I made up a series of maintenance videos a while back for the college team I help coach. I just got permission to share them openly as long as I put a disclaimer at the beginning.
This was my first attempt at making videos, and I'm not wild about the quality. The auto-focus on the web-cam I used never seemed to want to focus on the stuff I was waving around...
Everybody will have a differing opinion on the best cleaners & lubricants to use, etc. The videos are specific to the tools, materials & techniques we have available, and are geared towards college students with minimal mechanical aptitude. One reason we use a pull-though bore cleaning approach is that I don't trust many of the students to use a rod properly without damaging things over time. We've used the videos for about 3 years now, and as long as the students follow the procedures shown, we've had very good results on over 20 Benellis of various vintages.
Hopefully others will find them useful to one degree or another.
The two things shown that are not readily available are the "pin pusher", which is pretty trivial, and the chamber brush. Those are made from 25 caliber rifle brushes with a bit of heat shrink tubing:
Thanks for the information on the chamber brush! I didn't know they sold a brass core bore brush with bronze bristles. I ordered some for my .22 and .45. The first I read about using a chamber brush was from maintenance tips on the internet from Larry Carter, then from Ed Hall. I think they were describing maintenance for the 208/208s but the use of a chamber brush is not unique to Hammerli's. I found they are useful on my .45. Thanks for the video's also.
The 25 caliber brushes work well, but I wish there were .23 or .24 caliber ones. 25 caliber is a little more aggressive than I would like, at least to start with. They tend to wear down pretty quickly with a dozen or more students using them regularly. I have to keep track of them and replace them a couple times a year when they start getting too worn. The ones I use at home on a couple pistols last a couple years.
Gwhite wrote:The 25 caliber brushes work well, but I wish there were .23 or .24 caliber ones. 25 caliber is a little more aggressive than I would like, at least to start with. They tend to wear down pretty quickly with a dozen or more students using them regularly. I have to keep track of them and replace them a couple times a year when they start getting too worn. The ones I use at home on a couple pistols last a couple years.
I've had excellent results with a "Tornado" brush for this. The design is a continuous loop of wire(s), not the sharp ends of the typical brush, so it doesn't wear down as readily. And, it lends itself well to the twisting action needed for chamber cleaning accessed via the breech.
Hoppes makes one in .243 with stainless loops, and Pro-Shot (short, but my favorite) makes one in .22 with bronze loops. There are "rifle" types (longer) too, I'm sure, but these work for me.
Watched the videos, and they're great stuff, thanks for sharing.
Couple of suggestions:
1) The newer MP90S models use a screw-in pin at the front of the trigger assembly, which is pretty obvious but there's a trick to get them out since the threads aren't engaged when fully installed. You have to apply a bit of force on the right side end of the pin before it backs out. They take exactly ten turns, or twenty twists of the hand, to release.
2) You mention putting the safety on when removing the trigger assembly, which is a great tip. But it's important to be certain the hammer is cocked and the safety off when reinstalling, otherwise the trigger module may not rise into position, and/or the bolt won't move rearward.
Final suggestion, which you may disagree with, is to use that same white grease on the top rear sliding area of the bolt, and especially on the rear face of the firing pin. These are high-friction areas during recoil, and a tiny bit of grease helps the action a lot, in my experience.
I don't usually remove the grip when cleaning, unless I need to really get into it and use a lot of cleaner, or rod the chamber/barrel from the back. One advantage to not removing the grip is that that darn rear trigger module retaining pin doesn't fall out and run and hide.
Thanks for the comments. None of the Benellis we have are new enough to mess with the takedown screw.
On a lot of our pistols, you can't remove the trigger group without at least backing off the grip screw a bit. They need a little more clearance cut in the grip at the back rear of the trigger guard. It's something I could probably fix on most of the pistols, but it's pretty low priority. We also have about twice as many grips as we have pistols to accommodate different sized shooters, so that's a LOT of grips to whittle.
The grease on the rib on the bolt tends to get spread onto the firing pin by the hammer, so I don't worry about it. Grease on the top rear of the bolt is tricky. If it works on your pistol, that's great, but I've run across several Benellis that really want a thin oil most places, and they won't function well with grease in more than a few spots. It's probably better now that it's been broken in for 75K rounds, but when my first personal Benelli was new, I used grease on nearly everything the way I would lube a High Standard. It wouldn't function at all...
My Benelli has the red shim installed, which does of course bring the grip back a bit leaving a gap behind the trigger module as clearance. If your students mostly leave it out and it interferes, by all means it's best to simplify the instructions.
Regarding the bolt upper rear sliding surface, again it may be the age of the model. My 2yo MP90S has the bolt design with the narrow sliding surface, instead of the broad surface like the bolt in your video. But more interestingly, the inside upper surface of the frame is nowhere near as polished as your example. In fact, machining marks are clearly visible on it, along with slight wear-based polishing down the center, over time.
I originally thought the irregular frame surface was a source of friction, but after consulting with a very knowledgeable local gunsmith, he told me quite the opposite. However, he did suggest trying a thin coating of grease and sure enough it helps. I actually suspect the lightweight grease beds into the valleys of those machining marks and gives long-term lubrication that way.
In regard to thin oils suitable for firearms, the Mil-PRF-32033 oil is intended for low temperature firearm lubrication and corrosion protection. I found a quart at Skygeek (light aircraft maintenance products): http://www.skygeek.com/brayco-300.html
It is an ISO 11 light oil. I've used it in a small needle oiler. It seems suitable for a MP90/MP95 and may be worth testing to lubricate a fleet of Benellis. Although, 4 oz of any gun oil seems to last a very long time for me.
We've had very good luck with RemOil. It seems to be similar viscosity to the Benelli factory oil, and it's readily available. My guess is that most of the Benellis would be OK with the higher viscosity BreakFree, but with over 20 pistols to worry about, I wanted to go with the safest option for the videos.
One problem with the really thin oils is that it's hard to get a small amount out of some of the bottles. I bought a fancy oiler with a valve, and the stuff is so thin just leaks out of the oiler. The 1 ounce bottles of RemOil have come with two different tip designs, and the older blunt ones make a real mess. The pointy tip they comes with now works much better.
The pivoting nozzle on the RemOil bottle seems to seal well enough to survive air travel as well. One problem with the small Benelli oil bottles is that once you cut the tip open, the little caps it comes with have VERY little traction, and pop off if you look at them cross-eyed. They are useless for travel. Benelli now sells their oil in bigger pump bottles, which is a great way to get large amounts of oil all over the place. We transfer it to the small dropper bottles for use at the range.
Installed the $170 adjustable rear sight from Larry's. It is a blade which replaces the stock blade but this one has a slide and a screw which adjust the depth and the width of the notch. A must-have for old eyes. Attention when istalling, back out the retaining screw only with a "high quality" 1.5 mm allen key.
