Best Guide To Answer If Firearms Should Always Be Disassembled For Cleaning, Plus 3 Best Firearm Cleaning Methods

Fundamentally, one of the most significant rules when owning firearms is safety. It is then cleaning, care, and overall maintenance come next. Nevertheless, these rules are connected because successful firearm cleaning is more than ensuring the best cleaning kit— the primary goal is to assure safety. That being said, you should know if firearms should always be disassembled for cleaning. Also, it should be among the basic tasks to know how to check on your firearms safely. 

More than securing the aesthetic appearance of your firearm, proper cleaning is the best way to lessen the risk of firearm-related accidents. After all, only a clean firearm can guarantee you the safest and most satisfying performance when shooting. Still, firearms are considered one of the most complex mechanical devices that demand safe and proper cleaning. Each firearm can be highly beneficial. With yours, it is your approach and action to firearm cleaning and maintenance that will determine how useful your firearm can be to your advantage.

Therefore, before discovering if firearms should always be disassembled for cleaning, let’s tackle more about the benefits of firearm cleaning because it is more than a duty of preventive maintenance procedure. In fact, by doing so, you will enjoy its benefits and will see that cleaning is a minimal effort, after all. Regular and proper firearm cleaning is also a great practice to boost your confidence in trusting your firearms in overall aspects. With that being said, it is truly necessary and beneficial to uncover the several benefits of proper firearm cleaning. 

Let’s explore them all below. 

Benefits of Proper Firearm Cleaning

At the very least, one of the essential things that will be said to you by many firearm owners is that you must be responsible for firearm cleaning. In particular, it is extremely necessary that you will always hear about cleaning and maintenance. Yet, many share different opinions about the frequency of firearm cleaning. In fact, many swore that it is the best approach to firearm cleaning by doing it every time they used their weapons. Basically, it is every time they go to a shooting range or field. On the other hand, some wanted a deep and scheduled firearm cleaning. By that, you might be contemplating on what to follow, right?

Worry not; the reality relies on how frequently you use your firearms and the type of ammunition you use. With that being said, you should not be much affected by the debate on the right schedule about firearm cleaning. After all, you must always reflect on how you use your firearms. On the flip side, good-quality ammunition doesn’t produce too much firing residue because they fire pretty clean.

When you have decided how regular your firearm cleaning will be, the next step is to secure and safe cleaning. Of course, it needs to be correct because improper cleaning will lead to damage, entirely opposite of what you want to achieve with cleaning firearms. But, what exactly are they? To know the primary benefits of firearm cleaning, explore more below. 

Keeping your firearms clean

Of course, by saying firearm cleaning, many will initially think that the primary goal is to keep the firearms clean. It is not surprising because it is one of the basic benefits of proper firearm cleaning. See, every time you shoot your firearm, it inevitably acquires a build-up of different firing particles, such as carbon, steel, copper, plastic, or lead. These firing particles are mostly deposited within the chamber and inside the bore of the firearms. 

Moreover, these firing residues are also more popularly referred to as fouling. Aside from making the firearms dirty and look filthy, this fouling can also negatively affect the shooting accuracy of your firearms. In addition, these firing particles left behind can also cause your firearms to experience an increased chance of misfiring— which is entirely unsafe that can result in firearm accidents. By that circumstance, you might be pushed to replace some firearm parts. 

Interestingly, the amount of firing remnants that you need to deal with varies with the kind of ammunition you are using and the overall quality of your firearms. Generally, too much fouling build-up can cause reduced precision and interruptions with performance. The more frequently you shoot your firearms, the more rapid the fouling build-up will accumulate inside your firearms. 

Thankfully, these fouling build-ups are preventable problems by regular and proper firearm cleaning. By doing it, you will acquire clean firearms free from residues that can cause them to deteriorate. When your firearms are always clean, you will feel confident using them because they also look aesthetically pleasing. Thus, they will be no worry to use them for different applications. Remember that only clean firearms are aesthetically pleasing in the eyes and safe to use. So, if you aim to have a light yet immediate and regular firearm cleaning, a reliable, high-quality bore snake kit can do a great job.

