Part 10. Understanding Firearm Cleaning and Preservation.

Ron Owen Understanding Firearm Cleaning & Preservation November 7, 2015

Understanding Firearm Cleaning and Preservation.

Part Ten

Protecting the Bore, Storing, Not Boring, I Hope?

43. The barrel has to be clean and dry when its expected to be used for the competition or hunt, always clean out storage grease or any oil before going out shooting. Discharging a firearm with a coating of oil on the inside of the barrel, acts as a barrel obstruction, which causes hydrostatic compression rings inside the barrel. They are impossible to remove and as the bore diameter is greater in these areas, gas may burn through between the bullet jacket and the bore causing accuracy loss and damaging the barrel even to a greater extent.

For Short Term Storage.

44. When the internals of the firearm have been throughly cleaned, coat a clean flannel patch with a light good quality gun oil as it gets into the pores of the barrel steel, and then push it through the barrel from the chamber to the muzzle, make sure that it’s a good tight fit. This is the most efficient way to spread the oil into the grooves and over the lands squeezing the oil into the pores of the metal. Spraying down the barrel with a pressurised can is probably better than nothing at all but with that oil goes lots of air. Within seconds the light oil has run off and will have commenced to soak into your wood stock, rotting it from the inside out. Within minutes evaporation rapidly globulises and the protection is minimal.

For Long Term Storage

45. When the internals of the firearm have been throughly cleaned, coat a clean flannel patch with a light good quality gun oil. Then push it through the barrel from the chamber to the muzzle, make sure that it is a good tight fit then repeat the procedure with a good lanolin based gun grease on the same patch. Lanolin has been used for firearm storage grease for ions. Most of the Armies of the world, (China seems to be the exception and uses a grease made from peanut oil) use combinations of Lanolin and Whale Oil, none of them use mineral or petroleum based oils, Lanolin is an animal oil derived from Sheep’s wool.

46. The problems with using grease as a protective coating is that it does not adhere, or stick in all places to the metal, there are air locks (bubbles of air) which hold humidity and moisture, from the eye of the applier. It looks like a continuous coating but as the grease has no penetration qualities (into the pores of the metal), one never knows what lies beneath it. That is why we should either mix a light oil with the grease or apply a light penetrating oil to the surface first.

47. When greasing barrels prior to storage, use a patch on the jag and soak patch in a light oil. push this through the barrel. Repeat the process, except apply the grease to the patch as this is pushed through the barrel it mixes the grease and oil, distributes and spreads the lanolin into the grooves of the rifling and over the lands. Pumping it into the microscopic pores of the steel.
Spray products can never replace this technique. For storage of all internal parts lanolin based gun grease are the best, they have been used for this purpose for more than a hundred years and nothing as yet in the 21st century can compete with the oil from a sheep’s back.

Click on Part 11. Understanding Firearm Cleaning and Preservation