With only spring gobbler remaining on the hunting calendar, it’s still not time to relax and remember all the hunts of the past seasons.
Before doing that, make time to clean those guns and get them ready to be stored until next season. Cleaning and maintaining them properly helps to preserve their value as well as their functionality.
Having good maintenance habits also allows becoming more familiar with firearms and improves confidence when using them – either in the field or at the range. And whenever around a firearm, safety should be the first priority.
Where cleaning is concerned, that means to make sure no ammunition is in the area and the firearm is carefully inspected to be positive it is clear and that no extra clips or magazines are present. It’s a chore that’s best done outside or in a well-ventilated and well-lit room with a sturdy worktable, which is much better than the dining room table or the kitchen counter.
It’s best to use a cleaning rod of the correct diameter, as one that’s too big will get stuck in the bore, while one that’s too small will bend in the bore and become difficult to push through. Start with wet patches to loosen the fouling, and cotton patches are more absorbent than nylon patches and are the more popular choice.
Try to push the patch all the way through the bore in one smooth motion. Don’t change direction or pull the dirty patch back through the bore and always remove the patch from the cleaning rod when it exits the bore.
After running three or four wet patches through the bore, it should be ready for the bore brush. While bore brushes are available with nylon, bronze and steel bristles, steel brushes are more rigid and abrasive and should only be used for the toughest jobs using great care.
Nylon brushes are very gentle and require a lot more work to get the bore cleaned. Bronze brushes work best most of the time.
Move the brush through in one smooth motion and once again, as with the patches, remove the brush after each pass-through. Usually, 10 or 12 passes are enough to render the bore clean.
Run three or four more wet patches through to pick up any fouling loosened by the brush, then finish up by using some dry patches. Each successive patch should come out cleaner than the previous patch, so if improvement is not seen after a half-dozen dry patches, repeat the process from the beginning, starting with the wet patches.
A cleaning solvent that is gaining in popularity is Ballistol, which is unlike bore solvents usually meant for either lead fouling or for copper fouling. Ballistol will clean and remove all types of bore fouling, as its slight alkalinity neutralizes and dissolves black powder residue and corrosive ammo residue.
Ballistol is also a great lubricant and because of the antioxidants it contains will never gum up or harden. Ballistol even works on gunstocks where it helps to seal and protect wood stocks and brings out the grain and luster of old wood. It is also beneficial to leather.
Ballistol is an amazing product – as is the story of its origin. With the turn of the 20th Century, the German Imperial Army began looking for multipurpose oil that could be used to clean and maintain the metallic parts of a rifle while also protecting its wooden stock and a soldier’s leather gear.
In searching for oil that could be used on everything, the army contracted with Friedrich Klever and his son Dr. Helmut Klever, who was a professor of chemistry at the technical University of Karlsruhe. In 1904, Dr. Klever successfully produced the special compound he termed “Ballistol” from the words “ballistic” and “oleum,” the Latin word for oil.
Tested and adopted by the army in 1905, word soon spread and within a decade hunters, boaters, hikers and outdoorsmen in Germany, Austria and Switzerland were using this new “miracle oil.” Now it’s used worldwide.
Additionally, Ballistol is also environmentally friendly as it is biodegradable and its natural decomposition will not produce byproducts that are harmful to the environment. It is non-carcinogenic and skin safe, and when used in an aerosol propellant is a propane/butane blend, which doesn’t contain CFCs.
Once a firearm is cleaned, a good idea is to run a patch with oil through the bore to protect it from rust. Just remember to run some clean patches through the bore before the firearm is shot the next time because the oil can cause excessive pressure in the barrel, which can be dangerous.
Once firearms are cleaned and wiped down, they can be safely stored until their next use, and the user can have peace of mind knowing the business at hand has been taken care of in a proper manner, and the firearm is set for next season.
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