How many of us have had this happen to us: we get ready to pick up our weapon after impatiently awaiting the arrival of a new season and… find ourselves with a weapon in a deplorable state, practically unusable! Unfortunately, this, which seems a bit exaggerated, happens much more often than it should.
As it happens with so many other aspects of life:? prevention is better? or, applied to the subject that concerns us here: if we want a gun to be in perfect conditions to be used after some time, it is absolutely necessary to take a series of previous precautions.
Although we can buy cheap ammo online these days, still you would need to keep them stored properly to maintain them and improve their life duration. We have this article to tell you how to do that.
Clean your guns
There is no valid reason for not cleaning a gun before putting it away, especially considering that if we do not do it now we will be forced to do it when we go out into the field, when the task will undoubtedly be much more complicated, taking into account that all the dirt we have left behind will have become “embedded” in the gun.
Dirt, corrosion or other foreign matter can hinder the correct functioning of the firearms and, in the case of affecting the cartridges, can even cause a serious accident at the moment of use. That is why it is essential to go out into the field with a perfectly clean shotgun.
When cleaning the gun, each of its parts must be taken into account separately:
THE BARREL AND MECHANISMS: When a shot is fired, the barrel is affected by several residual elements, which are produced as a consequence of the shot: the action of the gases produced by the gunpowder and the ignition of the piston; the lead and the brass of the bullet jacket.
All these elements, both those inherent to the shot and those extraneous to it, must be taken into account and treated in a different way.
Although in a generic way the problem is common to any firearm, there is a substantial difference in the treatment depending on whether it is a smooth or rifled barrel gun.
In rifled barrel guns, the residues are mainly deposited in the rifling socket. The enormous pressure exerted on the bullet to take the rifling and travel through the barrel causes it to adapt to the grooves, leading to loss of material due to friction, which is greater as the velocity and weight of the bullet increase. This inexorable erosion and deposit of material cause, in a greater or lesser period of time, the weapon to become unusable.
The set of parts that make up the mechanism of a weapon is made up of elements of multiple sizes and shapes, which will only function correctly when the interaction and tension between all of them are correct. Therefore, if residue or dust accumulates between these parts, the gun will not work as it should, it will gradually lose precision until the accumulation of dirt can cause the blockage of some of these elements or even their breakage.
Using the guns
All right, we have cleaned the gun, we have given it a proper tune-up and now we proceed to store it in the back of a cupboard until the time comes to use it again, is this correct? NO; we must answer with a clear and resounding no.
Properly preserving a firearm does not mean rendering it useless; nothing could be further from the truth. In order to properly preserve a gun, it is necessary that from time to time we go out with it to do some shooting practice. Moderate and constant use is absolutely necessary to keep our shotgun always ready.
These practices are really beneficial, both for the gun, which will receive a correct tuning and for the hunter himself, for whom they will serve as off-season training so that the results achieved in the first days of hunting will improve significantly.
Nowadays there is no reason to practice it: shooting ranges have proliferated enormously in our country. In addition, many of them incorporate hunting trails, an activity highly suitable for the hunter, since it simulates in a very real way a hunting day. We certainly encourage you to do so.
The sheath
If we take all the care in the world to clean and take care of our guns, how can we forget or underestimate the holster? Most of a gun’s lifetime will be spent in a holster, so isn’t it necessary to find a holster that fits like a glove, protecting it at all times?
Keep in mind that the holster you normally wear on your hunting days usually ends up wet, due to sweat, rain, dew… If you store your gun for a long time in this holster, you will run the risk that this humidity will end up rusting your shotgun.
The best advice is to have two holsters: one for your hunting days and another one that you will use exclusively when you are going to store your gun for a longer or shorter period of time.
When choosing this second holster, we advise you to opt for a padded one, since it will offer greater protection against scratches and bumps.
