that is wet from training? I have a training session Thursday and it is set to snow/rain. After breaking the pistol down to clean, what do you do to get the moisture out of the cracks and crevices in the slide where all the springs and pins are located?

That's what WD40 was designed for: water displacement. Or alcohol. Then shake-out, blow-out, and relubricate.

I lay mine down on a heat register and let the warm air do it.

WD-40 is a good water displacer, but you want to get the WD-40 off the gun and use a good quality lubricant on it.

What kind of pistol are you dealing with?

quote:

Originally posted by arfmel:
I lay mine down on a heat register and let the warm air do it.

WD-40 is a good water displacer, but you want to get the WD-40 off the gun and use a good quality lubricant on it.

What kind of pistol are you dealing with?

Glock 19 and a Beretta Nano. What about the spray that you use on computer keyboards to blow out dust. Any problems with that?

I've never used it. I would field strip the Glock and blow as much moisture out as possible, them put it down somewhere that a good flow of air can go over it. Leave it overnight. Lube it. It will be fine.

I have no experience with the Nano.

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My P226 sat in salt water for a couple hours while I sailed around San Diego Bay because of a problem with the bulge pump and not paying attention to what was happening in the cabin.

My concern was to remove the salt water and residue.

I completely dissembled the pistol and washed every piece under the water faucet, dunked and scrubbed everything in distilled water, replaced the salty distilled water with fresh distilled water for a final rinse, used a hair dryer on low heat to dry before soaking it in gun oil, used 90% isopropyl alcohol wipes to remove the gun oil, and finally lubed it as normal.

For the firing pin channel, I used heavy cotton yarn and a long skinny needle I bought from a sewing store because the alcohol wipes would never fit.

I considered using canned air for cleaning computers but didn't because you need to keep the can upright to avoid blowing moisture from inside the air can into your pistol.

The hair dryer I used did not have sufficient pressure to blow water out. Having completely dissembled the pistol, I only needed to deal with the firing pin channel everything else was accessible.

Clean snow/rain/tap water is a fallacy ~ all will have some amount of minerals and other contaminates which is why I use distilled water.

However, distilled water being essentially mineral-free is very aggressive. It tends to dissolve substances with which it is in contact because carbon dioxide from the air is rapidly absorbed making the water acidic. Many metals are dissolved by distilled water, don't soak your pistol in it for long periods of time and immediately after you must dry and oil the metal.

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Thanks all.

I consider myself somewhat of an expert in this area. On a regular basis I have to (with no chance to get rid of the gun) go swimming with a pistol. Salt water of course, way worse than what you are contemplating (more on that later) It's either a glock 17 or a 226.
My routine for the 226 is...
field strip the gun,
wash down with fresh water, liberally
blow dry with compressed air to get the major water out. If I have access to dry air (versus regular compressed air) I use that.
blow dry with heat gun (on low) to get the rest of the water out
spray liberally with CLP on everything and wipe the excess off.
Then lubricate as normal.
This has worked without issue for years so I'm pretty confident on it.
Now to your specific situation. If its just snowing/raining I wouldn't do any of that. I shoot in the rain/snow all the time as that's simply the weather we get.
Most of the time I do nothing special, snow and rain on a gun that's being shot don't do squat. The gun is hot and the parts are moving. wipe off the residual moisture and move on.
If you feel really bad then I might do a normal clean/lube, but there is really no need for more. If your bothered by that idea, just blow a little mildly hot air on the parts and all will be fine. Really.

quote:

Originally posted by BB61:
What about the spray that you use on computer keyboards to blow out dust. Any problems with that?

There are problems with that canned stuff, though I am not sure they would affect metal. The spray air contains a bitterant, to prevent folks from huffing it. Sometimes (spray for too long, or with the can not exactly vertical), the bitterant is expelled as a liquid, and it will leave a splotch (spot) on an LCD screen that is difficult to remove. I do use it on a limited basis, but prefer regular compressed air where possible.
 

This is a common occurrence with officers in Florida, especially K9 officers. Here is what we did when a gun got drenched:

Field strip pistol, including disassemble grips and magazines

Rinse thoroughly with fresh water

Drop all parts into mineral spirits bath. We used a parts washer with mineral spirits routinely to clean firearms

Blow everything out with compressed air until thoroughly dry

Spray down with Remoil or comparable and wipe off excess

Lube slide as normal

Thanks again to everyone. HRCJON, thanks for your service and experience as well as to HayesGreener. After all this, the weather forcast has cleared up but this was helpful nevertheless.

