After many years of desire, I just acquired a ~1958 Swiss Army P49. Upon field stripping, I discovered the pistol is extremely wet inside - heavily lubed with a combination of oil and grey grease. I have always subscribed to a less is more philosophy when it comes to handgun lubrication. Does the P49/P210 prefer a liberal amount of lube or was the previous owner being over zealous? This is my first P49/P210 pistol. Thank you for your reply.

I don't have the specific answer(s) you seek, but MUCH Congrats on your acquisition!

I'm no expert but for me, tighter fitting guns seem to ride much better with oil than grease. I lightly oil my P210. I have well over 1000 rounds thru mine without any malfunction. Congrats on the new Sig, these old girls are amazing shooters.

The answer seems to be how do you use your gun? If you take it out in sub-zero weather shooting you get a much different answer than if you live in 'Arrid-zona". If you take it out for fun a few times a year and burn less than a box of ammo each time, you get still another answer. I once knew the answer to using Mobil 1 5w-20. I forget.

Are the grips wood or plastic? In either case, take them off, dump the mag, pull the slide then use ethyl ether or sum such to remove the lions share of the crap. I was taught the inside should look dry. I don't believe that now. My P210s aren't dry, but not wet either. Until you've owned it for a while and shot it dirty a few times, avoid dirt, temp extremes, and just enjoy it.

I hate to pick up a dirty gun. So I generally clean them before putting them away. My buddy Joe never shoots his, but cleans them regardless. There is a product called CLP Collectors. It seems to dry over a short period, but the lube stays on the gun. Every gun needs a different approach to cleaning. Then lubing. A gun that will get handled some but shot very little needs a different approach than one you're going to carry or shoot every week. Its not a one size fits all deal.

A new gun needs all the old and unidentified crap swabbed out. If its a good gun, replace with known products. I kind of like the idea that your new toy has different lubes. Hopefully the guy kind of knew what he was doing, but only trust that if its a junk gun. Yours isn't.

P210s with heavy weight lubes can and will malfunction in very cold weather. Somewhere here we have a Swiss guy who posts. Maybe he'll come into this tread and comment.

hjs, The previous owner might have been just a bit overzealous. I've had 210s off and on for the last 30+ years. I've not used grease, but just use whatever gun lube I happened to be using on my other guns. I've not found the 210s to require an inordinate amount of lubrication.

I have no experience with the 210 but I did have an instructor out in the dessert of Nevada tell me my Sig P226 was going to jam because it had too much oil on the slide and all the dust that was being kicked up... 600 rounds later I was still waiting for the pistol to malfunction.

Now I do have to say my roomy while there was a retired Marine DI and he made me strip and clean my weapon every night before we even went out to eat.

I would be interested in the opinion of different lubes for different climates. My father was in a place back in 1950 where they washed all their weapons in gasoline and applied no lube to keep them from jamming through out the night.

There is no special recommendation. I using an MoS2 grease for the frame, the battery, barrel and on the recoil spring and a few drops of oil for the hammer assembly. Keeping it wet does not make sense to me alt all because the extra lube is sitting on places where it´s not needed, for no reason.

OTD, how about during prolonged use in below freezing temps?

I've got a P49 and I lube it the same as any other Sig pistol.
Your gun may have been over-lubed by the previous owner for long-term storage.

More than likely, the old lube is Swiss Army Waffenfett grease. They seemed to apply it liberally.

quote:

Originally posted by Voshterkoff:
OTD, how about during prolonged use in below freezing temps?

Grease is never the probelm. The problem is frozen condense water when the gun is carried from the dry cold into the warm and back.