Firearms Stack Exchange Archive
What is the proper technique to clean a Glock pistol?
- posted by: hobodave on 2011-11-01
- tagged:
glock,pistols,cleaning,maintenance - score: 7
Specifically:
- How do you field strip the pistol?
- Which parts do you clean?
- Which parts should you not clean?
- How do you clean the synthetic polymer parts?
- How much oil should you use, and where?
- How do you put it back together?
Answer 36
- posted by: divided on 2011-11-01
- score: 3
Here's a great guide on how to field strip and clean a glock. Personally, I oil the slide (inside and out) and the barrel. You can use a q-tip to get the hard-to-reach places.
Answer 968
- posted by: Jack on 2012-01-23
- score: 3
I'd like to add, you might want to look into using grease. I've been meaning to try out Tetra (which I've heard good things about) here: http://www.midwayusa.com/product/133862/tetra-gun-grease-1-oz-tube
To be honest, right now, I lightly clean my Glock 19. I don't CLP the rear slide components (the rear assembly in the slide) because you are not suppose to. You should only oil the following parts (during a maintenance cleaning):
(Note the upside down rail, and rear assembly not receiving oil ontop of it)
Do not clean the glock from the muzzle end, and only lightly lubricate it. For a full manual (with a healthy dose of combat-driven mindset/training at the end), see this guide (PDF) here: http://glock.mattvanderhoff.com/pdf/glock-unofficial-armorers-manual.pdf
Answer 214
- posted by: Tom Cabanski on 2011-11-02
- score: 2
I found the following video very useful when I was learning how to clean my Glock: Cleaning the Glock 19 9mm
Answer 959
- posted by: ppetraki on 2012-01-20
- score: 2
Glock is a light oil gun, you don’t need to bath it. I actually won’t use any lubricant/penetrating cleaner from the firing pin face, all the way to the rear of the gun, only rubbing alcohol. I also use separate brushes for oil and non-oil work.
Field strip it like the manual shows you and clean the barrel like you would any other gun, stick with nylon brushes. I like to use Ballistol here, scrub the barrel once, 1-2 wet patches, and run dry patches (1-2) until clean.
Scrub the mag well and everything to the rear of the locking lug block using your alcohol only brush. I like to use shredded micro fiber rags and wrap my brush while I do this. While holding the slide with the firing pin facing down, scrub the firing pin face and the extractor claw,(You want it facing down so no grit falls back into the firing pin channel. ) then lay flat and use same brush to clean rear of slide around trigger safety plunger etc.
For the front of the slide, I use an “oil only” brush with rag lightly soaked in Ballistol to get at all the areas and then buff them down with a shop cloth or some other general purpose rag.
When it comes to actually lubricating the slide. You need to make up your mind on what you want to use for lubricants. You can’t buy that goo [1] glock distributes with their new guns so I take it all off with rubbing alcohol and then replace it with TW25. Then I just clean the frame rails with lightly soaked Ballistol (penetrating lubricant and cleaner) rags and reapply TW25 as needed to the slide rail channels. TW25 doesn’t run either so you can easily apply it to the trigger bar like the manual says and it won’t run down into your frame. A drop of that in the locking block area is good too.
That’s really it, any other lubrication point is optional, some people like to put a little grease on the top side of the barrel. It’s really up to you.
qtips are great for detail work, so are pipe cleaners albeit a little more expensive. The later bits are necessary though when you break down the rear of the slide and service the striker channel and other spring loaded channels. NO LUBRICANT THERE, the plastic and the metal finish is sufficient. Do that about once a year or 5000 rounds, whichever comes first.
If you still need a hand getting through the basic field stripping/re-assembly process. See hickok45’s youtube videos on glock cleaning.
Update 3/29/2012
- I’ve learned since that this is copper anti-seize grease who’s primary purpose is to ensure the slide can break free from the rest after the gun has been sitting in a warehouse for who knows how long. There may be a use case where the operator seldom fires their pistol to maintain the anti-seize grease in addition to regular lubrication. Having lots of firearms and not enough time to give them all a turn is also a good argument to maintain the anti-seize or some other grease layer on the slide.
All content is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.