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Hello, all.

Now, if you'll forgive me, one doesn't like to admit these sort of things: I was going through the gun cabinet this morning and I picked up my SMLE rifle. Something caught my eye. In the grooves of the rifling there was... rust. Now, I don't mean I was looking at a sewer-pipe, but rather there is the thinnest, almost non-existent pencil-line of orange in the grooves.

This shocked me, good sirs and ladies, shocked I say. I clean my rifles and the bore of the SMLE is shiner than a new shiny thing from Shiny Town.

So. Two options present themselves: 1) PANIC, or 2) possibly accept that the barrel is 90+ years old and curse myself for a overly judgemental fool.

Does one need to worry?

To much cleaning can be detrimental, leaving bare metal is just asking for a bit of red dust.

Do you leave the barrel oiled?

Also leaving the gun standing up can also mean any oil migrates downwards laving bare unprotected metal.

Anyway you need to do something, these old guns are getting too scarce to let the elements steal bits of them especially as we are only holding them in trust for those that may follow us.

dromia wrote:To much cleaning can be detrimental, leaving bare metal is just asking for a bit of red dust.

Do you leave the barrel oiled?

Also leaving the gun standing up can also mean any oil migrates downwards laving bare unprotected metal.

Anyway you need to do something, these old guns are getting too scarce to let the elements steal bits of them especially as we are only holding them in trust for those that may follow us.

Hi, Dromia.

Yes, I leave the barrel oiled and I leave the rifles standing up - an necessity I'm afraid given to having to store the guns upright in the gun cabinet.

I'll run a brush through the bore and see if that helps.

Do you shoot Berdan primed milsurp?.

Nope. All reloads. I have shot corrosive in the past, but not in a while.

Have you tried placing silica bags in your cabinet? Or even gun socks to try and diminish the threat moisture
As stated oil will move leaving areas exposed, so we try to make the air as dry as possible and regularly check the rifles.

No, that's a good idea, that. I'll give that a go.