Cleaning unfired guns

[bogie]

Make sure your ol' lady ain't home... Throw an old towel (one from the back of the "guest closet") over the drain in the bathtub to make sure nothing goes down the drain. Turn your water heater up to "kill all the children in the village" level. Have a beer.

Disassemble the rifle. Put the little pieces in a strainer, and put the strainer in a pan of boiling water. Pour out the water when it gets gunky, put new in, and when it boils, and gets gunky, pour it out too... Repeat until it doesn't get gunky. Lay the pieces out on one of those guest towels, and give 'em a spritz with some penetrating oil (kroil, WD-40, whatever... if the towels are pink, kroil is a good choice).

Now, with the big parts out of the stocks, and in the tub, get the shower massager, turn it from "intense throbbing pleasure" to "stabbing molten icepicks," and start stripping the pieces. You may have to stop occasionally, both for steam to clear, and water to drain through the towel. Then you can rescue the small bits you forgot to grab earlier.

Get all the gunk off. Try to to curse too much when you (a) burn yourself on the 190 degree water; (b) break your nose walking into the edge of the door in the fog; and (c) notice that last year's wallpaper job is now on the floor...

When all gunk is off, coat the wood with linseed oil, and the metal all goes on the guest towels for the oil.

Now tidy up. And throw all the beer cans away. Leave hastily scrawled note about being called to Cleveland for business while you were redecorating her bathroom, and you'll fix it when you get home, and leave for your best bachelor bud's sofa for a day or so.

 

[jrfoxx]

I just give them a good field strip, inspection, quick cleaning and good oiling, if they are new guns.For milsurp, I do a more in depth strip, clean and inspect, as you never know where they have been, or for how long, (darn thing could have some wierd Napalese or Equadorian bug/critter hiding in it for the last 50 yeasr it was forgotten in a wharehouse).For new, but used guns, its somehwere in between those too.

 

[Moonclip]

My dad thinks it's a little strange when I clean a new gun or a clean looking used gun before I go to the range but I usually do especially on an autoloader and I do check the bore on all guns.

Going to leave them unfired? Fine, just make sure they are well protected from moisture/humidity/temperature extremes and wipe them down with a good oil and maybe also put a coat down the bores.

Going to shoot them? A basic cleaning making sure excess grease/oil is not in the action and especially the bore is a good idea. Used milsurp is notorious for having a lot of cosmoline packing up the gun but I've seen lesser amounts but still excessive amounts on guns especially coming from overseas that are new.

I remember having new in box Ruger Gp100's being quite dirty and lube free as an example of why newly acquired guns should be cleaned and lubricated. What kind of ammo are they using I wonder that a few test shots dirty up the guns so much on certain manufacturers new guns or are they firing more than 2-3 shots?

 

[MilsurpShooter]

Are they new, unfired and you'll be firing them or are they new, un-fired, you're going to keep them like that?

Not going to fire I'd do a general breakdown and lightly oil the necessary components and a thin bit in the bore, I'd also look into some long term storage options. If you're going to fire them then I'd clean the bore and do a general fit and function check to make sure nothings amiss.

 

[MD_Willington]

+1 basic field strip clean and light oil, unless milsurp, then it gets the cosmo-turds throughly removed from every nook and cranny

 

[Dr. Peter Venkman]

Fieldstrip, inspect, clean, lubricate, and reassemble.

 

[Kind of Blued]

I also fire the first round from a protected position and closely inspect the empty casing afterwards.

I can see Sarah Brady doing this same drill if she ever got the sand out and decided to buy a gun... For the first round through her first gun, tie a string to the trigger and hide behind a cement wall, then it goes off and she's bewildered that it somehow didn't turn around and shoot at her or kill someone.

P.S. I was not comparing you to Sarah Brady, I just thought I'd share the little visualization I had.

 

[green-grizzly]

Most new centerfire rifles I have bought have been test fired at the factory. They have some crap in the bore that I would not want left in there.

I usually coat all the steel of my stored firearms with CLP before putting them away.

 

[GBExpat]

I also fire the first round from a protected position and closely inspect the empty casing afterwards.

I can see Sarah Brady doing this same drill if she ever got the sand out and decided to buy a gun... For the first round through her first gun, tie a string to the trigger and hide behind a cement wall, then it goes off and she's bewildered that it somehow didn't turn around and shoot at her or kill someone.

P.S. I was not comparing you to Sarah Brady, I just thought I'd share the little visualization I had.

Actually, I use 2 .30 ammo cans, stacked, on the bench between my head and the action ... the rifle is in a sight vise and I have a welding glove on my trigger-finger hand and a leather welding jacket on my right arm.

Almost all of my "new" longguns in the past decade, or so, have been milsurps or rebuilts (by either me or someone else) so I extended this final, very-simple safety check to include them all.

 

[AirForceShooter]

Field strip, clean and lube..
Now the most important part..............................
Go shoot them.

AFS