I know quite a few of you
have taken Cosmolene off of firearms, but how many of you have ever put it on?
I have cases of the stuff at work, and you can buy some too.
if you were to use some for long term storage of firearms, I bet you could figure out a way to do so without covering the STOCK.
Apparently, personnel responsible for racking military firearms are less discriminating.
The 342 is the good stuff.
When I wanted to put some spare gun parts in deep storage I coated them with the same liquid alox(Xlox from White Label Lubes ) I use to tumble lube bullets. A little goes a long way and it isn’t as messy as cosmo.
Since we are talking long term storage, why not separate the stock from the metal? It only takes a few minutes more and ensures the metal gets coated all over. Store the wood or plastic in a different bin.
Actually, removing the metal, cosmolening it, and reassembling it with a film barrier (think saran wrap) is the preferred method among professionals. The magic behind Cosmolene is that it creeps- even hard and dry, it will re-cover an area that has been scraped away. The British have a similar product called Waxoyl, which was intended to be used to rustproof Land Rovers, but land rovers rustproof themselves handily with motor oil and gearlube.
I would imagine dipping the weapon in warm cosmoline should do the trick. Kind of like soaking a motorcycle chain in gear lube.
I think they considered greasing the wood to be part of the process. I’ve cleaned up old milsurp rifles that had obviously been disassembled, everything coated INCLUDING THE INSIDE OF THE STOCK, and then reassembled. And then the outside smeared with enough to have kept my portable forge from rusting for the next 8-12 years..
Include in the above a #4Mk1 Enfield that even had the cleaning/stock bolt hole in the stock filled, AND the butt and inside of the buttplate smeared with it before the screws went back in.