Storing O/U Newbie questions\
- Thread starter harrygun
- Start date
Beretta687EELL
CGN frequent flyer
- Location
- SW Ontario
Drop the hammers and relieve the top lever. This takes the pressure off the springs. You may need to use snap caps or something similar to drop the hammers.
Maritime Storm
CGN frequent flyer
- Location
- Riverview, NB
I have the same routine every trip back from the club. The gun gets field stripped, the wood get a coat of wax, all grease gets removed from the action, the barrels are cleaned, then tubes are removed, wiped clean, re-lubricated and re-installed. The wax is buffed, moly grease is applied to the trunions and ejector cocking cams, every third time it's used a drop of oil on the cocking arms and ejector arms. I then reassemble the gun, open it, drop in 2 snap caps, release the hammers and store it in the vault until used again. The whole routing makes me appreciate the maintenance on my slide action guns a whole lot more.
Only if it's got inertia hammers Fiddler... If they are mechanical he can just pull the trigger twice...
Cheers
Jay
I've got single selective triggers. So every time the gun is broken open it will #### the gun/hammer?
And when you lock it you just hold the lever and let it ease into middle? When you close the gun as well you can hold the lever open and let it down slowly as well?
Thanks for all the help. I've got an older browning citori and want to make it last before it's gotta get tightened up.
And when you lock it you just hold the lever and let it ease into middle? When you close the gun as well you can hold the lever open and let it down slowly as well?
Thanks for all the help. I've got an older browning citori and want to make it last before it's gotta get tightened up.
If you want to open the gun and not #### it remove the fore end and then break the gun down . also you only need to cycle the safety after you drop the first hammer on a snap cap in order to have the trigger work for the second hammer .
Ahsan Ahmed
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
It won't damage the firearm.
However, it is best practise to always relieve the tension prior to storage. Simply follow the procedure outlined in post #2.Gently snap shut (no need to slam) in order to close the breech. That shotgun should already be sufficiently worn in for the operation to be carried out smoothly. Moreover, allow the top lever to move back to its default resting position on its own accord - there is no need to hold the lever and coax that gently back into the middle while you close the action (actually I wouldn't recommend that).
Somewhat confused about your 2nd question - assuming you actually meant the act of opening the breech? If so, just move (ease) the lever right to a point (where that comes to a stop) and apply gentle pressure to break open the barrels. I would hope the Citori likely hasn't reach that phase (its a good thing) where the barrels might swing down on their own accord the moment the lever is moved.
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Ahsan Ahmed
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Yes, the idea is the top lever should move freely back to its resting point when the breech is closed. In other words, that length of travel must not be somewhat restrained in any manner using the thumb.
- Location
- Barrie, Ontario
From an engineering perspective, spring steel can retain its rated load indefinitely without affecting service life. Perfect world stuff.
That said, I use well oiled snap caps in all my firearms.
C
Ahsan Ahmed
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
True. There will be no adverse effect, so to speak. I suppose most folk (mainly grey haired as I am) do so more out of old habit than anything else. Something akin to moving the lever to park and activating the hand brake too - well, that was an awful analogy but you get the drift.
Beretta687EELL
CGN frequent flyer
- Location
- SW Ontario
Keith Sprangers, who is the chief engineer and designer of the Kolar shotguns told me to always drop the hammers and relieve the top lever spring. When I shot the Beretta, I would take it into Beretta at the Grand every year. The Beretta USA Service Manager told me the same thing. He also said to hold the lever to the side when closing the action of an O/U and once the action was closed, release the lever.
Ahsan Ahmed
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Any idea as to the rationale behind the advice from Kolar (although I'm sure there is an explanation)? In the case of a coil spring, even if one does break off, the firearm will still be in operation unlike a scenario with leaf spring breakage.
The recommendation of holding the lever at a full stop and closing the action prior to release is both interesting and strange (to me). Again, any idea what may be the logic behind this?
Beretta687EELL
CGN frequent flyer
- Location
- SW Ontario
Nope, I didn't ask. The message was very clear and I figured that they both knew what they were talking about and I know nothing about that stuff.
Ahsan Ahmed
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
It would be interesting if anyone here could shed light on the two questions above.....
WRT holding back the lever, I had owned a used 686 SP that had it's top lever always come to rest slightly off-centre when you closed the breech. However, once, I happened across by chance that putting the lever "on hold" and releasing that after closing the breech consistently positioned the lever to the far right. I attempted to manually nudge the lever to it's original position nearer to the center but failed to do so. Admittedly, I didn't use force the few times I had tried that. Never pursued any logical explanation for such an occurrence either. These things are built to appropriately tight and precise tolerances - would be interesting to learn what possible impacts may be visible down the road if one were to always follow that method of closing the breech for a considerable period of time.
WRT the practise of relieving spring tension to avoid any possible damage over the long term - personally, over the past 42 years, I only ever recall witnessing two occasions - one was where a main spring on a beautiful Jeffery sidelock cracked and had to be replaced. The other was a tumbler on a William Evans shotgun that we found in two pieces after a hunt trip. Where I come from, most of my folks never bothered with dropping the hammers post cleaning/re-assembly. They simply checked to ensure guns had empty chambers and just stood those up on the rack.
WRT holding back the lever, I had owned a used 686 SP that had it's top lever always come to rest slightly off-centre when you closed the breech. However, once, I happened across by chance that putting the lever "on hold" and releasing that after closing the breech consistently positioned the lever to the far right. I attempted to manually nudge the lever to it's original position nearer to the center but failed to do so. Admittedly, I didn't use force the few times I had tried that. Never pursued any logical explanation for such an occurrence either. These things are built to appropriately tight and precise tolerances - would be interesting to learn what possible impacts may be visible down the road if one were to always follow that method of closing the breech for a considerable period of time.
WRT the practise of relieving spring tension to avoid any possible damage over the long term - personally, over the past 42 years, I only ever recall witnessing two occasions - one was where a main spring on a beautiful Jeffery sidelock cracked and had to be replaced. The other was a tumbler on a William Evans shotgun that we found in two pieces after a hunt trip. Where I come from, most of my folks never bothered with dropping the hammers post cleaning/re-assembly. They simply checked to ensure guns had empty chambers and just stood those up on the rack.
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