I'm a long-time pistol owner, shooter, and reloader. I take good care of my collection. They are kept in climate-controlled storage, wiped down after use with Birchwood Casey Sheath, and kept lubricated. I don't clean them often having convinced myself that cleaning can produce as much, or more, wear on a firearm as using it. That practice has served me well for many years and my pistols always go bang at the range.

Recently I got a concealed carry permit and a SIG P365 for everyday carry. I practice with it regularly. Yesterday at the range it immediately began having light primer strikes and would not ignite my Federal HST carry ammo. Had I needed it in order to defend myself, I would have been in a bad situation. The pistol was dirty, but not excessively so, and probably cleaner than most of the pistols in my safe.

I cannot fault the P365. A thorough cleaning restored prober function. What I learned from this event is that my maintenance approach for my range pistols is totally inappropriate for my carry piece. The diminutive and beautifully functioning P365 is a pistol that requires more diligent maintenance. I suspect this is true for other micro pistols as well. I will keep that in mind going forward.

Since your gun wasn't excessively filthy, then being a little dirty likely wasn't the cause of the light strikes.

Overlubrication, or improper lubrication, could also be the cause of your light strikes.

The firing pin channel should not be oiled. It should be dry. Having oil in the channel can not only slow down the firing pin's velocity, it can also attract accumulated gunk that impedes travel. Either one (or both) will cause light strikes.

At the police academy where I taught, it was somewhat common to have cadets who run into similar issues after absolutely dousing or hosing down their guns with oil in their zeal to have a completely cleaned and lubed gun.

Better to find out like you did.
After shooting, I field strip, run a wet patch through the bore, couple of passes with a nylon bore brush, nylon brush of the feed ramp, followed by a dry patch through the bore.

I wipe down the slide, breech face/extractor, rails, outside of barrel and lower with a slight lubed patch, nylon brush over the breechface followed by a quick wipe with a rag or dry patch.

Check firing pin free movement and assemble with a drop of lube in the slide rail grooves.

All with Slip2000 and takes 5 minutes for each pistol, max. Never had an issue.

Excessive cleaning is a waste of time IMO, but a quickie after a range session is IMO always a good thing, as it insures I’ve got eyes on the guns internals and checking the striker/firing pin movement.

I’ve caught 2 failed firing pins this way. One USPc and a CZ P07.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
Since your gun wasn't excessively filthy, then being a little dirty likely wasn't the cause of the light strikes.

Overlubrication, or improper lubrication, could also be the cause of your light strikes.

The firing pin channel should not be oiled. It should be dry. Having oil in the channel can not only slow down the firing pin's velocity, it can also attract accumulated gunk that impedes travel. Either one (or both) will cause light strikes.

At the police academy where I taught, it was somewhat common to have cadets who run into similar issues after absolutely dousing or hosing down their guns with oil in their zeal to have a completely cleaned and lubed gun.

That's great to know I'm one to probably apply to much oil,

quote:

Originally posted by Blackwater:
Better to find out like you did.
After shooting, I field strip, run a wet patch through the bore, couple of passes with a nylon bore brush, nylon brush of the feed ramp, followed by a dry patch through the bore.

I wipe down the slide, breech face/extractor, rails, outside of barrel and lower with a slight lubed patch, nylon brush over the breechface followed by a quick wipe with a rag or dry patch.

Check firing pin free movement and assemble with a drop of lube in the slide rail grooves.

All with Slip2000 and takes 5 minutes for each pistol, max. Never had an issue.

Excessive cleaning is a waste of time IMO, but a quickie after a range session is IMO always a good thing, as it insures I’ve got eyes on the guns internals and checking the striker/firing pin movement.

I’ve caught 2 failed firing pins this way. One USPc and a CZ P07.

This, very smart, good reminder.

I don't own a 365 so ... but if you told me any modern mainstream pistol failed just from being dirty I would laugh at you. And especially one that was not "excessively so". As somewhat of an experiment and also being a generally lazy person in this area I often run my competition guns for very long times before I break down and actually clean them. Like really, really long times. And its really really hard to make a failure happen. Like really, really hard. Like I give up and clean it before the gun does anything bad. Thousands and thousands of rounds later. Not a chance your problem is being dirty unless the 365 is a outlier for some particular issue.

RogueJSK is absolutely correct. The firing pin channel of the P320 and P365 needs to be dry. I have thousands and thousands of rounds through my P320 and the only malfunction I've ever had was when I got too much lube in there and it started getting light strikes. I popped the striker out and discovered that it was completely gacked up with gooey crud. I blasted it off with carb clean, dried it, cleaned out the channel and put it all back together. Never a problem since.

Checking and swabbing out the striker assembly and channel has become part of my regular maintenance routine. On the P320, removing it is easy, and also allows you access to get at all the crud that builds up behind the extractor as well. Just watch that little striker safety block spring and make sure it's still in place when you put everything back together, make sure your extractor plunger is oriented properly, and be sure to function check everything when you're done.

This process is a little trickier on the P365, and varies somewhat between Sig's undocumented "generations", but it's still not that bad and worth doing on occasion to make sure nothing is accumulating in there.

quote:

What I learned from this event is that my maintenance approach for my range pistols is totally inappropriate for my carry piece. The diminutive and beautifully functioning P365 is a pistol that requires more diligent maintenance.

I don’t believe this in the slightest. I think Rogue has it nailed here.

I have 5” long brass rods. After a cleaning, I aim the gun up. Drop one in the barrel and pull the trigger. I have a pretty good idea how far it should jump up to insure the firing pin safety, hammer, striker, whatever gun I’m checking, works as it should.

I do the same test with a pencil with an eraser. A striker pistol will push the pencil half way out of the barrel. A hammer fired pistol will launch the pencil to the ceiling. A great test !

^^^
I do that ever since I gummed up my Nano with excess oil cleaning it.

quote:

Originally posted by Ranger41:
I don't clean them often having convinced myself that cleaning can produce as much, or more, wear on a firearm as using it.

Just curious: What convinced you of this?

quote:

Originally posted by neex:
Just curious: What convinced you of this?

Article in a gun mag many years ago.

quote:

Originally posted by Ranger41:
Article in a gun mag many years ago.

I’m just going to say it: I think that’s Fuddlore. Improper cleaning techniques in the bore surely don’t help your rifling, and improper disassembly and reassembly also does it no favors, but there’s nothing I can do to any of my guns while cleaning them that’s more violent than the firing of a cartridge, especially if it operates the action.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: P220 Smudge,