Trapdoor Rifles

Direct Sunlight will gradually fade that color casehardening.

Fred Gaarde wrote: ↑Wed Feb 19, 2025 10:26 pm Direct Sunlight will gradually fade that color casehardening.

Haven't had any experience with that, but I can say that WD40 does not - at least in my experience.

Dick Hosmer wrote: ↑Thu Feb 20, 2025 7:26 am Haven't had any experience with that, but I can say that WD40 does not - at least in my experience.

Here’s where we “part ways”, Dick . . .
I don’t allow WD40 ANYWHERE NEAR any of my firearms!
Used it once on a Garand rear sight, and when the “vehicle” evaporated, it left a varnish-like substance that DEFIED making any sight adjustments! (Took awhile to remedy!)
“Bye-bye, WD!”

WD40 is not a good lubricant (my opinion) if that's all you have then it will work. I use fine oils for the actions which seem to work. I just treated the stock in Snake Oil before finding out it's an original which works out well. Snake Oil is used by C Sharps on there Fine Rifles and what I use on mine.

Agreed - WD40 is not a good lubricant, I too use light oil, sparingly, for that. But, I have been rubbing-down my guns, all over, with a WD40 dampened rag for over 50 years and cannot see any deterioration. Now, I am a "features" and "correct as made" collector, as opposed to a "condition" collector where everything has to be minty, so only have a handful of guns with brilliant case-colors.

The purpose of WD40 is in fact in its name.
If my memory is correct WD40 was developed by the military for one purpose and that was to "displace water" so you have WD which stands for water displacement.
Then you have the number 40 which is the number of tries it took to get the correct amount of chemicals to displace water.

I read it was developed by NASA.

Fred Gaarde wrote: ↑Sat Feb 22, 2025 2:30 pm I read it was developed by NASA.

May have been Fred ??