[Adam Helmer]

Rocky,

Your "gummy residue" definition of WD-40 on guns caused me reflective thinking.

About 20 years ago I was the firearms instructor for 100 field agents in New England. I instituted a new policy of having all agents fire off their "street loads" in the first stage of qualification fire to be rid of 6-month old ammo. Prior to that policy change, agents would carefully pocket their street loads, shoot the wadcutters and then load up the OLD ammo and go back on duty.

I had 15 agents per day to run through the semi-annual qualification. One day we all went to the line, put up targets and prepared to fire stage 1: 12 rounds in 30 seconds from a DA Smith or Colt .38 Special revolver. I blew the whistle to commence fire and started the stop watch. Fourteen agents got off 12 rounds and one agent get off NONE. The "none" guy could not fire his gun. The action was sluggish and he had 6 primer hits, but no boom!

I examined his gun and finally got his cylinder out and extracted the rounds. Everything was gummy. I asked what gives and the agent said, "Occasionally I take my gun out of the holster, hold it by the grips and spray it all over with WD-40, paper towel it off and reholster." The WD-40 "killed" all 6 primers in the cylinder and gunked up the works overall.

Adam