pistol in the river

[redriverhunter]

I went fishing last night and my springfield xd sub ended up in the river it spent the night there and i was able to find this A.M. I am thinking i should take it all the way apart and clean it real well and oil. do you all agree.
thanks
rrh

[johniv]

Agree, get the sand etc. out of it.

[captain-03]

Agree!!

[TXGunNut]

Dry it with a bit of heat (hair dryer?), douse it pretty good with WD-40 and give it a good scrub. Let set for a day or two. Then use your normal solvent & oil and reassemble. Good excuse for a detail clean.
Catch any fish?

[Petrol & Powder]

Dry it with a bit of heat (hair dryer?), douse it pretty good with WD-40 and give it a good scrub. Let set for a day or two. Then use your normal solvent & oil and reassemble. Good excuse for a detail clean.
Catch any fish?

/\ sounds like a plan /\

disassemble as much as possible, dry it out, displace the water and re-lube and re-assemble.

The problem really isn't the water or the sand, it's water or sand in nooks and crannies for long periods of time. With a good cleaning it will be like it never happened.

[country gent]

A detailed stripping and very thoughroh cleaning is in order with in the next day or two. Disassemble pistol to bare frame and slide. Clean first with hot soap water to remove sand dirts and other cruds from all nooks crannies and surfaces. Thyen a solvent cleaning with ballistol, Hoppes, Shooters Choice, or similar solvent to displace water. A good oil applied and worked in with canned air or air compressor to then oil coat and evenly spread it into cut outs holes nooks and crannies.Lube as per your normallways. Keep in mind that with the soap water cleaning and solvent cleaning you have removed all lubes and need to start over here. If the rear sight is adjustable it should also probably be disassembled cleaned dried and re lubed.

[thegatman]

Give it to me.

[Blackwater]

The WD-40 is a really good idea after the cleaning. WD in the name is for "water displacing." This makes it a good initial treatment after bluing and rinsing in the boiling water tank to neutralize it, too.

[bedbugbilly]

Ahhhh . . . is that why they make guns out of "tupperware"?

Sorry . . . couldn't help myself.

Sorry to hear your handgun went for a swim but at least you were able to find it. Good advice given already. Your experience is a good reason for the use of a lanyard if there is someway you ccould attach one - even if it was tied to a stout rubber band around the grip.

[waltherboy4040]

I would take it apart, wash it out in the sink with hot water. Hose it down with wd40 and relube after.

[osteodoc08]

hose it out in the sink and scruba dub dub. Take compressed air and hose out every little cranny. Hose out with a water displacing oil and spray with compressed air again. Detail and oil as usual and go about your business.

[Freischütz]

You should disassemble the gun and clean every part. Once the water is gone completely relube it and you should be OK.


Had a friend drop a cased shotgun into the White River (AR). We came back at low water the next day and fished it out. It had already begun to rust.

[Omega]

My duty weapons, M4 and M9 were always getting submerged though never left overnight. We would just use compressed air to get as much lake/river water out then straight into the solvent tanks. After a drip dry, normal cleaning and lube with no issues. Out of curiosity, how did you retrieve it? I keep one of those strong retrieval magnets on my jon boat and have used it a couple times to get a knife or set of pliers but never a firearm.

[Beef15]

Feild strip, rinse with clean water warmer is better, blow water out, spray heavily with WD-40 or similar, blow out again and oil normally, or just leave the WD residue. It will be fine, not much to rust there.

[Petrol & Powder]

Give it to me.

If he does, I'll give you $5 for it [smilie=s:

[GabbyM]

When you're done cleaning. I'd recommend a coffee can with enough oil to submerge the entire firearm. 50/50 mix of ATF and K1 kerosene. ATF has loads of anti rust additives. Thinning with K1, available at hardware stores as lamp oil, reduces surface tension so it penetrates into about everything. It's what I use for gun oil per the Ed's Red instructions. Blow it off with air then wipe down well.

[Lonegun1894]

I use my Glock for my "swimming gun" and kayak fishing gun (too many snakes) so it gets submerged and usually stays submerged for at least an hour, and often just about all day if swimming or soaked all night if kayaking, and never has any issues. What I do is strip it down well as soon as I get home or back to camp, rinse out well in fresh water, then put it the parts in a gallon size ziplock bag with enough denatured alcohol in it to soak all parts completely to get the water out of it. Leave it in the bag for 5-10 minutes, take out the parts and lay them out to dry on a clean dry towel/rag if in camp, or paper towels at home, and allow to dry for maybe half an hour. Then relube EVERYTHING with your favorite lube and reassemble. This pistol has been used this way for about 8 years now, and if you never go swimming or fishing with me or I didn't tell you how it lives, you would call me a liar if you saw it, cause it hasn't hurt it a bit. How I try not to do this with designs that have wood grips and such, but a Glock like mine or your XD won't have any issues. And for what it's worth, I go this Glock because I've never liked Glocks, so figured I would ruin it and not feel bad. I still prefer a 1911 for a daily carry or duty gun, but that Tupperware toy pistol has earned my trust and respect.

BTW, if you didn't seal your ammo with some kind of laquer or something before this mishap, please do us both a favor and use the ammo in it for plinking and replace it with fresh ammo. Most ammo I have left submerged for days intentionally (experiment with a bucket of water years ago) has fired without issues, but a few just would not fire, and you really don't want a "click" when your life depends on you getting a "bang".

