Oiling Top Round in Semi-Auto Magazines?

[Gwhite]

Pardini recommends this technique to aid reliable operation, using Shooter's Choice FP-10 oil. My Benelli MP-90S has developed extraction problems, and I thought I would try it.

I didn't have any FP-10, and used Rem Oil. The first couple magazines went OK, and then things got much worse. The only thing I can figure is that the Rem Oil was getting cooked onto the chamber walls by the high temperature, and leaving a residue.

So, I have two questions:

1) Do you use this technique to aid in reliable cycling of your pistol(s)?

2) If so, what oil do you use?

Thanks!

[-TT-]

Yuck, never. In my experience with any kind of euro pistol, the chamber is tight enough that even a little oil interferes with case blowback/extraction. The first round after cleaning the barrel always becomes an FTE. If it's practice, or bullseye slowfire, no big deal, I just plan on it happening.

Larry's famous Benelli problem solver sheet repeats the "Did you clean the chamber" step about one zillion times. I eventually got the message. Sorry, I know you know this.

Did you change ammo, perhaps? Also, are you sure it's an FTE, and not simply rechambering the spent brass? Mine does that when the blowback is incomplete (again, sticky chamber the usual cause though).

[Rover]

Do something else. I'm not sure about RemOil. I think it's just 3in1 oil rebranded, but I do like the container.

[left360]

Clark Custom Guns has been recommending a drop of oil on the top round of the .22 magazine for many years to increase reliability. I think I first read of it in The Pistol Shooter's Treasury.

I have a David Sams .22 Beretta upper that he put a Lothar Walther barrel sleeve in. If I don't oil the the top round of the magazine, I only get about 50 rounds through a clean chamber before I start getting light strike failures to fire from the rounds not seating completely. Doesn't matter what brand of ammunition, Euro or American. Oiling the top round, I can get 300 or so rounds through it before cleaning the chamber. I use whatever oil I have handy.

Cheers, Steve

[j danielsson]

Never had an oil related problem, though l have used many kinds of oil in this purpus.
I prefer ATF. The difference in felt recoil between first and last shot is smaller with ATF.

[David M]

Been using Break Free for years, works well.
Generally every third mag.

[dulcmr-man]

I shoot both a S&W Model 41 and a Ruger MK IV. When I first started shooting I had some problems with the Mdl 41 including some failure to go into battery and some failure to extract. I started putting a TINY drop of Break Free CLP on the top round of each magazine and have had no problems since. It DOES make the chamber a muddy mess, but it cycles every time without fail. I can't speak to the Euro guns, but it sure works well on my model 41.

Dennis, aka Dulcmrman

[deadeyedick]

With a problem pistol I owned some years back I wiped the wax from the projectiles and then wiped on some liquid Alox.....problem solved.
However the real problem was solved when I got rid of the pistol.

[JamesHH]

Never had to do it with any pistol

- Most people don't thoroughly clean their barrel. Once it seems clean it usually isn't. When its clean and dry try breathing down it, all the leading you thought had gone is suddenly there again.

- Most people don't thoroughly clean their chamber. Once the barrel seems clean the chamber probably needs a lot more work

- Take care of the chamber opening and the extractor slot, occasionally they need a bit of stoning back. Some barrels peen themselves.

- Once the chamber is thoroughly clean a very light coating of the lightest oil is a good start - which is to say an oiled patch followed by a loose-fitting dry patch to take out any droplets

- I'm sure the hardness control on .22 brass cases is indifferent at the cheaper end. It may be just as accurate but its no use if it sticks to the chamber. RWS didn't nickel plate .22 cases to make it look pretty. I had a hi-power with a rough chamber. Geco functioned flawlessly while everything else stuck

- Probably none of this applies to US ammunition with gobs of rock-hard 'lubricant' all over it. CCI SV is usually OK although there's the occasional bad batch. Whatever RWS used 20 years ago on R50 and Pistol Match was great, it seemed like silicone but probably wasn't. Current SK is fairly fluid.

- You don't really expect more than 100-200 100% reliable shots out of a .22 before a thorough clean do you?

[David M]

With the differences between American and European spec's for .22,
one of the best ways to fix a troublesome pistol is to run a Linx match
grade American chambering reamer in the barrel.
It opens the chamber up a little and greatly improves reliability for
little to no loss in accuracy (not noticable on a pistol barrel).

[-TT-]

- You don't really expect more than 100-200 100% reliable shots out of a .22 before a thorough clean do you?

My Benelli MP90S will launch 500-1000 reliable shots of SK Pistol Match before dropping hints that it needs cleaning. Just sayin'.

I do agree with all your suggestions though.

[JamesHH]

My Pardinis will do similar numbers at 99.9% reliability, but that occasional bit of crud can get between the case and the firing pin.

I suppose a question is what does "Oiling Top Round in Semi-Auto Magazines" mean?

I've seen people roll their rounds on a piece of felt which has a trace of oil on it to people putting several big drops on the first round

[crankythunder]

It is very common on the bullseye competition line to see competitors put a drop of oil on the top round of their magazine.

from my observations, it is most often seen by SW Model 41 shooters. I have also seen Hammerli 206 and Hammerli 206s shooters oil their top round.

I have also seen Benelli, High Standard, Walther, and 1911 22LR conversion shooters do it too.

In my own experience, some cases of CCI SV need oiling in my model 41, some cases of CCI SV do not need oiling.

I have never had to do it in my FWB AW 093 or Pardini SP New.

No big deal, the intent is to win the match with the highest score and no alibi. If a drop of oil is what is needed for the ammo you got, I do not see what the big deal is.

