The Ultimate Way to Systematically Maintain and Store Your Rifles

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After all the meat is wrapped and the freezers are full to the brim with all the season's venison gold, many hunters overlook a key ritual to ensure your prized rifle is up and ready next year to repeat the process. Proper cleaning and storage of your firearms is vital to ensuring a long-lasting life of reliable function in any rifle platform either bolt action or gas operated. Safe storage of your firearm during and after hunting season is the one, if not the single most important part of being prepared for any hunt. From the time your rifle leaves the gun safe and is transported to the field and is placed back into its slot in your safe, here are a few simple tips to ensure your rifle will be as ready as you are when the moment of truth comes calling.

Proper Rifle Maintenance

This is not meant to be an all-encompassing rifle cleaning article, only a few tips to clean and maintain your rifle prior to storage in a gun safe when the rifle will not be used for an extended period of time. Every time I prepare a rifle for storage either after my last rifle match or hunt, I follow a simple process every time to make sure my rifle is in tip-top shape. It is as follows:

1. Remove the rifle from the stock and chassis to inspect the undercarriage for damage including cracks or chips in the bedding (if bedded) and also take the time to remove any debris such as pine needles, dirt, grass and any moisture you may find hiding in the nooks and crannies. Keeping the stock clean and dry is very important in any stock, not just wood stocks.

2. Thoroughly clean the barrel removing any and all copper and carbon fouling using ammonia-free solvents like KG Industries Carbon and Copper removing solvents. These solvents work independently to clean your bore without damaging the metal. Use a brush and proper-sized jag with cotton patches to ensure the bore is clean and ready for storage.

3. A borescope can help you see any carbon rings or copper fouling you missed while scrubbing the bore. Target these areas again to ensure they are removed completely.

4. Run a small amount of oil on a clean cotton patch down the bore to help protect the bore against rust or pitting while in storage. Even a stainless steel barrel is a good practice to keep despite its corrosion-resistant nature.

5. Inspect your trigger housing and trigger pins to make sure none of the pins have walked out and are both securely in place.

6. Clean your bolt assembly and if possible, disassemble the firing pin from the bolt body to clean thoroughly and remove any debris that may have found its way inside the bolt. Many manufacturers have incorporated toolless removal of the firing pin assembly for this purpose. Follow manufacturer's instructions on how to do this for each rifle as they vary from model to model.

7. Wipe down the bolt body after the firing pin has been re-assembled and wipe down the bolt with a light coat of oil. Add a small amount of grease like Lucas Gun Grease behind each bolt lug to ensure the bolt's engagement with the receiver abutments does not wear down changing the contact of these two parts when the bolt is closed. Greasing the bolt lugs will ensure your headspace doesn't change over time from dry, metal-on-metal cycling of the bolt closing and opening.

8. Wipe out the chamber with a cotton mop to ensure the chamber is clean and debris-free.

9. Inspect the optic and rings for any signs of wear or movement in the rings. If you haven't already marked your rings and scope with a sharpie, now is a good time to place witness marks on the rings and scope. This will give you a baseline of the scopes placement in the rings and show if the scope moves at all during use in the field to explain any sudden and unexplained changes in your point of impact. Re-torque your ring cap screws to ensure nothing has backed off during use.

10. Lastly torque the action screws after reassembling the rifle to the manufacturer's recommended setting, this varies from 35-65 ft/lbs depending on the stock and bottom metal configuration.

These 10 tips should be followed for each rifle in your safe as a Standard of Practice every time you put a rifle away for storage after the season. When you establish an SOP for storing your rifles in this manner, you'll start next year off with confidence knowing your rifles are in excellent shape and ready for work. Regardless of your rifle being a $600 Ruger or a $6,000 PROOF Research, following a routine of maintenance for storage is key to keeping the rifle going year after year.

It should be noted these practices are not something recommended for "in between" hunts as cleaning your bore and oiling them in this manner will affect your first-round impact in any rifle. I have heard countless stories of hunters cleaning their rifles between hunts only to miss an opportunity because they cleaned the rifle or disassembled it without going to the range to properly foul the barrel before a hunt. The aforementioned process I use is only after a season or when I know I won't be using the rifle anytime soon without a proper re-zero before use. During the season, if your rifle is dialed, just keep hunting until it needs to be cleaned or something happens warranting a cleaning and inspection.

Rifle Storage

Storing your rifle in the closet, under your bed or hanging it on the wall does not constitute proper rifle storage or safe handling. Theft of firearms from homes and vehicles is on the rise and one of the easiest ways to prevent theft is to properly store your firearms in a gun safe. Storing your rifles in a safe also prevents any accidents from occurring that may damage the rifles, and allows you to keep the rifles in the proper humidity to ensure they don’t suffer any corrosion from moisture in the air. I added a dehumidifier to the downstairs level of my home to remove as much moisture from the air as I could to keep my powder and rifles dry. It's pretty amazing how much moisture comes from the air, especially in a below-grade room.

Safes come in a variety of sizes and configurations and it really comes down to getting a safe that fits your space best. Always go bigger than what you think you'll need as it fills up quickly once you start adding firearms, optics, suppressors, important documents and anything else that may be irreplaceable. Safes with moveable shelves make it super easy to customize the safe to your needs and the swing-out arms make it easy to access rifles from the very back without having to pull every rifle out to get to the one.

Once your new safe is selected and installed in its new home, anchor the safe to the floor to ensure it won't be going anywhere any time soon. Smaller gun safes can be carried out of the house in a burglary and opened at a later time by the thieves, wiping out your entire collection in one swoop. Most safes have four holes through the floor under the bottom cover for lags to be secured into the subfloor just for this purpose.

Keeping your rifles clean, lubricated and out of the moist air will ensure they are operating at peak performance when you need them most. Following a simple procedure after every hunting season is the one thing you can do to keep your rifles safe and it only takes an hour to properly go through your rifle and store them properly.

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