[Petrol & Powder]

I know a guy that carries a Glock on the river in a kayak and the gun gets wet all the time. The gun is fine despite the abuse.
There's very little that can go wrong with a Glock and most of the metal parts are finished with Tenifer (or its equivalent) or made of stainless steel. Now there's a difference between getting a gun wet and totally submerging a gun overnight but the point is they can take some water without harm. As I stated earlier, the problem isn't a little water; the problem is a little water trapped with ferrous metal for long periods of time. This thread is dealing with a Springfield XD and not a Glock but the issue is the same. Remove all of the water from all of the places it could possibly occupy, re-lubricate the metal parts and carry on. There will be no damage and the dunking will be a non-issue.

BTW- I've never seen plastic rust so we can start with the knowledge that half the gun is ok [smilie=s: .

[Blackwater]

FWIW, I cleaned and refinished 3 guns that spent a week in brackish water after Katrina for a local judge. He's a pretty avid collector of old Winchesters he likes to shoot. In early experiments with them, trying to stop pitting and preserve as much as we could, we tried everything, and the very best thing I found was plain old brown liquid hand soap (NOT "detergent," as in dish washing stuff), and hot water. That and a softish wire brush, or even a nylon one, did an amazing job of getting off the rust and penetrating down to the bottom of the pits, and getting it all out. He was a fan of WD-40, and used it to preserve his guns, and the buildup of wax that it contains was something really amazing in them. It was harder to get out than concrete, when it has mixed with grit, carbon and other fouling! I used up quite a few popsickle sticks getting that stuff out, and a few brass rods sharpened to square points, to get the guns working again. When we were done, he was amazed at how well we were able to restore them, aside from the pits, and was really appreciative of the work we did and tried to do. The actions, in particular on the M-12's, were MUCH slicker after the polishing we had to do to make sure they didn't re-rust, and the removal of all that hardened WD-40 residue & crud. I almost made him an offer on a 20 ga., but knew it'd be a high dollar proposition, and that he'd probably not sell it anyway. He felt the same way about those guns as I did. It's good to be able to make a good man and avid shooter happy!

Most folks just HATE the idea of water on a gun, but done rightly, it's the best thing one can do sometimes, even better than oils and solvents.

[44man]

Water will not harm a gun UNLESS SALT WATER FOR A TIME. . No to WD40. They have a better product but not the old stuff, toss in the air to blast with a shotgun.

[redriverhunter]

Thanks for all the advise, I can't express my gratitude enough.

Ok all here is the story, my kid and I were going to put some jug lines out in the little Wichita river. The canoe tipped over and in I went, and while swimming around my pistol fell out of the holster (lesson learned have holster with some sort of snap or something to keep it in when you go upside down and thrashing about). This all took place not 4 feet from shore. The next day I went to harbor freight and got a floor magnet and put it on a ten foot piece of pvc and tried to retrieve the gun. The river bank went from about 1' to + 6' in less that 4 feet from the bank. I fished around with the magnet and had no luck, in time the magnet broke off from the handle that came with it. Refusing to give up I striped down and got in river and started feeling around with my feet and sure enough I was lucky enough to find it. What a relief I doubt, I would have been able to live with myself if a kid had pulled the gun in and hurt themselves or someone else with it.
The gun came apart easy enough but when it came to reassembling, it would not work 1st time not sure what I did wrong but I did get it working after dissembling and reassembling a few times (youtube was my friend).

[Catshooter]

Stuff can sure happen can't it redriverhunter.

Tell me, did you fully strip it down, as in every part separated from every other part? The reason I ask isn't to criticize what you did. I have heard that there are two parts you can't remove without a special tool from the factory so I'm curious if it's true.

Thanks.


Cat

[rondog]

Thank God a renegade catfish didn't find it and go on a killing spree!

[redriverhunter]

catshooter I took apart every thing that had a pin go through it. The only parts I did not take apart were the extractor some said you could put the punch on it tap it out but could be difficult, I tapped a few times and gave up that and silver piece in the slide did not come out.
rrh

[nagantguy]

Stuff in a canoe more often than not ends up in the water, gear guns tackle and an occasional firearm, should be no harm done, good for you going back to get it. We lost a set of keys down an ice fishing hole once, the keys needed to get home! Old timer out on the lake had a very strong magnet in his kit for just such an emergency, now I do as well. Best thing is you and your son will have a memory to share forever!

[Catshooter]

Thanks Red.

Good luck with your XD.


Cat

[Black Beard]

If you are going to wash steel in water, first boil it and let it cool. The boiling pushes out all the oxygen that is dissolved in the water and so reduces its ability to rust.

Also watch out for detergents and soaps. Some of them contain salt, which is bad.

[georgerkahn]

A+ re salt warning in some soaps and detergents! Re a similar challenge: A friend dropped a small pistol in mud, and he used my Hornady ultrasonic cleaner (parts solution), only removal of grips, to clean it. So much crud on bottom, we repeated just with distilled water. Gave pistol a bath in Ballistol; blow dried with compressed air; liberal application of G96; and, put on shed roof for several hours sun-drying. Lastly, he put it in a sealed zip lock bag with a cup full of rice -- works on submerged cell 'phones, eh? -- and this was about a decade ago. Firearm still functions well. (And, we still rib him re what he was doing to have trousers down (wink) and enable pistol to fall from holster into mud -- "Have any more crappy days?" ...)
geo

[Blackwater]

You did good, red. Very good. Hope there's no delayed problems for you, but I doubt it.