Regards,
Crankster

[crankythunder]

- You don't really expect more than 100-200 100% reliable shots out of a .22 before a thorough clean do you?

Well, I shoot a lot of 2700 matches using my 22LR pistol and that is 270 rounds. I spose I could clean it between legs but would rather touch base with old friends and aquaintences, there is too much socializing going on! :)

Regards,
Crankster

[Gwhite]

<snip>
- Probably none of this applies to US ammunition with gobs of rock-hard 'lubricant' all over it. CCI SV is usually OK although there's the occasional bad batch. Whatever RWS used 20 years ago on R50 and Pistol Match was great, it seemed like silicone but probably wasn't. Current SK is fairly fluid.

- You don't really expect more than 100-200 100% reliable shots out of a .22 before a thorough clean do you?

In my experience, any good .22 pistol that can't go more than around 300 rounds between cleanings needs some work.

I help coach a college team. We regularly have matches where the students shoot a full Sport Pistol Match, followed by a Standard Pistol Match. That's 135 rounds right there. They don't get time to clean their pistols between matches, although I often recommend they at least brush their chambers. If they follow the recommended process, they will clean their pistol before a match, and fire ~ 50 rounds though it to make sure everything is OK.

The team mostly shoots Benellis (MP95's & MP90S's), and I have two myself. We also have a few Pardinis and a couple Walther GSP's. The vast majority will go 400 rounds or more between cleanings, shooting CCI or Aguila Standard Velocity. We had one of our top students who fired her Benelli for a couple years before it started acting up, and then sheepishly admitted that she'd never learned how to clean it. She probably had over 3000 rounds through it, and I have never seen a pistol that dirty before.

I also view the oil on the top round to be a (usually) unnecessary crutch, and I've fired or coached the firing of close to 200 thousand rounds by now. I've only used oil on rare occasions as a stop-gap until the pistol can be cleaned or repaired. Lately my primary Benelli has been acting up, and I mostly wanted to try the oil as a diagnostic tool. In the past, it would go over 600 rounds before I would chicken out & clean it. I hadn't expected the Rem Oil to make things much worse...

I took it home and looked at the chamber with my new borescope. Teslong now makes very nice ones for a tiny fraction of the cost of the high end ones (https://www.amazon.com/Teslong-Borescop ... B07TTQF24F). Here are a few photos after the Rem Oil session (photos go from left to right starting with the beginning of the rifling, and ending towards the rear of the chamber):

Near the front of the chamber, you can see a lot of black crud that appears to be flaking off. I gave it a VERY through cleaning using Bore Tech Rimfire Blend (also highly recommended), with extra attention to the chamber, using a tight fitting brush. Here's what it looks like afterward:

I've now fired two 80 round sessions of Aguila SV with one minor hiccup. The last round yesterday did an inverted stovepipe:

That's a VERY unusual jam for a Benelli, and may just be a fluke. I fired another 80 today (with no cleaning) without any issues. I'll try another 80 tomorrow.

It's certainly WAY more reliable than it has been lately. I suspect crud had built up that even a bronze .25 caliber chamber brush wouldn't completely remove, but the Rimfire Blend appears to do the trick. The chamber also seems a bit rough, and I may polish it at some point.

[-TT-]

Yay. Yep, chamber crud strikes again. I love the BoreTech Rimfire too. It's especially effective when you can see it foaming up after the initial brushing strokes.

I had a round do that olympic backflip stovepipe 10.0 once, but it was because it hit the scope tube, which I have since modified to provide clearance.

[Gwhite]

Quick Update: I've now fired 240 rounds total, with the only issue being the inverted stovepipe jam (round #80), which I now think was a fluke. My Benelli tends to toss a lot of cases straight up, and one may have fallen beck into the action.

[JFuller]

My Pardini SP is more reliable when clean than when I oil the top round, usually I shoot CCI SV but I have had occasional bad boxes in some cases that just didn't function so I turfed them, then different boxes were fine.

[Gwhite]

Quick Update: I've now fired 240 rounds total, with the only issue being the inverted stovepipe jam (round #80), which I now think was a fluke. My Benelli tends to toss a lot of cases straight up, and one may have fallen beck into the action.

After 280 rounds since I did the extra thorough chamber cleaning, I had an extraction failure, followed by a second one about 20 rounds later. It was working MUCH better than it had recently, but still not as well as it did in the past.

When it first started having extraction failures, I reground the extractor. After carefully studying things, I decided that the modification had made things worse, and I ground it a bit differently. The tip of the extractor in the Benelli hits the slot in the barrel, and how much it gets deflected depends on how well the angle on the tip matches the angle of the bottom of the slot. I matched that carefully, and now the extractor deflects only slightly off the case when the slide closes. In theory, it should snap back into place as the slide comes back, but apparently that doesn't always happen, at least not fast enough.

I left the chamber as it was after 320 rounds, but lightly cleaned & oiled the bolt when I reassembled the pistol with the modified extractor. Since then, I have fired a total of 480 rounds without any malfunctions. That's 800 rounds since I last cleaned the chamber.

I don't think I have to worry about oiling my top rounds. I have a MatchGun MG2 I need to work on now, but I'm going to try to continue torture testing the Benelli to see just how far it will go. The college team I help coach has 4 Benellis that developed the same sort of extraction failures. I think a thorough chamber cleaning & modified extractors will help those as well. I'm still locked out due to COVID, so it will be a while before i can test that theory.

[deadeyedick]

Nice work GWhite....good luck with the MG2 and please keep us informed.