Cleaning Magazines in the Dishwasher

[brickeyee]

The issue with using a household dishwasher is that all the parts and pieces of a gun that is fired become 'contaminated'
with multiple lead compounds and lead vapor.

Just like the air at the range.

Ventilation can move the now 'dirty' air away from the shooters to limit inhalation.

It does not remove the contamination that has occurred from the firing.

Primers (all by themselves) produce a witches brew of organic lead compounds.
The major initiator chemical is lead styphnate.

The products combine with the multiple other organic compounds used to boost the brisance of the styphnate.

Hot reactive molecules that contain and are combined with lead compounds are a bad idea to breath.
They settle on everything in the area.

The main component in lead paint that causes issues is NOT the lead oxide that was used as a pigment.
That compound is very hard to break up.
The chemical is lead acetate.
It was used as a hardener and aided film forming in the resins.

Lead paint is hard.
Chips will easily cut your skin.

That high gloss was a product of the drying power of lead acetate in the alkyd compounds used to hold the pigment.

Metalic lead is not a significant hazard unless reduced to very fine particles. Lead dust.

The surface are is simply not great enough for much lead to be extracted from the surface even if you swallow it.

Lead dust has an enormouse surface area.

The body can remove enough lead before the surface is passivated to be a hazard.

Organic compounds containing lead are in the same class.

Lead acetate 's old name is 'sugar of lead.'
It tastes sweet.

Roman's used it to sweeten wine.

[JTQ]

Now that we've convinced you to clean your mags less often, maybe I can convince you to put away the GunScrubber.

From Schuemann Barrels http://www.schuemann.com/Portals/0/D...l_Cleaning.pdf

My Personal Practice has become to never clean the bore of my barrels. I do use a brass rod to scrape the deposits out of the chamber. But, I've learned to leave the bore alone and it very slowly becomes shinier and cleaner all by itself. Years ago I occasionally scrubbed the bore with a brass bore brush. But, doing so always seemed to cause the bore to revert to a dirtier look with more shooting, so I eventually stopped ever putting anything down the bore except bullets...

[KUETSA]

I would not put anything firearms-related into a dishwasher I use for things I cook with or eat from.

I would not put anything firearms-related into a dishwasher.

That's better.

[brickeyee]

We used dishwashers to clean PC boards before conformal coating (a sprayed or deposited coating to protect against moisture).

We used deionized water and then measured the conductance of the water leaving the machine.

When the rinse water started being very clean we knew the boards had been thoroughly cleaned of flux.

Initially we would run the dishwashers empty at the start of each shift to try and make sure they did not already have ionic contaminants in them.

It often took so long on the day shift to get them clean that we had to double the number of dishwashers so that we could get enough brads rinsed clean.

We finally traced it down to a night shift person putting other items in the dishwashers.

[Sergio Natali]

I have a double-stack Para I use for practical shooting. Its mags get dropped in the dirt, regularly. Sometimes the dirt isn't too dirty (i.e. more gravel than dirt) sometimes it's just plain dirt, sometimes it's fine, powdery dirt AND either me or a Range Officer steps on one of my mags after I drop it, making it sink in the dirt.

I don't really clean my mags.

When I pick up a magazine and it's clear that it dove nose-first into some grime, I quickly remove the baseplate, drag the spring and follower out, wipe everything my fingers can reach (doublestack mags are nice and 'roomy') then use an old toothbrush I have in my range bag to remove any persistent gunk, then blow in the mag body a couple of times before putting it back together and loading it for the next stage. It takes a lot less time to do than to describe... and my Para is as reliable as an anvil (and almost as heavy).

Once a year or so, I might give a close look to the magazines when I clean the gun. All my doublestack mags are nickel-plated, which seems to be a more 'slippery' finish than most, so I've never had much trouble getting the mags to be nice and shiny, inside and out.

Like Hawkmoon, I'd never try to clean a gun part in a dishwasher. I don't consider myself to be very dirt-averse (to put it mildly), but I don't think that mixing lead-encrusted parts with utensils I'm going to eat from, is such a good idea.

+1

like Hawkmoon and Spyros I hardly ever clean my mags, I occasionally strip them and clean inside with WD40 then I wipe them well, surely I don't put any gun related thing in the dishwasher.