The Michigan firearms season starts on the 15th. Is it too late to clean my gun? I don't want to reek of gun oil on opening day.

I would clean it as usuall and place a HS scent wafer in the case with it for a few days. Should help a lot. I always thought if the deer smelled my gun oil I either used to much...or they are in range.

I guess it depends on what you use. I clean my guns at the kitchen table withM Pro 7 gun cleaner and Break Free CLP gun oil, and have never heard the wife complain of any smells.

Good luck, can't wait til Monday morning

What? Now we have to worry about when we clean our guns. I guess I will take my chances and clean my gun the day before hunting season any and every year.

I do the same only I clean it every night that I have fired it, probably not necessary but I dont like leaving anything to chance.

I THINK YOU GUYS ARE ASKING FOR TROUBLE! I have read many places that once your gun is sighted in leave it alone. Long before the season I give the bore a good scrubing with a multipurpose (copper, lead, powder) solvent and clean the action. Then it is off to the range to fire a couple fouling shots and sight in. After that it gets put away until opening morning. Accuracy can be seriously affected by any foreign substance in the barrel , especially oil. In fact, I try to remove most of the oil on the gun anywhere. That is to reduce scent to a minimum and when it gets really cold the oil in the action gets thicker and can bind it up. If it rains or snows while I am out I lightly wipe down the outside of the gun with oil but the barrel remains untouched.

I strip my gun completely after the season and give it a good cleaning. Lightly oil everything and store it. Then, like Tbone said, I will shoot the gun several times during the off season and lightly wipe it after shooting. Depending on how much I shoot it during the off season I may partially break it down and wipe it clean and reclean the barrel but I always try to have the barrel clean and dry by deer season.
I never have cleaned my gun the night before opening day though.

I have heard that too, as a matter of fact I have tried to duplicate the situation on my range with a freshly cleaned rifle but have never been able to see much of a difference. It has been written that the point of impact from a clean, cold barrel can be as much as 3-4 inches from that of a fouled barrel but I just cannot duplicate it. At the range, I will run a dry patch through the barrel after every five or six shots and allow about a minute between shots for sighting in purposes. Once I am satisfied the rifle is sighted in as good as it will get, I will fire several rounds of rapid fire to see what the effect will be on the point of impact with a hot barrel. As for odor being a concern, it doesn't worry me a whole lot, generations of hunters have somehow managed to do fine before these odorless oils came on the market, for those that do feel that this might be a problem, there are a couple of "Odorless" lubricants available at only slightly exorbitant prices. I think Outers has one on the market and there are likely several others as well.

If you clean the inside of the barrel you want to fire it at least twice befor you hunt with it. It will shoot different. at 200 yds a freshly oiled barrel will hit high on the first shot. I have done it several times at the range. the oil aloows the bullet to travel down the barrel more freely, it will actually have increased velocity. I wont clean my barrel during hunting season I do however wipe it down after every hunt, I'm not worried about deer smelling it from a 100 or 200 yds away, they cant.