Survival is a mindset. The most valuable item one can have is knowledge. One area of preparedness that gets reams of attention is the firearm. The debate over which type, caliber, and capacity is endless. Some of this is based on opinion, while other on experience. Yet with all the hoopla about the importance of firearms and ammunition, you never see much about care and cleaning. I’m not going to throw my hat in with the hundreds of “experts” on firearms out there in the preparedness community, but I do want to talk a little about the importance of protecting your investment. High quality firearms are an investment. The investment purpose of firearms, for the serious survivalist, is not a hefty return on the investment. The purpose of this investment is to provide safety (the ability to provide) and security (the ability to protect).
Starting with the basics, you need a good cleaning kit. Most “gun-people” have a kit, somewhere between a tackle box and a Craftsman rollaway, made up of bits and pieces we’ve accumulated over time. Understand, you don’t need to have a rollaway to be able to take good care of your firearm. Most sporting goods stores will have universal gun cleaning kits that are reasonably priced. A good universal kit, meaning rifle-pistol-shotgun, can be bought for around $10.00. Is it the equivalent of an armors kit? No, but it will get the job done. Here’s my building block approach, you’ll need the following:
- A small plastic tackle/tool box: $5.00
- A universal gun cleaning kit: $10.00
- Bore brushes for the calibers of your gun(s): $5.00
- Bore swabs for each caliber: $5.00
- One bottle of powder solvent: $5.00
- One pack (250 count) of .30 cal. rifle patches: $5.00
- One squeeze bottle of gun oil: $3.00
- One package of pipe cleaners: $2.00
On the high end, you’ve spent $40.00.
Now let’s look at a few things you have around the house that fits nicely into the kit:
- An old toothbrush.
- An old bath towel, cut into quarters.
- Q-tips (several).
Before you begin, make sure the firearm is UNLOADED! Every year we will read of an account where someone was killed while cleaning their firearm. Unload and make sure the ammo is well away from the cleaning area. This is two-fold. One, the gun can’t go “boom” unless it has ammo and two, cleaning solvent can cut thru the sealant on your ammunitions primers thus making your ammo useless.
Here’s the purpose for the items in teh forefoing lists: The tackle box holds everything together. This common sense approach keeps me from having to search all over the house to find my gun cleaning equipment, I just have to search for the tackle box! The universal kit will contain cleaning rods, a handle, and in many cases a patch jag, brushes, solvent and oil (compare the contents).
These rods are screwed together to the desired length of the barrel you’re going to clean. Attached to the end of the cleaning rod are brushes, patch jags, and barrel swabs. The solvent is used to dissolve the powder residue as well as removing lead and copper fouling, a by-product of firing the gun. The patches are used to “dry” the barrel of the solvent and clean the aforementioned fouling from the barrel. I use the bore swab to push the patch down the barrel (if at all possible, clean from the chamber end); this forms a tight seal and removes more fouling than a jag and patch (A note of caution: Make sure you clean up and account for the solvent-soaked patches. These are deadly poisonous to a chid. As we all know “If it gets in their hand…where does it go?)
Following the manufactures recommendation, you can now concentrate on cleaning to rest of the firearm. Q-tips, pipe cleaners, and an old toothbrush are excellent for cleaning frames of both revolvers and semi-auto pistols. The cut-up towels make for a good cleaning mat as well as a cleaning rag. I could write a book on the nuts and bolts of cleaning the individual weapons but for the most part, I wanted to give you a rundown of what you need to be able to provide basic care for your investment.
JWR Adds: Use great caution where you use Q-Tips, since they can shed "fluff" that can bind up small gun parts.