Shoot clean, shoot shoot clean

I shoot a lot, I think you all know that by now. I shoot all sorts of firearms including handguns, rifles and shotguns. (Yes, there are different types of firearms than just those three.) I enjoy it, am good at it, and happily combine the sport with a friends-group of like-minded people and their families. I do other things also, as you would know if you follow my blog, but shooting is one of my main hobbies.

It's an unhappy fact that guns need cleaning. That's right folks, one can't simply keep shooting without attending to a little firearm housework as they perform better, and more accurately when clean, in fact some firearms won't function at all if not clean. Sure, some guns can go for longer without a clean than others however at some stage the firearm has to be cleaned. All firearms.

I'm not the biggest fan of cleaning my guns and yet due to the frequency at which I shoot, a couple times a week at least, and the variation of firearms I have it means I'm forever cleaning this gun or that. Today it was my CZ Shadow 2 (9mm semi-automatic) which is the gun that get's the most use these days, considering I shoot it every week.

It's a fairly straightforward process, provided one knows what to do, although it's messy, fiddly and uses smelly and toxic chemicals which give me headaches, damage my skin and generally annoy the hell out of me.

Above you can see the firearm post-cleaning and below is the field-stripped gun in the process of cleaning. A field strip is simply a basic break-down of the gun rather than taking the gun apart completely. There's a lot of bits in the frame of the gun, the part at the very bottom of the shot below, but I only completely strip the gun occasionally. [Even then it's not *completely taken apart.]

What you can see in the image above, working from the top, is the slide, barrel, recoil spring and recoil spring guide rod, slide stop and the frame. The two blue grip panels and their screws sit at top right of the image. There's loads of little components that just don't need to come off for a clean, and some never need to come off.

Today I cleaned the gun, oiled it up again and got it ready to use for next weekend. I don't clean it every week, however after about 350 rounds it gets a clean so it's done at least every two weeks, sometimes each week though depending on number of rounds but usually fortnightly.

I'm all done now so it's happy days for me however even as I type this post I can still smell the solvents on my hands, and that's after washing them three times! I know, wear surgical gloves right? Nope, they don't like the solvents and they get really slippery.

Cleaning my guns is a part of owning them and whilst sometimes I delay the inevitable it's always done, and done efficiently. Firearms cost a lot of money, this Shadow 2 just over $2,000 AUD for instance and one of my long range rifles well over $10,000 AUD so taking care of them is important.

Ok, just for kicks, here's a list of the parts that make up this CZ Shadow 2:

Slide stop, slide stop spring, slide stop spring pin, trigger, trigger pin, trigger bar, trigger spring, pin (x3), ejector, sear, sear spring, sear pin, safety right, safety left, safety detent plunger right, safety detent plunger left, safety detent plunger spring, hammer, disconnector, hammer pin, hammer pin retaining peg, main spring strut, main spring, main spring plug, main spring plug pin, magazine guide, magazine guide pin, grip panel left, grip panel right, grip panel screw (x2), magazine catch spring, trigger bar spring, magazine catch spring screw, magazine, firing pin, firing pin spring, firing pin stop, buffer, recoil spring, recoil spring guide, front sight, front sight pin, loaded chamber indicator, loaded chamber indicator spring, loaded chamber indicator nut, extractor, extractor pin, extractor spring, rear sight, sighting screw (x2), trigger screw, shaped washer, frame...

Some of those parts come as assembly's so have parts within parts not listed. I probably left something out too but I think you get the idea; There's a lot of parts. Oh, if you read that list good work! I hope never to have to write it again!

I hope y'all are having a great weekend with whatever you have going on.

Design and create your ideal life, don't live it by default
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