Just this evening I checked out my firearms and to no surprise, there was rust developing. This is the second season in a row that I have had this problem. I made several observations this time around. The guns on the 2nd and 3rd stories of the house had substantially more rust.
I suspect that the moisture must be rising from the ground floor up.
Most of my guns were fine with only surface rust but my 7" peacemaker took the blunt of the moisture to where the cylinder pin was seized. This required taking the whole piece apart to hammer it out. The bore is clean but the exterior took a beating. There will be some minor pitting.
The musket had some surface rust even in the bore. At this point I have come to the conclusion that even liberal amounts of oil and greese will not stop the oxidation process.
Now this really makes me wonder what they really did way back when to keep thier firearms in working order. My guess is they carried a lot of kerosene.
Anyhow keep tabs on your weapons, my plight took only 5 days to become a major problem. The problem is related to humidity. Unclean guns will absorb more moisture than clean ones and the damage will set in much quicker.
Will
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If I only had a heart.............
thus the plight of the Tin Man in the wizard of Oz comes to full bear on the weapons of the household....I have some older weapons in my basement which if they werent already rusty I wouldnt do..But I find a genous wipe of wd-40 or some kind of spray lubriciant keeps the evil imp of oxidation at bay....I aslo run an Air purifer in the basement as well since I use it as a work area and I dont want to succumb to mold and other impurities in the air and It seems to take the moisture out of the air in that section....
Seamus
"it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifing......nothing"
MacBeth
Rust in peace
My house is very moist - humidity-wise so I store my guns with a couple "de-humidifier" packets inside the safe and that seems to work pretty good. Unfortunately, the Enfield is about 2-3" too tall so she is inside a sock (siliconed) which is then inside of a canvas case. After cleaning, the inside of the barrel is coated with Bore Butter and I noticed very little rust if any at all.
Gun safes
I have several guns that are too big for the safe as well but ironically the ones in the safe are worse off than the ones out of the safe. I have left the door to one safe open while closed the door to the other safe hoping to rest assure that I am not crazy. (insane yes, crazy no!) My results are that the safe with the closed door did have a higher occurance of rust. Now what is this about? Sure we can assume the open door allows the moisture to escape but why would there be moisture there to begin with?
I got the silcone and no problems. I think I can finally sleep at night. Though tomorrow I have a lot of guns to clean. We did a weekend shoot in Litchfield. It was fun and different. We did a couple of fire by company at about 85 yards at a steel plate 23"x33".
We did pretty good overall, with only one missing on ocassion. This person had never live fired even a mondern gun before. So for the 1st shooting musket he did pretty good.
Will
Silica Packs or maybe Damp Rid
Hey Will, What about putting a bunch of silica packs in the safe. Or maybe Damp Rid, it's a product for removing mosture from basements. I've bought Damp Rid at Home Depot but I imagine most decents hardware stores may carry it.
--
Michael Johnson
Damp Safe
I think the reason for the dampness inside the safe would come from condensation... While gun safes are... well SAFE... as in safe from unwanted prying hands... they are not Air tight nor in most cases water proof. I think Mike has the right idea. I have a gun safe myself and there's a dehumidifier sitting about 6 feet from it running all summer.
Major Eric R. Reeder
CSO, 1st Division ANV, Staff
Liberty Hill Signals
2nd Lt Eric R. Reeder United States Army Corps of Topographic Engineers "Hawks and Eagles fly like Doves"
Sounds good
I went with the silcon products. There is a plus side and that is it forces me to handle my firearms more often instead of leaving them sit in a safe for months at a time.
Will
My Thoughts on the Subject
It may be that the weapons have some moisture on them when you apply the oil or grease, and thus the moisture is trapped beneath the layer of oil. A thorough drying with a hand held hair drier would remove the moisture from the metal, and then applying a heavy coat of oil should keep the moisture away from the metal during storage. For long term storage they used to use cosmoline, which is about the consistency of vaseline. I don't know if you can still get cosmoline, but maybe vaseline will perform the same function. I'd test it out on something else first and make sure the vaseline doesn't do something crazy to gun metal, though I don't see why it should.