Perhaps it matters in which brand you buy, but the compressed duster spray cans we use at work contain 100% tetrafluoroethane. There is no water in it. The white liquid that comes out if you tilt or invert the can is the tetrafluoroethane in liquid form. I wouldn't hesitate to use it to blow rinse water out, but I would hold the part up to the can and try to keep it upright.

A shop vac can be rigged up to be a blower. I have used that to dry a pistol.

quote:

Originally posted by JAFO:
Perhaps it matters in which brand you buy, but the compressed duster spray cans we use at work contain 100% tetrafluoroethane. There is no water in it. The white liquid that comes out if you tilt or invert the can is the tetrafluoroethane in liquid form. I wouldn't hesitate to use it to blow rinse water out, but I would hold the part up to the can and try to keep it upright.

What brand is that? I have yet to find one that does not contain the bitterant.
 

gunscrubber, or brake cleaner. it will clean off everything, then dry in a minute or two. It also strips off any oil or lube, so be sure to add it back where its needed. Or in the case of the firing pin channel, leave it dry.

quote:

Originally posted by henryaz:
What brand is that? I have yet to find one that does not contain the bitterant.
 

Techspray Duster (MSDS). If it has a bitterant, I don't smell it when we use it and it doesn't list it on the MSDS.

quote:

Originally posted by hrcjon:
I consider myself somewhat of an expert in this area. On a regular basis I have to (with no chance to get rid of the gun) go swimming with a pistol. Salt water of course, way worse than what you are contemplating (more on that later) It's either a glock 17 or a 226.
My routine for the 226 is...
field strip the gun,
wash down with fresh water, liberally
blow dry with compressed air to get the major water out. If I have access to dry air (versus regular compressed air) I use that.
blow dry with heat gun (on low) to get the rest of the water out
spray liberally with CLP on everything and wipe the excess off.
Then lubricate as normal.
This has worked without issue for years so I'm pretty confident on it.
Now to your specific situation. If its just snowing/raining I wouldn't do any of that. I shoot in the rain/snow all the time as that's simply the weather we get.
Most of the time I do nothing special, snow and rain on a gun that's being shot don't do squat. The gun is hot and the parts are moving. wipe off the residual moisture and move on.
If you feel really bad then I might do a normal clean/lube, but there is really no need for more. If your bothered by that idea, just blow a little mildly hot air on the parts and all will be fine. Really.

This is probably closest to my own submerged gun cleaning regime...although I'm probably even more simplistic in my approach.

I have a 629 that has been exposed to everything from dust to mud, rain, snow, and on at least 2 occasions that I can recall has been completely submerged in fresh water for several minutes at a time.

As soon as I was able to remove the gun from the water I unloaded it and did my best to dry it on the spot, although I'm certain I couldn't remove all the moisture. Then, when I got home, I did a normal cleaning, being certain to remove the grips and dry there as well. Lastly, I placed the gun on a baking sheet (along with the submerged ammo) and baked it at around a 100 degrees F., oh for maybe an hour or so. Then I allowed it to cool and lubricated it normally. No fuss, no muss... and no problems.

I also completely agree that with normal exposure to snow and rain that I wouldn't go beyond a regular cleaning and lubrication. There simply shouldn't be any need for any more than this.

quote:

Originally posted by JAFO:

quote:

Originally posted by henryaz:
What brand is that? I have yet to find one that does not contain the bitterant.
 

Techspray Duster (MSDS). If it has a bitterant, I don't smell it when we use it and it doesn't list it on the MSDS.

Thanks. It appears not to have any bitterant, and is meant to be sold to industry (by the case, which is the only reasonable way to get a good unit price). Individual cans I see on a quick Google search are twice what ordinary bitterant-included cans cost. Purity costs, it seems. For my computer/electronics equipment, I keep an 80 cu ft bottle of Nitrogen on hand, which costs <$20 to refill. It is clean and dry, but may not be practical for others' situations.
 
For drying a gun, I would still use dry compressed air (in my garage).
 

After all this, it rained during the morning and the way up to the range but by the time we started, it had stopped raining.

So, I've experienced a similar type of exposure as hrcjon. Salt water! My P938 dropped onto the deck of my boat and sat there for a few hours. I'm guessing that there was most likely only surface exposure to salt water. However, I field stripped it and cleaned it as much as and as thoroughly as I could. Only issue is that the sights are rusting in the super tight contact points where they meet the slide. I clean it off and of course, as oxidation will do once it has a foothold, it comes back. The pistol was purchased in 2015 and the sights have plenty of life left in them. Any suggestions in how I should approach solving my issue? All comments, suggestions and sarcasm is welcome.