I leave for the musk ox hunt on the 22nd, I’ve got my 35 whelen sighted in, plenty bullets loaded and just to get in the mood, last night I was reading a Boddington article about hunting musk ox in the arctic. In this article he says you need to “completely disassemble your bolt and degrease it to prevent it from freezingâ€.

So being form the south and never having to worry about my rifle freezing I have a few questions.
Degrease it with what?
How do you disassemble a Remington model 700 bolt?
Plus if I need to disassemble and degrease the bolt, what about the trigger?
If I need to degrease the trigger, how do I do that without taking the rifle out of the stock, which will mean re-sighting it in.

Automotive Brake Cleaner on trigger and bolt... Rub a coat of wax on all metal surfaces below stock level. Put it back together and re-sight.

I was hoping to avoid re-sighting it in. I'm running on a pretty close time table. I'm taking the same rifle to South Dakota on the 11th and won't get back until the 17th. Which leaves little time to re-sight it in. I wasn't going to degrease it until I got back from SD but I guess I could degrease it this week, re-sight it this weekend and use it that way on both trips.

BTW I looked at the weather and temps, this week, are running in the mid 20s and low 10s. I also did a 7 year history and the temps could be in the high 20s or in the -20s

Well, we have snow on the ground here today so I can't really say those temps are all that unusual that much further N...

quote:

Degrease it with what?
How do you disassemble a Remington model 700 bolt?
Plus if I need to disassemble and degrease the bolt, what about the trigger?
If I need to degrease the trigger, how do I do that without taking the rifle out of the stock, which will mean re-sighting it in.

zero F isn't really that cold. But some lubricants will gum up.

If you degrease with brake cleaner as described and re-lubriucate with break-free or some other good synthetic lube you will be ok.

on a remington I would also remove the ejector and spring and thoroughly degrease

I think the better should be not degreasing, but cleaning off greese and using dry lubricant's, ie moly.

End of October is more like late fall than winter, so temps shouldn't be "cold". Cold is subzero, and that's when mechanical devices, and humans are less motivated to move. Above zero and all is well, which is more typical October weather.

Where are you going hunting? And assuming the temps you mentioned are in F and thats where your hunting then I wouldn't worry to much about if your using a good Rifle lubricant like breakfree and not wd-40.

If you where going hunting somewhere where its -20F or colder than I would start to worry. Then a trick is to leave the gun out side so it doesn't warm up, which causes condinsation and stuff. But that only when its really cold, not what you southeners call cold.
You're probaly breaking out your winter Jackets when it gets Below 40F while the rest of us are starting to look for our sweatshirts.
So anything about 0F isn't really cold.

I don't worry about my firearms until the temp dips belos -10 F. I had a custom rifle made once and the maker suggested using lighter fluid to degrease the trigger group. It is supposed to contain a slight/thin lubricant that will be all needed in extremely cold wx.

The only problem I have ever had was goose hunting at -18F. My semi-auto turned into a single shot. My rifles have had no problems to -20F hunting deer here in the north woods.

I'm older now and more willing to require enjoyment, not endurance, when it comes to my hunting experience. Especially in cold weather.

Regards,

Mike