To a shotgunner, nothing is better than a fine double.
On a recent trip to South Africa, I had the opportunity to shoot both styles of double shotguns--a Beretta over-and-under and an elegant Victor Sarasqueta side-by-side.
Since there are so many doubles of both types here in the States, I asked fellow traveler Ray York, a retired gunsmith from Canon City, Colorado, for some tips on cleaning double shotguns.
"The first mistake most people make with any double barrel shotgun is to force it apart," Ray said. "A double barrel, whether it be a side-by-side or an over-and-under, is a very delicate thing." He illustrated his point by removing the forearm of the Sarasqueta. It came off easily, without any effort on his part. Then he removed the barrels by breaking the gun and gently lifting the barrel assembly free of the action.
"With modern ammunition, cleaning a shotgun is not as simple as it used to be," he said. "In the past, all you had to do was remove carbon. Now you have to remove both carbon and plastic, because the wad is plastic."
He added that there are two kinds of plastic which must be removed: the plastic that comes off the shot cup as it slides through the barrel, and that from the cartridge case itself. "Plastic becomes a repository for moisture, and thus a repository for rust," he said. "Invariably, when you pick up a modern-day shotgun, you will find that the chambers are rusty. That's especially a problem with semi-automatics, because if a semi-auto doesn't cycle fast, it doesn't cycle properly. And the most common cause is rust in the chamber."
He ran a dry brush through the barrels to clean out any residual powder, and to see what condition the barrels were in.
"You always go from the back to the front," he said. "That's how the barrel is built--the biggest part is the back end."
The barrels of this particular gun showed a heavy buildup of plastic, something Ray said is not uncommon. He said it can be removed with either a swab or a patch, and solvent. He prefers either Break-Free or WD-40.
"At this point, we don't need oil," he said. "What we want to do is clean the barrel. WD-40 is about as quick a cleaner as you can get hold of." I brought up the controversy about using WD-40 on guns. "It's probably the best rust inhibitor and powder solvent that's on the market today," he said. "It's cheap, and it does the job."
He showed us black streaks inside the barrels caused by a combination of lead and plastic. To get deposits such as these out, he said, require the use of a brush such as the Hoppe's Tornado. Once the barrels are clean, look at the action. You want to clean both the face and the rails, because that's where everything takes place.
"We'll put a little Break-Free on the cam, which is what the barrels cam off of, and the double lock," he said. He explained that the Sarasqueta is a double lock gun, which means it has two lugs underneath the barrels where they attach to the action.
"A good double gun, either a rifle or a shotgun, has two locks," Ray said. "Cheap shotguns have only one. The better rifles have a third lock on top, but that's not needed on a shotgun. You never put a gun like this back together without fully extending, or opening up, the locks." He added that the double lock underneath applies only to side-by-side shotguns; over-and-unders have a completely different locking system.
Once you gently insert the lugs into the locks and close the action the gun is back together, except for the forearm. Then, Ray said, you take Break-Free or WD-40 and apply a light coating to all the metal parts of the gun before you gently snap the forearm back into place.
He prefers not to use oil for lubrication. "Oil, being a petroleum product, will turn to varnish," he said. "If you don't think so, put a little gasoline in an open dish and let it sit for a while and see what happens to it. The other thing that happens with oil is that everyone stores guns with the muzzle up. And what happens to the oil? It runs downhill and gets into the wood."
While we had the gun apart, we looked at the proof marks. These are marks which give information about the place and date of manufacture, the chamber pressure the gun is designed for, and other data about the firearm and its individual components. On a Spanish double, the proof marks are on the undersides of the barrels, as well as on the action.
From the proof marks we determined, among other things, that a blackpowder proof cartridge was fired in each barrel, which produced a pressure of 8,818 psi. The barrels were tested to more than 12,800 psi in yet another test. The date code told us the specific firearm was manufactured in 1960. Every shotgun has these proof marks, which provide this kind of information if you know how to read them.
As we put the gun away, Ray remarked that it was smart of the gun's owner to store it with snap caps in it. These metal inserts, which look like the bases of fired shells, cushion the impact of the firing pins when the gun is uncocked by pulling the trigger.
"You should never drop the hammer on an empty chamber in a double shotgun or double rifle," Ray said. "That allows the firing pin to go forward and stop metal on metal, and it will break the firing pin. The snap cap prevents that."
He also showed us the differences between the firing pin on different grades of shotguns. "On a better grade gun, the firing pin is removable," he said. "See the two little holes on each side of the firing pin? There's a little tool that fits into them and unscrews the firing pin plates. Then the firing pin comes out and you can replace it. The reason they make them that way is because some people dry fire guns and break the firing pins so they have to be replaced. On cheap guns, you have to take the gun completely apart and replace them from the rear."
We moved on to the Beretta over-and-under. Ray said there's very little difference in the taking apart of side-by-sides and over-and-unders. "You remove the forearm, and then break the gun," he said. "The only difference is the position of the barrels."
He pointed out that a side-by-side is much more difficult to make than an over-and-under. "Regulation of the barrels is where the problem lies," he said, "getting them to shoot the same place. With an over-and-under, you're got a single vertical line. You make one barrel shoot where you want it, and then all you have to do is raise the other one up and make it shoot there too. But with a side-by-side, you have to bring the barrels in both horizontally and vertically." He said because of the tall standing breech, the over-and- under has a simpler locking system than the side-by-side.
"The Beretta basically locks on pins that pull down into the action," he said. "It's actually a little stronger than the side-by-side. You rarely see a third locking system on these guns."
In terms of cleaning, he said, the techniques are the same as for the side-by-side. "All metal parts should be cleaned with a good preservative/ powder solvent," he said. "You always have the problems with plastic and with burned powder residue, including inside the forearm. Then you should apply a light coating of lubricant to all the metal surfaces, including metal-to-metal working parts. That cuts down on both friction and wear."
Then you reassemble the shotgun the same way: put the barrels on the action, and gently snap the forearm back into place. "There basically is no difference in cleaning over-and- unders and side-by-sides," Ray said. "The key is to clean them at all, and mainly to get the plastic out of the bore and the chamber.
Copyright (c) 1995 Carolee Boyles-Sprenkel. All rights reserved.
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