New SOCOM 18 - First bath

C

Captain Smoof

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Hi all,

I have two new SOCOM 18s in my safe - one for me, one for a friend. Neither of us have ANY experience on this platform.

As many of you know, they are literally dripping in cosmoline. My question is to what degree do we need to strip them for their first cleaning?

I have all the supplies for degreasing, lubing, etc and I've read the stickies, but I'm still not 100%.

Field strip? Full disassembly??

Thanks!
MMS
 
First M305 I ever owned was a new one. I had to do a complete tear down and take a garden hose to it to remove all of the metal shavings. That was quite a while ago now though....
 
First off, its oil not cosmoline.

Take out trigger assembly, wipe, oil/grease.

Take off oproad, remove bolt. Wipe everything down use brake cleaner to clean bolt. Grease roller on bolt ONLY.

Take out piston. De-oil piston and cylinder. Do not grease or oil.

Re assemble putting grease on bearing surfaces.

Remove back site, clean and grease.
 
Thanks for the swift responses - serious or otherwise.

I doubt my wife would even allow me to use the dishwasher, so we can put that one to bed.

I have some Simple Green for degreasing. Any reason that wouldn't do the trick? As to grease, I only have CLP-esque lube, as I'm more an AR man (and it's what Her Majesty trained me on). Is there a particular type/brand of grease you'd recommend? Does it matter?

As you can tell, I'm as green as they come with M-305.

THANKS!
 
sprbloggins said:
If memory serves me correct, I believe the weapons parts all rusted out??? Someone else remember a thread about this situation??
Click to expand...

Yes that was epic. He put the entire receiver in the dishwasher (said it was a friend who did it and that he took pictures). It completely rusted.
 
ABCZAR said:
Yes that was epic. He put the entire receiver in the dishwasher (said it was a friend who did it and that he took pictures). It completely rusted.
Click to expand...

I just did this with some machetes lol....they needed to be sharpened anyways the edges on some got some rust
 
Read the stickies above paying attention to the safety checks, clean her up and then grease her as described by Yomomma.

Never ride the action closed by restraining with your hand and never load directly into the chamber and the let your rifle's action fly shut. Two major reasons for this. One,.. it prevents a slam fire caused by putting a round directly into the chamber and being struck by the free floating firing pin, and two,...when riding the action closed by your restraint, it may not go "fully into battery" when closed and could cause an "out of battery"(bolt not rolled fully into locked position) firing that could be bad for the rifle and possibly you.
These points sound bad, but it's normal operating procedure for the M-14 rifle., so pound the rounds through her over irons, get to know your rifle's operation and sights, and it's a military pattern rifle so it can be stripped well down for cleaning and greasing. You will enjoy your M-14, one of my fav's.:canadaFlag:

P.S. When firing the rifle, pay attention to not ride the op rod with your support hand. If held aggressively enough, it could slow the action down just enough to cause a stoppage, I saw this really bad with left hand shooters on mine with their thumb of support hand jammed on the op rod..
 
I like spray engine degreaser and plenty of scalding hot tap water, followed by any medium weight oil slapped on with a 1" paintbrush. The solvent takes off the junk you'll never be able to pick out, and then leaves the surfaces bare. The hot water floats off even more gunk. The oil, does its job to replace the grease and prevent rust.
 
For the initial cleaning I use shop towels or rags to get the heavy stuff off then strip it down and wipe some more.
After that simple green diluted with water and a toothbrush and compressed air to get into the tight spots and blow it clean.
Run some patches with solvent down the bore till she's clean and scrub the chamber as well. Clean the gas cylinder and leave it dry of oil

I then re oil with Balistol but any gun oil is fine and once again use compressed air to blow the oil into recesses lubricating everything but not leaving a heavy film.
Grease the appropriate locations with an appropriate grease.
 
All went well! They cleaned up nicely and it was a good morning of learning. Thank baby Jebus for YouTube..

The quality, as best we can tell, is pretty decent. The op-rod guide is quite rickety and both of our front sights are canted to the left. It seems as though gas cylinder locks (I THINK that's the technical name for the part..) have threading issues, as though they still need to rotate clockwise/right a few degrees.

If I understand other posts, this is not at all uncommon with the Norc stuff. Is this where shimming comes in? Would, for example, an aftermarket part fix this issue? Looking for some easy fixes.

Thanks!
MMS
 
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