Rifles for wet weather

[SJB358]

mortis my Smith here in billings has shown me several guns that were taken to Alaska and brought back rusty, stainless and chromoly.

OK....let me pin my rockers back on for a moment.

When I see rusty firearms being dealt with by a gunsmith, that tells me one thing. The owner was lax in maintenance.

OK.... before anyone starts throwing boulders at me.... let me qualify that statement.

Now I know this is the Jarhead coming out in me.....but when your life depends on the function of your firearm, maintenance is a very high priority. Clean and oil it every chance you get.

I've been from SouthEast Asia to Iceland. From NTA Okinawa to Mountain Warfare School in the Sierra's. And all kinds of places in between. Even tho it is not always possible to preform maintenance daily, it still has to be done when possible.

The only people who thinks stainless steel will not rust is either an uninformed individual or a sales clerk tryiing to make the sale to a noob.

A common mistake when leaving the field, and in this I use the generic term for troops and hunters alike, is that they clean and oil the firearm, then put it up till needed. Ignoring it for a few months, based upon their masterful skills with a borebrush and oily rag, they return to find a pile of rust.

It must be attended too daily over several days to insure all contaminates have been removed and it is ready for long term storage. Now back in the day, we cleaned our weapons daily for a minimum 3 days upon firing or returning from an FTX. And our unit armorers inspected all weapons daily to insure they were in a ready condition while in storage.

WE must be out own armorers. Especially if our firearms have been exposed to an environment in which the moist air contains traces of salt, such as will be found along the coastal regions of Alaska.

Now to make a short column longer.....

I was given the mission of assisting an old Mustang Captain in teaching Mortar Fire Control to a group of reservists doing their 2 weeks annual training. During a break, the Captain got into a discussion with one of the Sergeants concerning blued verses stainless 1911's.

The Captain was adament about blue over stainless. His main reason........ maintenance. He said with a blued firearm, it should always be in your mind to keep it maintained. But with a stainless, you tend to let things slip.

His key example were Police Officers. His reasoning was that one fo the biggest reason LEO's carried stainless sidearms was because they were either too lazy or too stupid to keep them maintained. And that if you inspected 10 LEO's sidearms, you'd probably find 8 that were filithy and possibility 2 that would not function due to lack of maintenance.

They get off duty, go home, take off their duty belt and stick it onto the upper shelf of the closet till the next days duty.

At this point laughter erupted in the class room....... it seems the 2 of the NCO's in the back room were LEO's. And they had a very PO'd look on their faces. The Captain challenged them on the condition of their service weapons. The look changed from PO'd to embarrassed. Break was over.

I accuse no one.....just stating my personal observations and yes, mistakes. If a stainless firearm is rusty to the point of needing a gunsmith....... you know where I'll put my money on the fault. 99 times out of 100 I'll win...... but that 1 time....it is the material. Because even stainless can have a chemical flaw in it's makeup which allows rust to take hold in a spot and will not let go. This is rare, but can happen.

Sorry for the lengthy comments.... at times this old Jarhead M/Sgt tends to get up on a soapbox.

Get em Top! Danged people need some proper weapons maintenance time!

 

[ridgewalker]

My limited experience on Kodiak Island was that it rained every day almost all day for 10 days. Rain wasn't the worst problem though. It was the salt spray in the rough water while motoring to and from the hunt locations in salt water every day. My gun is a Sako .375 H&H synthetic stock, stainless steel almost everything else coated with teflon (Bearcoat I believe). The exceptions were the scope rings, sling studs and swivels. I dried everything every night. Next morning the rings, studs and swivels had rust. I'd oil them down good and go again. Same thing the next day.

Nothing ever happened to any rifle parts or stock. I taped the muzzle.

SS is really good to start with, but most if not passivated to remove the free-irons on the surface will still rust (my Kimber Montana does this). This should stop as soon as all the surface iron has corroded away.

As some of you know, I will be trying one more time next month to take an over 9' brownie and a decent Sitka deer back on Kodiak Island. So, we'll just see how the Sako does this time.

Good luck on your decision Guy.

 

[CatskillCrawler]

I have SS rifles and laminate stocks but I use my trusty Rem 78 with blued steel as my foul weather rifle mostly because it's topped with an Elite 4200 with Rainguard. The optics isnt super but certainly good enough for hunting. The fact that I can always see thru that scope no matter the weather has made the choice easy.

 

[usmc 89]

Mortis, enjoyed your book, ha ha. well said and agree on all points.

 

[akhunter]

My model 70s are all stainless and wear a mcmillan stock, no exception. If I'm not hunting with one of those rifles then it is my Kimber Montana 7mm WSM.

 

[JCalhoun]

I did an all weather carbine on a old Savage 10 action. I went with an E.R. Shaw 20in barrel and laminated stock.

My buddies at GCS Duracoated all the metal in a mixed color sage green & dark earth and the wood was completely covered in several coats of semi-gloss clear Duracoat. It has worked well in the last four years I've used it. Weather resistant and tough as nails.

 

[Oldtrader3]

My snow and ice rifle is a Browning Composite A-Bolt, .280 Rem which actually has a pretty good stock as it comes. The stock is fibeglass and has held up well through several seasons of ice and snow in Utah and Wyoming high country (e.g. Big horn Mountains in late season). I recently sold this rifle to my grandson.

For elk, I have a Weatherby Alaskan, .340 Weatherby. My particular rifle comes with a stock that is not very well made or dimensionally stable (at least this Japanese model). I put a Euromark walnut stock on it and it is so epoxy permeated that it is a pretty good all weather stock already. Plus it is dimensionally stable as well. I am well equipped with this arrangement for larger game.