clean it everytime you take it out and shoot it and you should not have any problems with it the remington is a well built gun. its like changing the oil in your car you never want to do it but you know you have to. the barrel will rust if left fouled for an extended period of time and most of my pump guns have wear marks on the bottom of the barrel or mag tube just the nature of the beast i guess. clean the barrle and lightly oil it and the action and the outside metal parts and every few times you clean it spray gun scrub into the action and it will last to be your grand kids first gun