Weapons used on Salt Water.

HRspec

Member
Hi

I have just bought a used remington 1100 pump gun which is used on salt water areas for wildfowling.

Apart from normal cleaning and oiling as you would do regulary, are there any other precautions that you should take? The gun is in the cabinet with other weapons and im a little worried it might cause the other guns to rust or rust faster. Some of the other guns in the cabinet are not mine and i wouldnt want to damage their guns. Im thinking about using the napier v90 stuff in the cabinet and i use just normal oil on the guns. Are there any good products people would recommend?

Thanks Nathan
 
I used to have a Remington 1100, but have reverted back to an AYA side by side on the foreshore. My gun always looks like a bit of mud soaked drift wood when I return from the marsh. I swill off the mud and salt water under the tab. Dry of with a towel and use a good water repelling oil such as wd40 on the outside and down the barrel, 3in1 on the moving bits.

My 1100 was a semi auto that I just found unreliable and did n't cycle that well. I could with it, but it had had it's stock well cast and I think this had bent the tube for the recoil spring. Traded it in for a benelli nova - good design but could n't hit a thing so have gone back to a side by side.
 
You do what ever it takes to keep it working, but to me the biggest point was keep it in a seperate safe.
If you don't have room for one a clamp type thing bolted to the main safe would work.

Neil. :)
 
I've been wildfowling on the foreshore for some 40 some years and oil over salt will not stop guns rusting.
Use a dedicated gunslip to carry the salty gun back, don't use it for other guns or the salt will affect them as well, clean the slip as well.
As soon as possible after shooting strip off the barrel then clean off any mud with warm water and a soft brush, if you scrub hard it can act as an abrasive.
Then use boiling water both inside and outside the barrel to get rid of any salt contamination. Make sure you have some way of supporting the barrel without touching it when pouring boiling water into and over it for obvious reasons and remember the barrel will be too hot to touch for a while.
It is essential to get rid of any salt before oiling the gun or you will seal the salt under the oil and the steel will rust. The water will dry off the gun very quickly and the boiling water will also clean out most of the fouling inside the barrel. Once the gun is clean and warm the oil will spread easily over the gun. Happiness is a warm gun!
If water or spray have got into the action strip it all down wash, oil and reassemble. Once you have done it once or twice it's easy. It should not affect the other guns if it's cleaned properly, if it's not then it will rust.

Bob
 
Thought this might amuse/interest you. An old fowler who frequented the Fens near Boston several times had to leave his gun to the tide as with bag and other kit with rising tide needed all hands to make it off the marsh so the gun was plunged muzzle down into the silt with float attached to mark it and was retrieved after the tide turned after being totally submerged. Gun was taken home stripped and cleaned to be used again.

Of course after a few times it had no finish left but after a good clean always functioned and funny enough the wood never cracked. He has passed to the happy hunting grounds now and I miss his tales of the marshes.

He lost one of his best mates on a trip the the fen marsh in the winter of 63. Said friend decided to take a nap in one of the old sea wall bunkers and froze to death in his sleep. He told how they had to climb over the chunks of sea ice the tides pushed up to reach the marsh before they called it quits and left the birds be.
 
This may sound a bit odd, but with a salty gun, cleaning it thoroughly is key; take your shotgun with you when you go take a shower after a days hunt (let the jokes begin).

Seriously, it is the only way I am aware of to easily and totally clean the crap out of firearm (short of a steam cleaner). (This is assuming you have a synthetic stocked shotgun)

When you're done showering (and cleaning the dirty firearm), just leave it in the shower and turn the shower back on at full hot, and run the firearm under the water until you can't comfortably hold it due to the heat. After this, tear the gun down and dry and lube.

Like I said, it sounds strange (you should see the look on the wife's face when I drag a Bennelli into the shower...aside from my comment about bringing out the big gun :D), but it does work well for cleaning all the grit, grime and salt out of a firearm. Believe it or not, this is how we used to clean our rifles in the Corps after coming out of the field...
 
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