how to clean a gun

q-tips serve great for cleaning guns.

My house never ran out of q-tips. They were used for everything, including the obsessive cleaning of my father's guns. Most hunters probably clean their guns every couple of years, or when they look like they need it. My father cleaned them religiously every year before his week-long trip for the start of deer season and even sometimes on his return. My father made guns last longer than most avid hunters could. My brother stated that receiving our father's guns after his death was like getting a brand new gun.

the dining room table is the proper place for cleaning guns.

Every year. Never fails. The dining room table was transformed into a gun shop work table. Of course, a sheet was laid down first. My father took apart his guns and swabbed them with special micro-fiber cloths and q-tips for the hard to reach places. This alone was a week-long process which wasn't terrible growing up because we had a kitchen table for family meals and an extra-long dining table for holidays. But then, my family moved and built a new house. The kitchen featured an island with a barstool-less bar (my mother has yet to purchase seating for it after almost 4 years in the house). This architectural shift led to a smaller dining room where the kitchen table for family meals was placed, and we got rid of the long table. So, deer season came around and we were left with couch dinner seating or an eat and run strategy.