gtrgy888
Member
I'm back after a long hiatus (the wife had twins, and insisted on buying a house. One job per kid and working from sun up to sun down seems to be a good rule of thumb for keeping a wife and kids housed with full bellies so far, but it leaves little energy for plinking.)
After feeling the shame of too many lazy weekends on the couch, I finally went to take the 1851 out of storage and was pleased at first. No rust and it seemed to pass a simple function check. I took it out to the range, loaded up, aimed at a target, and CLICK. I tried again: CLICK. After thorough inspection, the hammer was falling slowly enough I could see it arc. I ended up needing to pull the trigger and fan the hammer FORWARD to get enough oomph to set off the caps.
After puzzling for a bit, I remembered I had run out of Ballistol and let my hubris and laziness convince me that vegetable oil would be a perfectly serviceable agent for cleaning and storing the gun. And for SHORT TERM cleaning and rust prevention, I was absolutely right. With only a month between range visits, the oil stayed fresh enough to function, and in conjunction with hot water and scrubbing after every shoot, the oil got replaced often enough to do fine. So, I figured, what's the harm in just soaking the parts in Canola and letting it sit in storage? Well, it just so happens that while Canola can work as a cheap short term lubricant, it becomes GLUE after a year. The parts were all perfectly preserved, but ended up all stuck together. What a load of Canola.
I've learned my lesson: the grumpy old dudes were right again. Water to remove fouling, Ballistol to inhibit rust. I won't be getting creative moving forward. Now I'm off to go do a full detail strip and scrub off all the gunk. I'll have the same job to do for the 1849 Pocket.
After feeling the shame of too many lazy weekends on the couch, I finally went to take the 1851 out of storage and was pleased at first. No rust and it seemed to pass a simple function check. I took it out to the range, loaded up, aimed at a target, and CLICK. I tried again: CLICK. After thorough inspection, the hammer was falling slowly enough I could see it arc. I ended up needing to pull the trigger and fan the hammer FORWARD to get enough oomph to set off the caps.
After puzzling for a bit, I remembered I had run out of Ballistol and let my hubris and laziness convince me that vegetable oil would be a perfectly serviceable agent for cleaning and storing the gun. And for SHORT TERM cleaning and rust prevention, I was absolutely right. With only a month between range visits, the oil stayed fresh enough to function, and in conjunction with hot water and scrubbing after every shoot, the oil got replaced often enough to do fine. So, I figured, what's the harm in just soaking the parts in Canola and letting it sit in storage? Well, it just so happens that while Canola can work as a cheap short term lubricant, it becomes GLUE after a year. The parts were all perfectly preserved, but ended up all stuck together. What a load of Canola.
I've learned my lesson: the grumpy old dudes were right again. Water to remove fouling, Ballistol to inhibit rust. I won't be getting creative moving forward. Now I'm off to go do a full detail strip and scrub off all the gunk. I'll have the same job to do for the 1849 Pocket.
Ballistol smells like licorice and I hate licorice.
