Used a 1973 Browning Citori in the Texas salt marsh till 1980, usually at least one day a week, all season long. Hosed it down and then dried it with hot air and oiled it at the end of each day. Only had one small, easily fixed problem in all those years. The Bluing on the trigger bow and lock box is worn at all edges and the glossy Browning stock finish was dulled and redone with TruOil.
After many, many hundreds of waterfowl loads and thousands of trap loads that Citori is still tight and hardly looks like it was used much.
Ditto for a Carl Steigele O/U that was my sole grouse and turkey gun for 15 years, hunted every weekend with it all through the long grouse seasons.
Current hunting double is a 1921 vintage Husqvarna M51 hammer double in 16 gauge. The heavily dinged stock and foreend were restored and net checkering redone. Rust on barrels was removed with OOOO steel wool but the heavily faded bluing remains. Bores are extensively pitted from decades of corrosive ammo and inadequate or no cleaning, but patterns are exellent and POIs for both barrels are right on. That gun has now had many, many hundreds of 24 gram loads fired through it at clays and has been my duck, desert quail, bandtail, etc. bird gun the last three seasons. It hardly looks like it has been used after the redo of exterior.
All these guns stay in cloth sheaths, in hard cases when not being used. They were all cleaned after each day's hunting. All have been totally soaked multiple times but, dried and oiled after each soaking. ALL of the interior stock wood surfaces have been coated with polyuethane.
Niklas
