Cleaning your gun after a rainy day.

WeeTodd426

WeeTodd426

New member
What does everyone do after being out in the rain with their guns?

I've hunted quite a bit this year, and in some fairly wet weather. To the point of my guns being soaking wet. When I got home I would take the barreled action out of the stock, to wipe everything down. Now I know doing this requires going back to the range to confirm zero, but I want to make sure I dry and oil my gun completely.
Is there any other way to dry the gun and prevent rust, without removing the action?
 
I just let mine aclimate to room temp, make sure its dry n wipe em down w oil. My all WEATHER STAINLESS synthetics dont get the #1 girlfriend treatment as often.
 
Wipe it down let it dry and lube it up is all you can do. With a steel gun its better to do as you have been and pull the action to get it totally lubed up.
 
I pull mine out of the action, even if it is stainless/synthetic, dry it, and re-apply oil to protect surfaces. I take the opportunity to clean the bore, since I am going to re-foul, and check zero.

The bigger task, is drying out a shotgun. First, I only own semi-autos, and O/Us, and the O/Us don't do rain. The semis are hunting guns, so when they get wet, they get stripped down to the point, the only thing not disassembled is the trigger group, and that I dry with compressed air, re-lube, and blow out the excess, and wipe down. The rest of the parts are dried, and re-coated with protect-ant type oils. The bolt return spring, housed in the stock, is a specific target of this cleaning, since water trapped in there makes a long term mess, and will lead to unreliable operation.

Squeeze
 
I usually dry it off with a towel a bit, and set it next to the wood stove (not too close.) That's some dry moving heat that will dry it out fairly quick.

I don't go all out after some rain, not in this humid climate. I do that once in awhile anyway, every couple months, because I think even the polymer stuff rusts here after sitting around awhile.
 
Thanks for the replies.
I'll keep doing what i'm doing.

Would I still have to wipe down and oil everything if it were Cerakoted or Durakoted?
 
I'm slowly getting all of my guns Cerakoted. I'm sick of getting surface rust on them just sitting in the safe or keeping them coated in oil. It's a no brainer to me.
 
I am not going to pull my rifle out of the stock during hunting season, that requires another trip to the range to verify zero. You can minimize a different point of impact by marking your screws with a graphite pencil.

In bad weather, I hunt with a finger rubber over the muzzle, if you don't have a finger rubber, put a piece of masking tape on the muzzle, and keep a piece of masking tape on the "off side" of the butt stock just for this purpose...just in case.

I keep a cloth in a plastic bag to wipe down my guns with. Here in the South, about the first half inch of the barrel gets a lot of rust in it due to bad weather and heavy humidity.

When you get home, you can run patches down your barrel to remove moisture. I use "punch" type jags that fit so tight that I have to put the patch on the jag way off center.

If you put oil down your barrel, your impact will be lowered in the area of 1/2"-1" at 100 yds from the velocity loss.

Please do not put WD-40 down your barrel, this stuff runs down the barrel into your trigger group, and will turn to varnish over time.

Be careful of what kind of coating you put on your gun, when the coating gets scuffed up, the rifle really looks horrible. It is just about as easy to go to wall mart and get Krylon and spray paint your gun, then you can just touch it up when it gets scratched. We go up and down trees, hunt out of deer stands hauling out guns through tree limbs, guns take a beating. Stainless guns with camo tape on them work well, just make sure that it is the NON reflective tape. For coatings, I like Black Chrome, Satin Nickel chrome, and Black Oxide available from Robar, these coatings will NOT scratch or rub off under any circumstances.

Many guys have half a dozen deer rifles, having them all coated is a major investment, and the vast majority of guys struggle to get just one decent rifle/scope. Degreasing the barrel and action, then applying good thick "duct" quality camo tape goes a long way in protecting finishes for those on a tight budget. I just pulled the camo duct tape off a Rem 1100 that had been on since the late 80's, there was zero rust on the barrel or action.

So, a finger rubber or masking tape to cover the muzzle eliminates rust in the barrel, wipe the gun down good with a quality oil, Push patches through the barrel with a tight punch type jag, and you are good to go. If you have got caught in a rain storm and the rifle got soaking wet, or you like to hunt in the rain like I do, then to the extreme you feel necessary to protect the gun. I have an All Weather Ruger stainless just for this hunting application, it gets very little attention other than a finger rubber and a wipe down.

