Don't skimp on cleaning your gun

When it comes to gun care, it pays to spend a little extra on the right product, says Barry Stoffell

The world of product marketing is a murky one indeed, and for those of us on the receiving end it can often seem like the art of adding a word or two to justify extracting a few quid more.

Unsolicited use of the word ‘artisan’ is an increasingly popular method of hiking prices these days, while adding the word ‘wedding’ in front of the word ‘cake’ is apparently carte blanche to engage in shameless profiteering — though your betrothed may disagree.

It is perhaps for this reason that I have been asked on numerous occasions by those new to the world of shooting if it’s worth paying the premium attached to oils and solvents sold specifically for use on firearms. Is ‘gun oil’ any better than any other oil you’d pick up at the hardware shop? And what about cleaning fluids? Won’t good old WD-40 or 3-in-1 do the same job for half the price?

To answer this, it’s necessary to take a closer look at what gun cleaning chemicals are actually required to do, and what they should contain to help them do it.

The simple truth is that your shotgun is essentially a pair of metal pipes. Of course, there are the ejectors and cocking springs and a trigger that moves a few millimetres, but that’s basically it. Because of this, there is a very limited amount of metalon-metal friction, and none of it at particularly high temperatures.

On the other hand, your gun has a large surface area and is regularly exposed to wind, rain, blood, sweat and, occasionally, tears. All this conspires to produce the greatest single danger to your gun — rust.