better about it going forward.
If something that I don't want to disassemble gets wet it gets a liberal spay with this, followed by a blowdown with compressed air.
https://www.wd40specialist.com/produ...netrating-oil/
Having said that I bail from any event where the % precip exceeds 50% during the hours I'll be there. I don't do wet and cold unless someone is paying me to be there.
Last edited by Alpha Sierra; 04-22-2019 at 03:56 AM.
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