Best way to break in new gun

J

jbylake

New member
I have a new FRIANCHI o/u and it's stiff as heck. What's the best way to "loosen" it up a bit. Thanks ahead,
J.
 
Not familiar with Franchi's but check your owners manual to see what they recommend for cleaning. My Browning Citori manual recommended grease for the hinge pins during cleaning and not gun oil. For the initial cleaning I stripped all of the factory lubricant using CLP then greased all the moving hinge parts. Helped a lot, then as birddude said, shoot the piss out of it.
 
birddude said:
Remove all lubes, shoot the piss out of it.
Click to expand...
This. The gun will not loosen up unless it sees lots of wear and tear.
And by remove all the lubes, I would completely tear that gun down and remove lubes from everywhere, especially the internal cocking mechanism. Even that probably won't make much difference but needs to be done anyways.
 
I've had a gunsmith file down the action slightly on a new Beretta to loosen it up. Says the Italians like their new guns super stiff. Just sort of a cultural preference.
 
i'd leave it be
 
gimruis said:
Stiff? As opposed to being limp?

Shotguns are sturdy items. I am confused by what this even means.
Click to expand...
Assuming he means the break action. My new over/under was stiff as hell out of the box. Still is but is much better than before. A new over/under is incredibly stiff compared to a well used one. My dad has a 35 year old Citori that falls open when he breaks the action, my new one opens up but hangs up and I have to manually open it. Just takes time to wear them in.
 
Removing all lubricants and running metal on metal without any lube is a recipe for disaster.
 
I've had Beretta and Browning O/U's. The Berettas were by far the stiffest out of the box, to the point of having to break them open over your knee. The "removing lubricants" route made it even worse, so I chose to lubricate moderately and shoot the guns. I shoot of lot of skeet and sporting clays so it went fairly quickly, but it took over 1,000 rounds for the Berettas to start feeling "smooth".

The Brownings came with much heavier "grease" so I cleaned and re-lubed them with my usual gun grease/oils. Even after multiple thousand rounds, they still feel stiffer than the worn-in Berettas, though not to the uncomfortable/hard to open or close.

As previously stated, It appears that the Italians like to start with a stiff gun and let it wear in. My Berettas have 10's of thousands of rounds through them and they fall open, but lock up tightly. Better with age seems to be the rule.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top