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Tips – Hunting weapons

A clean rifle makes an efficient hunter.

Hunting Weapons Tips

Maintenance Rifles

At the end of the hunting season, it is high time to thoroughly clean your Hunting Guns! This not only for your safety but also to maintain the value of the gun for a long time.

Herewith some recommendations for cleaning a shotgun.

Disassemble

Caution when disassembling and reassembling. Many a barrel hook is damaged by this operation.
Normally, this should be done smoothly and the weapon should fall apart, so to speak, when disassembling and click together smoothly when reassembling.

If not, get assistance from an expert or firearms dealer.

Walking

Clean the barrels with a good polishing cloth and for the inside with a polishing stick with rag. Do this until the barrels look smooth again and no residue or marks can be found.

If necessary, clean the inside with a polishing brush, possibly fine steel wool (on the polishing stick) or with a Gun Cord.

Be careful with bore cleaners, they are sometimes caustic and should not be present in the runs for too long

Mechanical parts

Then it is the turn of the mechanical parts. Clean with a cloth or fine brush.
Lightly oil all the metal parts, and put the gun back together.

Flask

To finish, work the wood with good cob oil.

Storage

After cleaning, the rifle can be stored, best when assembled.

If you have oiled the barrel and bascule, do not place the weapon with the stock at the bottom. The oil soaks into the stock and makes it soft. As a result, sooner or later, the stock is bound to break.
Also, therefore, never put a wet weapon in a case or pouch.

Relaxing the firing pin (always with a dummy, not an old pattern) is allowed but not required.

Determining the ideal length of the flask

Everyone knows the expression from the Hunting Course “the walks shoot, the butt hits.”

An important fact is the length of the flask. Question is how can we determine it ? Following method will give you the answer.

Then one draws a line on the index finger (trigger finger) just beside the trigger.

This indicates the current position of the tractor.

And now we will continue drawing on our finger.

On the far left is the Distal Inter Phalangeal joint – DIP (cfr photo)
(that’s the joint between the fingertip and the middle phalanx)

About 3mm more to the right put another dash.
This is to compensate for any Winter clothing.
The difference between these last two dashes (here 2.5 cm in the picture) is the difference in terms of the ideal length of the measured butt.
Not abnormal, when you know that most older rifles were made for the then about 10 to 15 cm shorter people.

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