Cleaning and Storing Your Firearms

When cleaning the barrel, always clean from the breech end of the gun, preferably using a rod guide to keep solvents and grime out of the action. The last 6 inches of the rifling is the most important for accuracy, with the crown being the most critical. If you must clean from the muzzle end, such as with semi-automatics, use a muzzle-guide to keep the rod from contacting the rifling.

It’s also best to use a stainless-steel or coated one-piece cleaning rod such as those made by Dewey. Stainless is best, brass is mediocre, and aluminum is a poor choice. The softer the metal of the rod, the more chance there is of the metal holding bits of crud and acting like an abrasive and scratching the lands of the rifling, eventually destroying the accuracy of the barrel. One piece rods are best for strength, and also because multi-piece rods sometimes don’t line up properly making it that much more prone to contacting and damaging the barrel.

Start out by wetting a patch with solvent and swabbing the bore thoroughly to get it saturated, or use a foaming bore cleaner. Let it soak a few minutes and then take a bronze or stiff nylon bore brush and scrub the barrel about a dozen times in each direction. Your barrel will probably be very cruddy at this time. Instead of trying to patch out all the crud, take a paper-towel and ball it up so it fits into the bore very snuggly, and push it through with the cleaning rod, this should have pushed out most all of the big crud, leaving only hard-fouling to be removed. A BoreSnake can be used for this step instead, but don’t stop and call it quits after using the snake, be sure to continue with the rest of the cleaning steps to remove stubborn copper fouling.

At this point you’ll want to wet another patch with solvent and soak the barrel again for several minutes. Follow up with a dry patch. Repeat the solvent/dry-patch routine until the dry patches come out clean without any hint of dissolved fouling on them. You can tell if you are still getting copper fouling out of the barrel because you will see a blue or green tinge on the patch. I’ve found that one of the best all-around bore cleaners is Birchwood-Casey Bore Scrubber®. It does a fine job on powder, copper, and plastic shot-wad fouling. Lead fouling always takes some elbow-grease no matter what product you use, but Blue Wonder™ Gun Cleaner does a good job on everything, plus makes short work of carbon buildup. I generally try to save the Blue Wonder™ Gun Cleaner for the tough jobs, as it’s really some potent stuff and not really necessary for every day cleaning tasks, as it strips everything from the surface of the metal (and I have a hunch it softens a gun’s bluing too) and must be followed up with a thorough oiling afterwards to prevent rust; if you inadvertently miss a spot, leaving it dry and unprotected, you will know a short time later because you'll see a rust patch on that spot. That's the nice thing about most other bore solvents, is that they leave a slightly protective coating that will keep the metal from rusting for a short time, should you not thoroughly apply a rust-preventative.

Once the cleaning is done you can wipe down the bore and rest of the gun with a good coat of rust-preventative. I’m rather fond of either Corrosion-X or BoeShield T-9 for rust-prevention inside and out. Be sure to lubricate the actual moving parts of the firearm with the proper manufacturer recommended lubricants. (Normally oil is used on the slides, rails, etc. {although Corrosion-X claims superior lubricating qualities} and white lithium-grease on pressure points such as bolt lugs.)

When storing the guns, be sure to wipe them down with a fresh coat of rust-preventative at least once a month. If not being shot for extended periods of over 6 months, I generally give the whole gun a thorough cleaning and re-lube the gun every 6th month. Long-term/low-maintenance storage solutions for guns being stored over a year or more could include coating the gun with a good preservative such as Cosmoline, but can be difficult to remove later on. I have a feeling BoeShield would be excellent for long-term storage, but I have not yet tested it for such.

Be careful of the solvents you use, some will ruin the finish on wood stocks; others will destroy a synthetic stock in no time at all. A synthetic stock generally needs nothing rubbed on it, while it’s best to rub a wooden stock with a silicon cloth or use a carnauba wax. Avoid oiling the stock with gun-oil like the old-timer’s did, once the wood becomes saturated with so much oil, the wood will become soft and begin to break-down.

It’s best to store rifles or shotguns that have rubber or similar recoil pads in a horizontal position. The recoil pad can become deformed from the weight of the gun resting on it for extended periods of time. Of course this is not practical with current trend of gun-safes going around, so if you have to go with a vertical-storage safe instead of gun rack or cabinet with horizontal storage, try and opt for a safe that has provisions for barrel-down storage. Steer away from the cheap gun lockers with the foam padding, the foam attracts and holds moisture and will rust your guns quickly. Any time guns are stored in an enclosed area with little air-flow, humidity can become a concern. Lighted gun cabinets work well if the lights are left on inside it around the clock, as the heat from the bulbs will help to dry the air. Unlit gun-cabinets can easily have these added, or if you prefer, you can add a dehumidifier such as the electric GoldenRod dehumidifiers or use the re-usable Hydrosorbent Silica Gel packs that can be dried out in the oven numerous times.

Never store your guns with the barrel plugged, any moisture inside will not have a chance to escape or dry out and will eventually cause rust and pitting, and harmful fumes from solvents not thoroughly flushed out can also cause unwanted damage to the metal. This seems like common sense, but obviously it isn’t as I’ve seen more than a handful of people do exactly that. Also, never store your guns in a foam-padded gun case, again, the same as the cheap gun-lockers, the foam will attract and hold moisture causing your guns to rust. Yes, stainless steel guns will rust too, just at a slower rate (it’s stainless in the essence that it will stain-less, not be stain-proof).

Never store your guns with pressure on the firing pin springs as this will serve to weaken them over time. For guns with enclosed hammers, or hammerless guns, if allowed by the manufacturer dry fire the gun to release the spring tension, otherwise use snap-caps. I recommend the metal ones as they last longer than the plastic ones. My last set of plastic ones were Tipton 12-guage shotshell snap-caps and they both cracked after about the 6th use.

I hope that you've found some useful tips and suggestions that will serve to help keep your guns in excellent condition for as long as you own them.