Well worth the cost?

At the season’s end, giving a gun a cursory clean rather than getting it stripped and cleaned properly is a bad idea, warns Diggory Hadoke

- Diggory Hadoke

Faced with a bill of just over £800 for putting his grubby old gun back together, a local sportsman wasn’t very receptive to my advice that it was a good idea to get it serviced at the end of each season, or every two at least.

He asked how much that cost. I told him to expect something like £120 to £220 annually to keep it in good fettle. He quickly did the maths and said: “I haven’t spent anything on it for 10 years, so I reckon I’m well ahead.” Even writing a £800 cheque, his way of thinking was that he would have spent close to £2,000, over 10 years, if he had done as advised.

That is one way of looking at it. However, his gun would be in better condition today had the regular maintenance been carried out, rather than waiting until it was malfunctioning and full of rust before getting it seen to. Perhaps he doesn’t care. A lot of shooting people want their gun to go “bang” and eject when required and, as long as it does, they see no reason to spend money on it.

If you are shooting a generic Italian over-and-under; one that cost you £1,500 new, that has 15 days’ action a season and will not gain nor lose value in the next 20 years by more than the cost of a couple of tanks of diesel a year, the no-maintenance policy may be defensible. It will probably keep working, as long as you clean it, dry it, oil it after use and store it in a nice dry place.