Free your firearms from rust and corrosion

Aside from fouling build-up, other problems you can encounter when you neglect your firearms are rust and corrosion. What causes these problems is moisture from incorrect storage and rare cleaning. In particular, firearms are highly susceptible to rusting, mainly if you store them in closed storage that can inevitably produce moisture. At some point, it might be pretty challenging to prevent the development of a significant amount of rust in a short time. By that, it can result in inoperable firearms. 

Fortunately, proper firearm cleaning can solve your dilemma of rust in storage and corrosion troubles from ammunition. With cleaning, you can free your firearms from rust and corrosion. That’s why you will not experience having firearms with permanently reduced accuracy or are unsafe to fire. As a result, your firearms can also preserve their longevity by just being regularly clean. It is something impressive, right? Just doing this task can help you prolong your firearms lifespan. 

Be more familiar with your firearms 

There’s no doubt that being hands-on with firearm cleaning is your best way to be more familiar with your firearms to know them better. Even though you are not entirely mechanically savvy or a professional firearm expert, you must at least know the safe and proper firearm cleaning. Through this, it will be easier for you to know which parts to pay more attention to because of fouling build-up. 

In addition, through proper firearm cleaning, you will also see more underlying problems with your firearms to prevent them quickly. Aside from that, the more you know about how your firearms work, the better you will get to repair them when something goes wrong.

Truly, this firearm cleaning advantage comes in handy when you are in a shooting range and you suddenly come across something wrong. When you are more familiar with your firearms, the less chance you will need to ask for help from gunsmiths. Of course, you can only guarantee the best firearm cleaning results with the best universal cleaning kits. 

Preventing any possible malfunctions

Truth be told, firearms are initially built to last long. That’s why they are not considered cheap. In fact, they are among the greatest investments that owners can have. Aside from that, firearms are also carefully designed with numerous safety features to prevent firearm-related accidents. However, it doesn’t mean that these features can eliminate the entire chance of accidents because there are still mishaps caused by improper or rare firearm cleaning. 

After all, if you use your firearms more consistently, the quicker they can have fouling built-up, negatively impacting their safety and performance. More often, your neglect in cleaning and maintenance can lead to malfunction. Basically, this malfunction must not be blamed on the manufacturer’s error; instead, it is due to user or negligence error. 

In order to minimize the possibilities of malfunction and ensure firearms safety as well, cleaning your firearms on a regular schedule is the most practical and wisest solution to do. Sometimes, the primary cause of the malfunction is dirt from fouling and other contaminants from shooting. With regular and proper firearm cleaning, you can benefit from it to increase your chance to significantly prevent experiencing incomplete discharge, failure to eject, and many more catastrophic circumstances. 

Improves accuracy

Suppose that you are a shooting enthusiast. In that case, you must know that the fastness in discharging bullets and the firearms’ accuracy are the keys to attaining the most satisfying shooting accuracy. The concern with achieving that outstanding accuracy is the build-up of firing residue that your firearms can acquire due to the regular shooting schedule. When you let the fouling build-up interfere with your firearms negatively, you can eventually notice decreased accuracy and reliability. 

See, too much fouling build-up can eventually impact your firearms’ accuracy and condition. If you let these firing residues be in your firearms surfaces and parts, you can eventually experience a bullet stuck halfway in the barrel due to the hard and stubborn fouling build-up. By that, it will not only have decreased accuracy but also can risk your safety. 

Interestingly, you can always save yourself from the disaster of shooting with decreased accuracy by practicing regular and proper cleaning. For that basis, you must make sure that your firearms barrels are always in good shape to attain the utmost accuracy level that can satisfy your satisfaction with accuracy and overall performance. After all, firearms are also about mechanisms. Therefore, if they can get damaged, you can always prevent them from getting unusable with the right cleaning process, reaching exceptional accuracy simultaneously. 