One thing to remember, bringing a cold wet gun in a warm house is a recipe for disaster as rust will set up within hours. When I was 17, we hunted dove in the pouring down rain. Brought the shotgun in the house, sat it in the corner, two days later it was a rustbucket.
 
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Last year we got caught in a heavy rain while hunting. By the time we got back to the cabin the rounds in the magazine were starting to turn green. (About three hours) I took four rifles apart that evening and learned a little that I'll share. My well oiled, wood stock BDL suffered little, no rust. A Ruger American stainless synthetic had no rust, but all the nooks and crannys held lots of water drops. Impossible to wipe dry, ended up with a hair drier. A Winchester that had never been out of the stock fared well because of the factory grease. A HS stocked Sendero had a little water in the lug area and no rust. Black parkerized finish held up well.

I feel that had we not taken the rifles apart, by the next morning, they all might have had a problem. Stainless will rust, some find this out the hard way. Two of the rifles chambers had a a green tint in them from wet brass. It would have taken a long time for the Tupperware stock to dry holding that much water.

Next morning, after a patch with lighter fluid to remove the oil, all four were still "close enough" to hunt with. Might have had to move a couple of clicks.
 
Up here in the PNW if you don't hunt in the rain you dont hunt. Living right on the coast we get salt mixed in the rain or just in the air. People joke that on the coast we dont suntan, we rust.

I keep my guns wiped on the outside with Barricade or Johnsons paste wax before going out and just bring them into the house and set them on a table in front of the pellet stove to dry. Any rust that forms on the outside is easily remover with OOOO steel wool and oil without harming the blue finish if done that day.

A Rem Rust O Pump, drying in front of the stove, It has had the stock re-finished 3 times over the past 20 yrs a little surface rust hasn't hurt it in the least and cleans up in a couple of min.



This old girl has been hunted in the salt marshes for a number of years and is older than most people on this sight, still works just fine an doesn't look too bad to boot. This is my go to salt marsh waterfowl gun. Just clean her up when I get home and oil or wax it before going out.



The speckles on the middle step are rain drops the bottom step is just wet. We get over 70 " of rain here from Oct. to May just 50 miles north of the house the rain totals are in the 140" range.
 
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Originally Posted By: AWSUp here in the PNW if you don't hunt in the rain you dont hunt.

I live in S.E. Alaska and we get 130" of rain on average a year. I think I can count how many nice sunny days we get on one hand.

My gun is a Browning X-bolt with the synthetic stock. I noticed after I had taken the barreled action out to dry it off, that water pretty much pools up in the fore end under the barrel. That of course has me all paranoid now after every time I go out. And is why I asked the question on here.
 
When shooting p. dogs on red hot towns, we poured a 50/50 mix of rubbing alcohol/water in the barrel channel of custom guns that had fiberglass stocks with stainless actions/barrels. The solution cooled the barrel quickly, kept us shooting. We never worried about the consequences, barrels were set back and re chambered every 2000 rounds which was about 4 days of shooting at best.

While 416 Stainless does have some carbon in it where it would rust, the exterior of the barrel is not what I would worry about, the barrel's inside is the cause of concern, tape up the muzzle,it up. Blue Masking tape is my favorite.

The trigger group and action inside is of major concern, you are going to have to clean it when you get home.

The other malfunction comes from loose ammo that you carry in your pocket that you might chamber in your rifle. This ammo will be filthy from grit and grime that is on it, then the chamber will rust, and rust in the chamber will ruin the barrel because it will cause sticky extraction.
 
Originally Posted By: roky0702I'm slowly getting all of my guns Cerakoted. I'm sick of getting surface rust on them just sitting in the safe or keeping them coated in oil. It's a no brainer to me.

I've been debating on getting setup to Cerakote stuff for about a year now. Definitely the way to go. I'd do it mostly for my stuff and families. Like you said, stuff just sitting around for a month starts to rust. I moved back to MO from Utah, and within the first month, I started having rust spots show up on several rifles. Time to get more oil and go to town. Hah. I have the workshop space cleaned out now, just need the stuff to do it.
 
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