Re: cleaning the bore.
Whatever you use to clean the thing, ALWAYS use some kind of protectant to coat the surface of the bore.
MAP is a cleaner only. It is dangerous to the bore if the bore is not protected.
I like fredj's sugestion to use an acohol patch or three to wipe put any ka-ka like moisture, peroxide and so forth.
Then oil the thing. Bore Butter the thing, or use something.
I do NOT like WD-40, but if it were handy and nothing else available I'd use it.
WD-40 is great for loosening rusty bolts. When this junk first came out years ago, Dad drowned all his guns in the stuff. Everybody did. Year later, he became ill and did not shoot or hunt. He still drowned his guns in WD-40. he died and I took his guns home some time later. One day I decided to clean 'em up and use 'em. They were varnished tight! The blueing had a brown coat that looked like shellac. I took them to a gunsmith friend who soaked the metal in solvent of some sort to disolve the junk. I don't know what the solvent was, but the smithy said that WD-40 kept him busy.
I've heard that WD-40 has been changed and won't varnish anymore. Don't know.
I'm cuurently using 'Slick-50' spary oil. Seems o.k. I like Rem-Oil also. For long term storage I doubt you could beat LPSIII.
By all means run an alcohol patch downbore followed by a dry one before loading.
