Fine Guns Need Serious Cleaning...And So Do All Others.
by James Flynn
James Flynn, Gunmaker, LLC.

Ideally, gun owners should always clean their guns after using them each time, and quite thoroughly clean them at the end of the hunting or competition season. At this point it might be helpful to define the meaning of “cleaning” as this is subject to opinion. My concept is based on 30-plus years of gunsmithing experience. For too many gun owners, cleaning means wiping the outside of the metal with an oily cloth or worse, merely spraying a non-descript aerosol oil on it. More-conscientious shooters will clean the bores of their shotguns and rifles. Neither of these efforts, however, fully addresses the issue of thoroughly cleaning a firearm.

Thorough cleaning moves into the realm of completely disassembling, cleaning, and then reassembling fairly complex mechanisms. For the untrained to attempt complete disassembly of a boxlock or sidelock is out of the question. For example, the first skill required in such disassembly is to learn to properly grind screwdrivers. Few gun owners have a grinder much less the skill to grind the blade. The one part my fellow gunmakers and I make more than any other is the screw, or as the Brits say, the pin. This is because the first offense ignorant people commit is to damage all the screws on a fine gun. I charge at least $125.00 for the more simple screws on a gun. Expensive? Consider that the new screw must be individually machined, the slot indexed, the head filed to fit, engraved, then finally hardened and lacquered. Nothing appears worse than damaged screws. One of the rarest sights in the gun trade is an older, and sometimes newer, gun with undamaged screws. Stripping and cleaning only gets more complicated from there.

If an individual purchases a double that starts at over $1000.00, the owner should be willing to pay a qualified gunsmith for proper maintenance performed at regular intervals. An exquisite English or Continental double can cost the price of a Mercedes Benz and owners of the latter do not, or should not have the oil changed for $19.95 at Bubba’s garage and baseball card shop. A bit of a conundrum arises here. If one has purchased a less-expensive double, it still requires the same sort of cleaning as best guns, and the costs for doing so basically remain the same. Still, if one likes his gun and expects reliability, he must have it cared for periodically, whether purchased new, used, costly, or inexpensive. All guns are subject to becoming dirty.

Regarding used guns—just because an older gun appears to have been used little does not mean that it requires no inspection for service. Older guns usually have old grease or oil that has hardened in the moving parts. This impedes function and can cause seizure of internal parts. Worse, the lack of effective lubrication will accelerate wear.

A properly cleaned gun, by contrast, will not suffer extraordinary internal wear or breakage due to abrasive grit, corrosion, or lack of lubrication. To illustrate the necessity of proper cleaning and maintenance I will use the example of a pair of recent-vintage Purdey over/unders that came into my shop not long ago. The owner had just purchased the pair used and he wisely wanted them inspected. Seeing as he had no doubt paid well over $100,000.00 for them, it was a prudent decision.

The number 2 gun needed inspection and cleaning as well as having its case colors re-lacquered. In the gun I found a slight roughness in the travel of the right cocking rod that I remedied by rewinding a coil return spring. An ejection problem was attributed to this roughness and was thus alleviated. Dirt, grit, and old grease were also removed in the cleaning process. I removed the old lacquer and then re-lacquered the action body and all the other color-hardened parts.

The No. 1 gun proved to have more problems. Upon disassembly, live rust and light pitting were very evident. It was most fortunate that the owner wanted these newly purchased guns inspected. There was also pitting on the sears, bridles, tumblers, lock plates, the tip of the striker, and on the mainsprings. Pitting on a spring must always be addressed, as it will certainly shorten the life of the spring. Seeing that new pair of Purdey over/unders verges on $200,000.00 this sort of problem was intolerable and had to be remedied.

The pitting was shallow but still had to be filed and polished off. Equally concerning was pitting on the tip of the upper striker. If pitting becomes bad enough on the tip of a striker, it can lead to erratic ignition or piercing of primers. Pierced primers will allow gasses to blow back into the lockworks and gas residue will lead to corrosion. I have also seen one boxlock gun burst a stock from substantial pierced primer blowback. Such problems absolutely must be corrected.

The pitting problem continued when I took down the forearm. There was pitting on particular areas in the ejector works. There are frames or cages that house the ejector springs and both of these had pitting in similar spots. These too were filed up and polished before the forearm was reassembled. Both guns were then test fired and they functioned beautifully.

What could have caused such pitting? My theory was that the last man to handle the internals of this gun had sweaty hands and did not carefully wipe and lubricate the parts. Whatever its cause, timely preventive maintenance would have prohibited this predicament. From this article, the cleaning job may sound simple and brief. This is deceptive, though, as it takes several hours to strip and clean a gun. Removing pitting takes several more. But a lot more money could have been saved with proper, periodic maintenance. With double guns, an ounce of prevention is indeed worth a ton of cure.

James Flynn, Gunmaker
P.O. Box 7461
Alexandria, LA 71306 USA
Phone: (318) 445-7130
Hours 9am -  12pm & 1pm - 5:30pm weekdays CST

Flynn's main page | Leather Covered Pads & Parts Making | Restoration of a Holland & Holland
Restoration of a Rigby Double Rifle | Stocking of a Westley Richards
Flynn - Article #1 Browning SxS Shotgun | Flynn - Article #2 Fine Gun Cleaning
Flynn - Article #3 Purdey Restock | Flynn - Article #4 Guyot Shotgun Service