Guarantees better durability

Truly, firing residues, dirt, rust, and other damaging contaminants are your firearms’ greatest enemy, especially in terms of lifespan and durability if they are left for too long in your firearms. See, rust can cause adverse effects on metal parts of your firearms. Over time, they can make your firearms wear out or malfunction that they are supposed to be. At the same time, accumulated dirt can also eat your firearm metal parts, leading to faster wear and tear that can cut off lifespan and durability. 

Fortunately, practicing regular and proper cleaning and lubricating your firearms can guarantee you a great battle to defeat these components that can worsen your firearms’ durability and lifespan. When your firearms can preserve better durability, they can surely last from generation to generation. Conclusively, you can make the most out of your firearms by just being responsible for cleaning. 

Save your from misinformation

Another excellent benefit of being hands-on with proper firearm cleaning is that it saves you from misinformation because you are up close and more personal to your firearms’ real condition. After all, you might see some wrong pieces of information on the Internet, such as you don’t need to clean your firearms regularly to utilize them properly. While it is true that you don’t necessarily need to clean your firearms deeply every time you use them, it does not mean that you are completely free by neglecting their cleaning needs.

In reality, you must clean your firearms often, depending on how you use them. Given that you might not use them regularly now, the best approach in keeping them safe and clean is to store them properly. The primary point of learning everything by yourself is to avoid any mistake when cleaning and caring for your firearms. Of course, everything means that you also need to know the best cleaning supplies that can give you the most convenience in doing these particular firearm maintenance tasks. 

Now that it is clear that proper firearm cleaning can lead to outstanding benefits, let’s now dive deeper into discovering the relevance of safety with it. So, read on to learn more. 

Importance of Safety in Firearm Cleaning

Firearm cleaning takes time; it is not a kind of task wherein you need to get everything fast. Certainly, you must be comfortable when cleaning your firearms. Truly, the trick in an efficient firearm cleaning is the preparation that ensures your safety. You don’t want to experience any accident while in the middle of firearm cleaning, right? That’s why your firearms must be free from ammunition even before getting started with firearm cleaning. It is a basic step that you must do before preparing your cleaning supplies. 

In particular, firearm disassembling is even clearly highlighted that it is a thumb rule that firearm owners must know how to keep their firearms unloaded before cleaning. Remember that only unloaded firearms are safe to clean. Aside from freeing your firearms from ammunition, you must also make sure that the action of the firearms is always open during the cleaning process. Since you aim to keep the process safe, you must also take other measures and not work with ammunition around. It means no ammunition must not be present in your firearm cleaning area. 

Moreover, you also need to be quite familiar and knowledgeable in reassembling your firearms correctly. Only then can you guarantee that your firearms will work properly after cleaning. When you fail to reassemble your firearms well, it can lead to malfunction or accidents. It is quite a problem if the reason is only cleaning. That’s why safety is always important when it comes to firearm cleaning. Nothing can go wrong during the cleaning process when you prioritize working safely. 

Discovering If Firearms Should Always Be Disassembled For Cleaning

Admittedly, there is no absolute answer when discussing whether firearms should always be disassembled for cleaning. It is all about specific circumstances. Nevertheless, it is good to disassemble firearms before cleaning, but it doesn’t mean that you need to do it all the time. In fact, you can only disassemble firearms if you want to do a detailed and more thorough cleaning. It is a disassembling process that involves larger components such as the bolt assembly.

In addition, this disassembling process doesn’t mean that you will completely take apart your firearms by removing every pin and spring, etc. Of course, you will only field strip to the point that you can freely clean and lube your firearms properly. For that reason, you must read the manuals provided by the manufacturer to know the proper sequence of disassembly. Truly, disassembling firearms is an excellent practice when you have the luxury of time to do so because it is a complete cleaning. 

