Magazines are the bane of any self-loading firearm. Pistols, rifles, automatic weapons–all of them turn into impact weapons without functioning magazines. Unfortunately, cleaning your magazines is among the most neglected parts of what should be routine maintenance for a firearm–especially for a defensive gun you’re relying on. As diehard Glock fans know (and as I learned while replacing factory floorplates with ones from Pearce Grips), Glock floorplates are also held in place with molded in tabs on the magazine tube that protrude into little divots in the floorplate. Without some way of holding these tabs in, getting the magazine apart turns into something of a grappling match.

While the GTUL itself is Glock specific (my test unit was for the 9mm and .40 caliber Glocks; there’s another for the .45 and 10mm pistols), the brush isn’t. Like the GTUL, it’s available separately, and is tremendously useful for any sort of double column magazine. Find out more about the GTUL at www.mygtul.com or call 757-647-0805.To address this, we now have the GTUL. Created by retired Naval officer and competitive shooter Greg Morando (he was the captain of the Navy’s Action Pistol Team from 1998-2005), the GTUL retails for just under $20 and consists of a bristle brush and the GTUL itself, which is rectangular in shape and slides over the magazine from the top. Once you’ve slid it all the way to the floorplate, squeezing the GTUL (which is shaped like the letter “c”) compresses the sides of the magazine, disengaging the tabs. Then, the brush comes into play: use the pin punch built into the butt end of the brush handle to depress the plunger, spring and follower, insert the brush, and scrub vigorously. This may be a cliche, but it really does take longer to describe it than it does to do. It took less than thirty seconds to disassemble the magazine, clean it, and then reassemble.