Bob Firth
Late of the 25th Mass
Regular use
Thanks for the input. This situation has only happened in the past two years and usually in late June to August. I have thought about what has been different in my storage but that was a dead end. What I have come to realize is that two years ago, the town has made everyone stopped sump pumping into the sewer lines. This may be a case of more moisture in the house than previous years. Bottom line is that I will need to check on my guns regularly during this season.
Will
rust
well there is one cure for a rusty fire arm and that is war. So I say the guns can rust in peace. Hawks and Eagles Fly Like Doves
Bacon grease
As a period lubricant,plus its a lovley smell in the heat of battle.
Seamus
"it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifing......nothing"
MacBeth
Bacon Grease
Seamus, have you ever used bacon grease as a lubricant or preservative? With all the salt in it I think you might as well soak your musket in salt water. And you know what that does to metal.
"Treason must be punished, even if we have to eat every turkey, chicken and pig in Virginia"
Pvt. John Haley, Co. I, 17th Maine Vol. Inf.
Bob Firth
actually I store my weapons
actually I store my weapons in salt water, it gives them that "ive been on campaign for a long time look" I also keep my buttons in a mason Jar of urine to get that certain Patina....
No Ive only heard of someone doing that as I find that sort of thing though on the surface to be a sound Idea,it also is awkward to keep bacon grease...But for the corrosive attributes I lived some time in the south and most county houshold still keep a tin can around for bacon grease. Tin unlike Stainless steel will rust with water contact and salt will eventually do the same, but I have never seen a rusty Bacon grease can. I have also used pam to grease my daughters swingset, but I may consider doing a test on the bacon grease theory
Seamus
"it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifing......nothing"
MacBeth
Worked for me
I grease my gun with bacon grease (when the barrel is hot from cleaning with boiling water). The last time I shot / greased my gun was 3 years ago. It's been leaning in a corner ever since and the only place with any rust is a little bit around the nipple...
Keep taking your blue mass!!
Asst. Surg. SD Scroggins
Rust season revisited
With all the rain we've been having you would expect my rust problem has continued if not increased. Now I have tried various methods and bits of advice short of moving to Arizona, but only marginal luck. UNTIL.....
I had mentioned Ballistol before and have been recomended by many cowboy action shooters!
Last month I had an chance to witness how well it works on my conversions which always jam up after the 1st two stages. Worked better than a charm! So I invested in some from Dixie Gun Works...only because it couldn't be found anywhere around here!
Here's how it works. For solid rust, it can be used straight (but read the directions...it's always recommended!) but with black powder is usually mixed with water to clean the gun. WATER! Yes, that very substance that has been causing my problems to begin with. (though use it straight in my case) It worked so well that I went at picked up a spray can at JVC. You can get it through Regt QM.
I am going to give my personal unpaid endorsement to this product and will buy it back if you don't agree it works better than anything else you have. Note, the stuff was developed in Germany during WWII. (This very well could be a Urban Ledgeon but it was developed by the Germans.)
For a sample check it out the Fort Knox or any other event you might catch me at.
Will
I have some Ballistol, which
I have some Ballistol, which I aquired on the recommendation of a reenactor at a camp reenactment I visited in New York. It seems OK, but not spectacular, maybe I am not usinf it right.
Before I put any any guns now, I try to give them a coating of Birchwood-Casey Sheath, which used to be available at Wal-mart, but I haven't seen any in stores recently, so I ordered a case on e-bay.
It gets rid of fingerprint marks, seems to keep a good long term coat on the metal, and when I take a gun out of storage, I can alwayd tell if I sprayed it with Sheath, it seems to leave a nice fine sheen.
But time will tell which works best.
Ballistol
Tom,
As I said, if you don't like it, I'll buy it from you! (Really! :) ) If you are using the aerosol spray, that's a bit different. For cleaning they recommend 1:1 ration to water and then pure to store. Been using the Caseys as well but without much luck. It's been several weeks and the only problem I have been having is with the guns that didn't have Ballistol. Too much rain! Blah!
Will