Guns vs. The Environment

Here’s the short version of the article: the environment wins.

Last week I wrote an article about how I was incapacitated after surgery and needed to change the gun I normally carry. I chose to carry my S&W 351C revolver. I had been carrying it for about a week when I went to shoot it.

The cylinder wouldn’t open.

This is a revolver. They never malfunction, right? Wrong. The cylinder wouldn’t open until I put a generous amount of oil on it.

Everything else seemed to be working fine. I removed the cylinder and found that the cylinder crane was completely coated with rust. That’s why the cylinder wouldn’t open up.

You see, before my surgery this gun was my “yard gun.” It’s the gun I slip into the waistband of my gym shorts when I do yard work outside. It constantly gets sweaty. I wipe down the exterior whenever I carry it, so no rust was forming anywhere I could see it. The sweat was ending up on the cylinder crane and was turning it to rust instead.

I hadn’t shot the gun since November of 2015. When yard work season was finished, I put the gun in the safe and didn’t take it out until spring.

This is what I get for not fully checking my carry guns.

It reminds me of one other time I didn’t check my gun despite being exposed to bad weather. I was hiking for a week in the desert southwest. I generally carry two guns when I’m far away from civilization. At the time I was carrying a Glock 26 and a Ruger LCP. I carried the Glock in a Wilderness Tactical Safepacker holster attached to my pack waist belt as my primary. I left my Ruger inside the tent for a week.

The week I was camping had some horrible dust storms. Since I was regularly carrying the Glock, I wiped it down on a daily basis. I never thought to check the .380 as it was safely stowed in the tent.

At the end of the week when I was packing up, I found that the light coating of oil on the gun attracted every bit of dust in the state of Nevada! There’s no way that gun would function if I had to rely on it for self defense.

Learn from my mistakes! Check out your carry guns anytime they are exposed to the sweat or bad weather. If you don’t do your part, the environment will win.

Greg Ellifritz is the full time firearms and defensive tactics training officer for a central Ohio police department. He holds instructor or master instructor certifications in more than 75 different weapon systems, defensive tactics programs and police specialty areas. Greg has a master's degree in Public Policy and Management and is an instructor for both the Ohio Peace Officer's Training Academy and the Tactical Defense Institute.

For more information or to contact Greg, visit his training site at Active Response Training.