Today's post is a commentary on patience and responsibility. I have in my garage a very nice Browning Gold Hunter. This shotgun has brought hours of joy to its owner over the course of numerous duck hunts in the wonderful wetlands of Florida.
On one such hunt the shotgun braved the brackish waters of the intracoastal and unfortunately salt air and moisture found its way into the threads of the choke tube among every other contact point. The owner being tired and following the why do today what you can do tomorrow did not disassemble and clean this shotgun upon returning home. Which brings us to my garage...
The choke is seized in the barrel and the barrel is seized where it collars the magazine and enters the action. After numerous visits to various retail gunsmiths at Bass Pro, Cabelas when it was around and sporting goods stores the owner was informed it cannot be repaired. Their patience is almost gone.
My patience is in letting the penetrating oil do its job to unseize the barrel at which point i will then soak the muzzle in a bath of kroil. After building a jig to secure the barrel to prevent marring the finish and mechanical damage from bending I will then apply heat and torque using the longest breaker bar I can find. But until the barrel is removed, I exercise patience.
I type this to say that we should not always be in a rush and put off what may feel to be an inconvenient task. Take pleasure in the small things like cleaning a gun, making your bed or brushing your teeth. The small acts of preventative maintenance on our lives will pay off, removing the need to visit your friendly gun mechanic because your negligence broke your favorite toy.
And remember there's only 37 days until duck season opens in the Sunshine State. Stay cool, shoot straight and for gods sake clean your damn guns.
#gunstr #gunsmith #hunting #opinion