Moreover, there are some situations where you can escape disassembling firearms when you have the correct cleaning tools, such as bore snakes. You can have a breech (chamber) to muzzle cleaning with bore snakes that don’t require you to disassemble your firearms. However, you must know that it is only a temporary solution because nothing beats disassembling firearms for cleaning. Nevertheless, you now have the answer that it is not necessarily a requirement that firearms should always be disassembled for cleaning, thanks to bore snakes. 

Therefore, get to know about bore snakes and other firearm cleaning methods to make it an easier and more convenient task to complete. Continue reading for more. 

3 Best Firearm Cleaning Methods

Interestingly, manual cleaning features different forms. So, to guide you, here are the different types of firearm cleaning methods that you can use to achieve the best firearm cleaning results: 

Cleaning Rods and Bore Brushes

Cleaning rods and bore brushes are the most traditional method for firearm cleaning. Normally, cleaning rods are built from metal materials softer than firearm construction because these cleaning supplies must not be harmful to firearms. That’s why they are mostly made from carbon fiber, aluminum, or copper. In addition, cleaning rods work as dependable and sturdy conjunction for attaching bore brushes to achieve a deeper clean. 

Amazingly, Hoppe’s offers a line of outstanding bore brushes, primarily made from high-quality phosphor material, and Hoppe’s Phosphor Bronze Brushes are no exception. Also, one best thing to crucially remember with bore brushes is to secure the right caliber size. Nonetheless, there’s nothing to worry about with Hoppe’s because it comes with a wide variety of bore brushes with no sharp-edged bristles that could scratch the firearms’ surface. 

Moreover, you will also see more overwhelming available bore brushes through searching in many shops. In particular, you will come across models made from stainless steel, nylon, or copper materials. Now, going back to this traditional firearm cleaning method, the cleaning rods and bore brushes work with other cleaning supplies, such as cleaning jags, to push patches down the barrel for precise and thorough cleaning. 

Using cleaning rods with other cleaning tools attachment, you can efficiently remove the stubborn firing residue build-up on the barrel and other firearm parts. At the same time, you must pay extra attention to the moving parts for the complete cleaning of firearms. With that being said, cleaning patches and small soft brushes will surely help in more precise and thorough detailing when cleaning. 

Bore Snake Kits

If cleaning rods and bore brushes are the traditional methods of firearm cleaning, the bore snake kits are the innovative ones. In addition, these kits are primarily dedicated to distinctly different purposes, which are lighter and quicker firearm cleaning advantages. Of course, it is highly attainable because bore snake kits don’t require field stripping of firearms. 

Moreover, you can enjoy a faster yet impressive firearm cleaning process by utilizing bore snake kits. Just some pull-through of the cleaning tool in the barrel will be enough to remove the build-up firing residues inside the bore efficiently. That’s why bore snake kits are highly suitable as an immediate cleaning solution for firearms you have used for a long day on the range or in the shooting field. 

Amazingly, bore snake kits are the best answer for eliminating lighter firing residues and other contaminants that might sneak onto your firearms. Interestingly, the advantage of the bore snake kits can also be their limitations. Since they are meant for a lighter and quicker cleaning process, they do not have deeper powder, unlike cleaning rods and bore brushes. With that in mind, bore snake kits are only best if the firing residues and contaminants are still light and easy to remove. Consequently, they are best for immediate and outdoor use.   

Solvents and Oils

When dealing with tougher and more stubborn firing residues and contaminants, you first need to utilize the best cleaning solvents. The primary purpose of using them is to loosen or dissolve them from your firearms for easier cleaning. Frankly, when it comes to removing a severe build-up of firing residues and contaminants, you need the help of the best cleaning solvents. After the firearm cleaning, it is also beneficial to use some oils for protection. 

