Using my A5 in the rain?

When my magnum gets wet I will take the forearm and magazine spring out of the gun and use my air compressor to blow the water from the reciever. Pay close attention where the stock slides on to the reciever and around each screw. (water likes to hide there!) I will then pull the bolt back and spray gun scrubber into the reciever with the gun pointing down. After that lubricate the rails in the reciever and reinsert the magazine spring. I will usually leave the forearm off of the gun and leave it in the corner of the hunting room upside down for a couple of days just incase there was any water or i got too much oil in the reciever. After a couple of days look into the bolt slot with a flashlight to see if there is any water or too much oil. If not put everything back together and you are done. This is probably a lot more overkill than these guns were treated years ago, but it makes me feel better!

There is no autoloading gun that handles exposure to water, ice, crud and corruption better than an A5.

Sheath works ok on the metal surfaces. Other products work too but keep silicone off the wood, if it gets into the wood then there could be trouble if you ever choose to refinish the wood.

After a day in pouring rain I take the barrel off, wipe it down and lay the gun on my bench under a 100 watt light bulb about 12" away, and leave it overnight. It will drive out any moisture that is in the nooks and crannies.

After a day in the salt marsh I take the gun in the shower with me and flush out all the mechanism with hot water. (salt is soluable in hot water but not in oil) Then I dry it off and do the light bulb thing.

After a submersion in salt water I pull the stock off and do the hot water thing. Pulling the stock is important because a submersion usually gets water down into the stock here the action spring tube hides out.

Now take that gun where others fear to tread....and send pictures.

Jeff

John Moses used his with no lube at all. He thought clean steel on steel was the most dependable solution. It worked at 100 degrees in the shade and 20 below in a blizzard.

However he probably never envisioned a shooter putting a couple of thousand shells through a gun shooting at clay targets. So he was not thinking about wear...

I use 3 in 1 oil or standard Remington gun oil. I use very little as it mostly just attracts dirt. A drop on the rails 2x a year is enough. For cleaning I use Hoppes #9.

Avoid penetrating oils. They usually have graphite etc in them and if they get to unsealed wood they penetrate and stain the wood like nobodies business. I only use them when faced with a frozen fastener on a tear down.

I do use sheath on the outside surfaces and need it cause a number of my guns have little blue left.

When a young man I tried an old timers trick I'd read about and put the south end of an half dozen north bound ducks in a mason jar and let it bake in the sun till it rendered all the preen gland oil out. It was a clear liquid and stopped stinking some time in July. I used it on the surface of my guns till it ran out.

It was unbelievable...after getting it on your hands you could wash them 5X with detergent and the water still beaded on your skin. There is nothing as water tight as a ducks a$$.

I'll do it again some day.

Jeff

If the tube needs to be lubed to get the gun to cycle then something else is wrong.

Here are the steps in the order that I would try them:

First polish the chamber. Old A5 chambers can get pretty clingy. You need to really do a job on them cause the pores in the steel collect gunk. Wrap a brush in steel wool and mount it in a hand drill and spin it in the chamber. Use solvent too.

NOTE: cheap promo load shells cling more. The cheap steel heads expand and do not contract like the brass in good shells.

Second, pull the stock off and clean the action spring in the tube in the stock. Clean the spring and tube with Hoppes. Use a .38 cal bore brush to clean the inside of the tube. Lightly oil the spring.

Third, clean the reciever out. Dissassembly is not essential but take the stock off so you can really flush it out. Hose it well with parts cleaner. Flush all the stuff out. Repeat.

Fourth, give me the gun. I can always use one more (wink)

Jeff

After a day in pouring rain I take the barrel off, wipe it down and lay the gun on my bench under a 100 watt light bulb about 12" away, and leave it overnight. It will drive out any moisture that is in the nooks and crannies.

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Jeff, thanks for this advice! It's so simple but I never thought of it before you mentioned it.

There is no autoloading gun that handles exposure to water, ice, crud and corruption better than an A5.

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I'm a huge A5ophile but in my humble opinion an A5 may cycle better then most autoloaders if it has crude in it but it's getting the crude out that causes the A5 to lag behind other, modern autoloaders.

I was wood duck hunting on a small creek in Texas this year and on my way back to the truck the forearm sling attachment on my A5 broke and the gun fell into a pile of dry sand. It was dark and I figured it was no big deal since I picked it up pretty quick. I got back to the truck and wiped the little bit of sand that was on he outside of the gun off and went home.

When I got home I got a flash light and shined it into the receiver and it looked like the gun had just gotten back from a patrol in Iraq. I could hear sand crunch when I worked the bolt. I tried blowing it out with compressed air but I couldn't get it all out. Since I don't have the tools or the knowledge to completely disassemble an A5 I had to take it to a local gunsmith for cleaning. Even after blowing it with compressed air it still had a good amount of sand still in it.

Now, I'm pretty sure the gun would have cycled if I had done nothing to it but I would have cringed every time I pulled the trigger. That whole cleaning process would have taken about 5 minutes with my Benelli auto and its two piece receiver.

As a side bar to that story seeing the A5 completely disassembled was amazing. It looked like a bomb had gone off in a small screw and spring factory. Truly a testament to John Browning that he designed that thing with a piece of paper and a slide rule.

I have not done this but I know it would work. My gunsmith told me that back years ago when a lot of people hunted with these guns if they got dropped in the mud they would take them to the local car wash and literally presure wash the reciever with the hot water. After blowing it dry just oil the rails and go back to hunting.

I have seen way to many OLD A5's with hard hunting use that do not appear to have ever been taken apart. I like to have them completley dissasembled and cleaned when I first purchase an old dirty one, but after that it should be good for another 40+ years.

I do use sheath on the outside surfaces and need it cause a number of my guns have little blue left.

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I hear you on that. I have several guns with not much blue left. Especially my Magnum I hunt with. What is this sheath product? I have always just wiped remoil on the surface of my guns but if there is a better product for my older guns im game for trying