Thread: Drowned Rifle

Had a couple of stumbles in the river with full emersion of rifle (old sako forrestor carbon barrel, action) and suppressor,

I have cleaned it and oiled it the best I could tonight on returning home, still need to remove barrel and action from stock but screws are seized which I will work on tomorrow. Is there anything I should be doing extra? drop it off to gunsmith to get trigger and bolt/firing pin cleaned up?

Spray it all with CRC or Inox?

Do I need to do anything to suppressor or ammo?

Cheers FBD

Originally Posted by Fat belly Dog

Had a couple of stumbles in the river with full emersion of rifle (old sako forrestor carbon barrel, action) and suppressor,

I have cleaned it and oiled it the best I could tonight on returning home, still need to remove barrel and action from stock but screws are seized which I will work on tomorrow. Is there anything I should be doing extra? drop it off to gunsmith to get trigger and bolt/firing pin cleaned up?

Spray it all with CRC or Inox?

Do I need to do anything to suppressor or ammo?

Cheers FBD

Should be fine just give everything (except the stock) a good bath in CRC 556 or similar and then wipe down. Make sure you get it in all the gaps/cracks to displace water.

WD 40 is a better water removal spray on oil
Spray or soak in oil
Use compressed air to remove water and excess oil from the trigger and hard to reach places

Leave apart for a while to allow stock to dry naturally and not in sunshine

Should be just fine

In future maybe a spear gun for fish would be more appropriate 😁

to remove those stubborn screws spray with penetrating oil and work it in by tightening and loosening the screw every few minutes. No need to crank on the force but the gentle movement should work in the oil without doing any damage to the threads.

For seized / rusted parts, buy a product called Yield, is expensive but best I’ve every used. Probably get from Tradezone or other Engineers supplies

Id be using a bit of the CRC soft seal very good stuff. You can even wipe out the barrel with it which is where you dont want any corrosion happening.
Id lighly grease the under side of your barrel before re-fitting it to your stock.

Put it somewhere very warm so it dries quickly, in the winter I put wet rifles a couple of metres from the log burner so that they hit about 40 degrees and dry fast.

put a dehumidifier into a cupboard and leave the rifle in there. obviously you'd be chilling nearby.

after that has gotten most of the moisture i'd follow the others suggestions.

In a hot car with window down a little, or on hot veranda boards in the sun but with a dark sheet etc covering from direct sun. Will be dry in an hour. Barrels get hot firing so dont worry too much about the metalwork

crc or wd40....take the scope off and keep it well away from them both..... DO NOT put it in hot water cupboard or in longue in sunlight and go off to work..... I will clean mine,sit barrel down in cabinet for couple of days then get it out and clean it again.... if you have a dehumidifyer....treat rifle like some washing,put in room with dehy doing its thing...will be dryer than a dry thing in no time.

Thanks all,

Stripped downed, dried out and cleaned up the old Sako L579 action has a bit of pitting and blueing removed on the side plates but she has cleaned up pretty well. The local H&F shop suggested a spray can corrosion XX as a good alternative to CRC and helped me with a seized action screw. Laminated bedded stock dried out well and has had a fresh couple of coats of stock/timber oil, even got a few grass seeds out from under the floating barrel, so worth the strip down. which I will do more often now.

The old girl took a few knocks on this trip so I will sight it in again shortly, but its looking better than it has for a while. Mask and snorkel next time I head up river..

Cheers

Have a good look at the scope, an older scope taking a swim could end up being foggy at a later date. Cool the thing down and then take it somewhere hot is one way of checking, nothing worse than trying to line an animal up and not being able to see through the tube! Other than that laminated stock rifles are almost as good as synthetic stocked rifles, almost impervious to water if cleaned afterwards. Biggest point to note is the springs are carbon steel for heat treating and very prone to corrosion. Strip out everything like a spring ie mag spring, firing pin spring, and get to the trigger springs as best you can and check and wipe them off and lightly oil with a good persistent non-gumming oil. DexronIII ATF is one option...