Cleaning out the Firearm
Those of you who have real guns know that cleaning them is a long, boring, and essential part of owning one. For blank-fire guns, the cleaning process is a short, boring and essential part of using one. The difference is that real guns must have the barrels cleaned to nearly surgical levels if the gun is going to fire safely and accurately. Stage guns have false barrels, and usually the powder residue has no way of even getting into them, so eighty percent of the work of cleaning a real gun doesn’t even apply.
Start by completely unloading the gun and looking for obvious signs of damage and powder residue. Some blanks are dirtier than others and leave quite a cruddy crust of carbon that needs to be brushed or chiseled off, but even the cleanest blanks will leave a film of grey smoky residue on the gun. So scrape, brush and wipe every part that you can get to without disassembling the gun. WD-40 works great as a combination cleaner/lubricant. If the gun is a revolver, run a bit of cloth through the holes where the blanks sit – there’s going to be some residue there as well. When you think you are done, get a clean cloth and some more WD-40 and wipe everything down one more time. If the cloth comes up dirty, you’ve missed a spot. Finally, squirt some WD-40 into those areas you can’t see but that house the moving parts such as where the trigger and hammer pivot. Too much WD-40 is a good thing. Some will leak out overnight, so you might as well wrap it in some cloth or a paper towel to catch the overflow.
That’s all there is to it. As I said, short, boring and essential. If the gun has been fired for rehearsal or performance, it must be cleaned before that gun is put away for the night. This is something that cannot wait until morning, for both modern gunpowder and blackpowder residue are extremely corrosive, and permanent damage starts to set in within a few hours if the gun is not cleaned.