Recently there have been posts regarding differant guncleaning solutions (CR-10, Wipe-out etc.) and their affect on wood. When thoroughly cleaning rifles (or oiling a stock), I sometimes remove the barreled action, so I can get to all the hard to reach places, and so that no harmfull guncleaning products come in contact with the wood. Since it seems that many don't seem to do this, are there any drawbacks about "dismanteling" a rifle in this way that I don't know about? I have seen no change in point of impact or anything else that might suggest this. Or am I doing the rifles a disservice without knowing it?

Erik D.

The only drawback to what you are doing is that some rifles have to be fired as many as ten times or so to "resettle" them in the stock after reassembly, so they return to zero and start shooting small groups again. The U.S. service M1's and M14's are particularly bad about this. For this reason, many match shooters using these rifles NEVER take them apart!

I see your point. I was however mainly thinking of bolt action hunting rifles. I don't know if this would make a differance. Sorry I wasn't more specific in the first post. Are there any other negative affects besides potential need for "re-settling" by shooting some rounds?

Erik D.

The main issue is the torque on the action screws.

If you have a rifle that's shooting the way you want it to, you'll want to get it back exactly where it was with regard to screw torque. To do this you can go one of two routes:

1. Use liquid paper or nail polish to create an index mark on the screw and the bottom metal and make sure they match up again when re-assembling. Of course, you have to be careful not to be one turn too loose, or too tight.

2. Buy a torque-driver/wrench and use it properly.

RSY

ErikD, great question. RSY answered your question the same as I would have. Most of my hunting rifles wear the dreaded "tupperware" style stocks but even then the whole action needs to be cleaned.
Washington state is not known to be a dry state, so some hunting, actually almost all of it is done in rain,sleet,hail,snow and of course rain. I have found that most, not all will return to same POI if torqued the same as they were.
Hell, I hunt with a couple of guys that have used the same gun for 25+ years and never had them out of the stock
It would be interesting to hear from say, Chic,allen day, bill leeper, jkobe and a few others as to how they handle this .