Advice for Cleaning Your Shotgun

It's generally good practice to clean your gun after you use it, no matter how many cartridges you put through it.

To clean your gun you will need some of the following; Bore Cleaner, Gun Oil, Cleaning Rod, Split Jag, Bronze Brush, Wool Mop, Cleaning Patches, Wool Cloth, Bore Snake, Snap Caps, VP90 Sachet.

You should start by putting down an old mat or towel on the area you are going to clean your gun! You don't want any oily carpets!

To clean your shotgun, first check that it is empty. When cleaning a side by side or an over and under take the gun apart into its three main parts, the barrels, the stock and the forend. Also if your gun has chokes you should remove them.

Start by putting some bore cleaner down the barrels and let it soak for a few minutes. Meanwhile, you should start cleaning the forend of the gun. Remove any moisture that may be on it and use an oily wool cloth to get into all the components. Make sure they have a small covering of gun oil to keep them lubricated. Clean the stock in much the same way, making sure there is a small amount of oil on any moving components.

Now you need to clean the barrels. Start by using bronze brush on the end of the cleaning rod. Push this back and forward gradually moving it towards the end of the barrels. This will remove the worst of the dirt. Now you will need to apply a small amount of bore cleaner inside the barrels. You will need to change the head to split jag one. You can now wrap a cleaning patch to it and push it through the barrels. You could also use kitchen roll. Keep repeating this process until you are happy with the condition of the barrels. Now place a small amount of oil onto the wool mop end and push this through each barrel to leave a protective oily coating.

Put all of the gun back together and with your oily cloth wipe it all down removing and left over marks on the barrels and stock. Just before you put it back into its cabinet insert your snap caps and fire it to release the tension in the springs while it is locked away.

Another way to help prevent corrosion is to use VP90 sachets. They leave an invisible micro film coating on the metal which guards against the effects of corrosion and will continue to do so even in extremes of temperature or humidity.