There’s always some new cleaner and/or lubricant on the market, and everyone has their pet.

John Holschen, of InSights Training Center, has a pragmatic take on it:

Years ago I quit trying any of the “magic” lubes and just used CLP. None of the others seemed to offer any real increased performance and CLP worked fine, was relatively inexpensive, and readily available. I still like it.

For some forgotten reason I tried Mili-Tec a couple of years ago (applied it to small parts and heated in a 175 degree oven for 15 minutes or so.) I immediately noticed that cleaning the Mili-Tec treated guns was easier. Carbon buildup was diminished and what carbon there was came off much easier. The treatment lasted well over a year (cleaned with CLP, lubed with Mili-Tec) and I got to where I kind of forgot how hard it used to be to clean the carbon from around the feed ramps of my handguns and the bolt carrier on AR’s. Then I used a solvent tank to clean my handgun. Next time I went to clean it, it was heavily carboned and difficult to clean again. I cleaned it really well, retreated it with Mili-Tec and all is smiley/happy once again (no more solvent tanks though.)

There may be other new-generation lubes that work as well but I haven’t tried them. The Mili-Tec/CLP combo works fine so I don’t need to look for something else.

I’ve heard a lot of competition shooters respond to the question of “what lube do you use?” with something like “whatever I won at the last match”… implying it didn’t matter, it all works good enough — just be sure you use it.

And really, being lubricated is more important than being clean. Witness, just shy of 3000 rounds (no cleaning, no lube) and finally the AR malfunctions, but a single drop of oil on the bolt at the cam pin hole and she was back in action.

Furthermore, Vuurwapen says that  cleaning your AR-15 is a waste of time.

I love this quote from Karl Rehn:

It’s a battle implement, your not supposed to go home and spend an entire afternoon cleaning it. Just put a little lube on the critical parts and be done with it.

For me, well… sure there was a time in my life when I painstakingly disassembled each gun and worked to swab every corner until it was crystal clean. That got old pretty quick.

These days, it’s pretty simple. I keep CLP in my range bag because there’s limited room in the bag so to be efficient it’s nice to have something that will “do it all”. I also keep various bore snakes around. Furthermore, I keep ESCA Tech’s D-Wipes around and in the bag: good for cleaning off your hands, and they do a bang up job at gun cleaning too. A typical situation at the end of a gun range session might be field stripping the gun, drop of CLP on the bore snake and run it through the barrel, D-Wipe the parts down, CLP on moving parts to lube it up, and the gun’s back together. The only time I might get a little more painstaking about it might be for a gun that’s going to spend more time in storage than on the range (e.g. hunting rifle might get pulled out once a year, so clean well and prep for a year of storage).  And sure, every so often when the gun is disassembled I might notice it needs a deeper cleaning (e.g. crud building up in the extractor) so I’ll get a pick in there or some such thing.

FWIW, a few months ago I picked up some MILITEC-1 because I had heard a lot about it and was curious, and my experiences have been similar to Holschen’s. I see no reason to stop using it.

But the bottom line is: I don’t worry much about cleaning my guns. I worry more about keeping them lubricated. Guns get cleaned on an as-needed basis, and I don’t sweat it a whole lot. What lubricant to use? Whatever… pick one. Just be sure to use it… that means you, Ron. 😉