Learning To Care For My Firearms

I made a post the other day about letting my son shoot his first big boy gun. It was the same .410 shotgun that I used when I was a kid. While we were out, I figured I would shoot a few slugs through my Remington 870 Express. It was the first time I had taken the guns out of the closet in a long time, and I noticed that both of them needed some maintenance. I’ve never cleaned a gun, before; but it is definitely a skill that I need to master, so I decided to give myself a crash course.

*** WARNING ***

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ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS make sure that your firearm is unloaded before you attempt to clean it. Even if you remember unloading before you last put it away, CHECK AGAIN! The gun I was cleaning is a break action shotgun, so it was a simple matter of breaking the barrel and looking. Make sure that you know your firearm and are confident positive it is not loaded!

Also, make sure you are working in a well ventilated area. The bore cleaning solution gives off some pretty tough fumes. It can also be skin and eye irritant, so it is probably a good idea to wear gloves and eye protection.

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The Breakdown

After some research, I have decided to start with the break action .410, because there are fewer moving parts to worry about. It is a pretty simple gun to break down. The forestock is just kind of hinged in and pulls right off with a little bit of force. You can see that there was a little bit of rust in there that needs to be removed.

Removal Of The Forestock

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Next, you just break open the barrel and it completely separates from the rest of the stock. They are connected by a hinge that is secured in place by the forestock.

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Now, We’re Ready To Clean It Up

I used a Hoppe’s universal cleaning kit that contains a cleaning rod, a variety of mops and copper brushes, bore cleaning solution, lubricant, and cleaning patches. I started by attaching the patch holder to the cleaning rod, stuffing a couple of patches into it, and dipping them into the bore cleaning solution.

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Using the cleaning rod, pushed the soaked patches through the barrel from the breech end toward the muzzle. I’m not even sure that this gun had been cleaned within my lifetime, so there was a lot of gunk to remove. I had to change out the patches twice just to get the barrel acceptably clean.

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I followed that up with a copper wire brush. The universal kit that I bought did not have pieces for a .410 gauge barrel, but I don’t own a 20 gauge gun, so I just used the 20 gauge brush and forced it through. The copper wire is softer than the steel barrel, so it won’t cause any damage.

20 Gauge Wire Brush

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To finish up the barrel, I ran a couple of dry patches through to clean out the solution and any remaining gunk knocked loose by the brush. I wasn’t able to get my camera to focus down into the barrel, but I could see a big difference! Next, I wiped some of the residual cleaning solution onto some of the other areas that had a bit of rust and used a smaller wire brush to remove it.

Not Brushing My Teeth With This One

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Overall, I was very pleased with the result. I was able to get most of the rust and gunk off of the gun.

Everything Cleaned Up Nicely!

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All that was left was to get everything put back together and lubricated. It all fit back just fine, and I made sure to oil up all of the moving parts and get it worked in really well.

All Finished!

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Next up is the 870 Express. I’m a little hesitant to get into that one, because I’m afraid I may not get all of the parts back in the right way. I guess, worse case scenario, if I get it torn apart and can’t get it back together, I’ll take it to a gun shop. Wish me luck!