Other Useful Firearm Cleaning Supplies

Firearm cleaning is a sophisticated process. With more firearm cleaning supplies you have, the more you can ensure proper and convenient cleaning. See more of these cleaning tools that make the cleaning process easier for you; check them out below: 

• Gun Vise

A gun vise is another useful cleaning tool that you can utilize for proper cleaning. The primary purpose of having it is to secure your firearm and free your hands for quicker and more stable cleaning, preventing any risk of damages. Even though this cleaning tool is often overlooked by many, it is one of the best tools you need to include in your cleaning box. To be honest, a gun vise is mostly used for rifles, but it is highly universal for accommodating other firearms too. 

• Cleaning Mat

A cleaning mat is useful for solving your frustration in a total mess with firearm cleaning. In addition, this tool aids in covering a cleaning place from any possible effect of cleaning solvents. Aside from that, a cleaning mat can also keep your other cleaning tools organized. Therefore, you don’t have to experience trouble cleaning up the supplies you have used. 

• Cleaning Table

A cleaning table is a steady surface that you can rely upon for stable firearm cleaning. Using this cleaning equipment, you don’t worry about finding a flat and spacious space outdoors. At the same time, you will not fear staining other tables because you have yours. Overall, having a high-quality cleaning table will save you the stress and effort of finding a stable and spacious firearm cleaning station. 

• Cleaning Swabs

Interestingly, cleaning swabs, popularly referred to as cleaning mops, are closely compared with cleaning brushes. It is highly understandable because these cleaning tools are designed for similar purposes. They are only different based on materials. Typically, cleaning swabs are made out of cotton to clean the left-over firing residue and contaminants thoroughly, primarily at the barrel. At the same time, they are also useful in removing excess oil from your firearms. 

• Firearm Utility Brushes 

Aside from bore, you also need to clean other firearm parts to attain an impressive complete cleaning. With that being said, you need other cleaning brushes, besides the ones for bore. For that reason, you will find firearm utility brushes highly useful since they can take on the job of reaching nooks and crannies. By that, you can clean out the other firearm parts, such as slide grooves and trigger parts. Of course, they are truly the best option than using an old toothbrush because they are built with enough durability and softness in one incredible construction.  

• Flashlight

A flashlight is another fantastic tool that can come in handy for your firearm cleaning needs. You can hold it up close to see the real conditions of your firearms and notice better the specific parts where you suspect more residue and damaging contaminants build-up. Conclusively, a flashlight will help you achieve spot-free firearms by helping you find all the hidden dust, dirt, and debris to clean on your firearms. 

• Disposable Gloves

Frustrated about the mess you have with firearm cleaning before? You can happily say goodbye to that by using the best disposable gloves. By wearing them, you can keep your hands free from the mess of applying cleaning solvents. At the same time, they can also protect your hands from any oil that can bother and irritate you. 

More importantly, you can also protect your firearms from accidental scratches by wearing gloves. You can stay hygienic and clean by having them. Among the best disposable gloves that can be stretchy, comfortable, and offer great grip is the Black Vinyl Disposable Gloves. To try it out, click here. 

Final Thoughts

In the end, it is alright if firearms should always be disassembled for cleaning. However, it doesn’t necessarily mean all the time because you can still clean your firearms without stripping them apart. Above the concern with disassembling firearms, you should know that your attention and care from them are necessary. With ideal attention, you can see more clearly the condition of your firearms, whether they only need a light cleaning or deeper cleaning that involves the disassembling process. 

Explore the Survival Gear Shack website for other helpful guides and reviews about other gun and guide cleaning guides. In addition, you can also see different shooting accessories’ reviews. So, don’t go elsewhere and just take a tour of our website. But before doing so, make a quick look at the frequently asked questions below to learn more. After that, feel free to read our helpful reviews. 

Frequently Asked Questions 

Below are the most popular and frequently asked questions about firearm cleaning, disassembling firearms, and other relevant topics. See them below to know more: