I was talking to a friend recently. He was telling me about an old .22lr Marlin 60 that his dad had given him. He was real proud of the accuracy back when he was a teenager; he could out-shoot any of his brothers or cousins with it.
He was lamenting that it wore out years ago. He had shot many, many thousands of rounds through it; brick upon brick back when ammo was cheap. I asked him how it was worn out. He said it was no longer accurate, and had a tendency to jam. I asked how often and how well he cleaned it. He said that it had never been cleaned, even once.
That's quite a testament to the old model 60, that it will go that long without cleaning. I'm looking forward to helping him give it a thorough cleaning, action and bore, and scraping out decades worth of gunk. It will be good to see if we can bring back any of it's accuracy and reliability.