Carpet Remnants Can Keep Your Feet Dry

the other night and came across a great tip.  It was applied to putting on your pheasant hunting boots, but I think it can be applied greatly to duck hunting.  I don't know about you, but I don't drive with my waders on.  While I am on my way to my hunting spot in the early morning I am wearing my standard duck hunting attire, a pair of Under Armour long johns and on top of those my wading pants (micro fleece pants with an elastic bottom to ensure they don't ride up while out in the duck blind).  If it is really cold I will put a heavy pair of sweat pants on top of those.  My waders wait until I get to my hunting spot.  If I were to put them on in the car I would likely sweat to high heaven and on top of that, while being much more comfortable than waders of decades past, they still are less comfortable than wearing just normal clothing.

Key thing to remember is that the places that we duck hunt are generally wet!  Even if you have a nice parking lot to put your waders on it is likely to be damp due to the early dew that comes with the night time temps and humidity.  And that doesn't even mention the sand and dirt that accompanies everything.  A quick, cheap solution for this is to use a carpet remnant to stand on taking off your normal shoes and putting on your waders.  I don't know about you, but the last time I replaced the carpet in my house I was left with a bunch of both the old carpet (assuming you didn't pay the installer to haul it away) as well as the extras of the fancy new carpet you just installed.  If you are like me and have extra lying around then you are in for a free foot drying piece of equipment.  Don't fret if you don't have extra lying around, ask neighbors if they have any and you will likely be inundated with more carpet than you know what to do with.  If that fails, you can always head to a local carpet seller and ask for a carpet remnant.  You obviously don't care what the carpet looks like or is made of, so I am sure they will have an extra piece somewhere that they will give you for free.

Once out in the field just grab the remnant from the back of your vehicle slap it on the ground and you are set.  Shake it off after you are done and place back in the vehicle to keep it dry and waiting for your next excursion into the duck slough.  Trust me there is little worse in this world than wet feet when setting your duck decoys.  And at least then you are moving around.  Once you are set up and waiting for the ducks to arrive your feet will surely start getting cold.  Keep them dry from the get go with a carpet remnant and you are one step closer to that successful hunt.

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The process is reasonably simple to do, but does require some attention to detail and a bit of patience.  I just had this exact problem and here is how I solved it.  At your local hardware / home store procure some #0000 (some refer to as four ought) steel wool.  Locate some penetrating oil (WD-40, Hoppes, or similar) and douse the rusted area(s) with the oil.  Allow to settle a minute or so.  With GENTLE pressure, use the steel wool to remove the rust.  I can't stress enough that it is better to have to do this many times than do it too hard and risk ruining the finish on your barrel.  Once you think you have done a good job, clean the entire outside of the barrel as you normally would and then check your work.  Odds are you missed a small portion of the rust.  If you look closely you will find it.  Rinse and repeat the process as described above as many times as it takes to remove the rust always making sure to rub gentle enough as to not ruin your barrel.  It may help to do this over the course of several days or weeks.  Once complete make sure to put a good rust inhibitor on the outside of the barrel to help keep the rust away.

What are your experiences with this or other method to remove rust from your shotgun?

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