How to: Stop a gun from rusting?
 

I have a Mossberg 500 that's starting to rust on the outside of the barrel.

Please school me on how to stop this process.

oil, clp, froglube. many options friend, just keep it lubed and rust will be a thing of the past.
I had the same thing happen to my bedside 500 from lying on the carpet, used fine steel wool and clp and wiped right off!

Hmm. Need to find steel wool.

How do you store it? Never keep it in a soft case or hard case for a long period of time. Always keep a good oil on it and that's pretty much it

Boom.

I keep it in a case because of safe restrictions. Not anymore though

Forget about oiling it. In a short time oil will move, leaving the steel susceptible to rust again. IMO, your best bet is to use RIG (Rust Inhibiting Grease), made by Birchwood Casey and sold by Brownell's and others. It contains calcium sulfonate and is the best rust preventative you can put on you guns. With RIG in the barrel and chamber and on the exterior, I've stored guns for years without a spot of rust on any of them.

An old piece of T shirt impregnated with RIG and wiped over the guns after handling and before putting them in the rack will insure that they'll be free of rust. I've used this method for over 40 years.

look up Eezox, found to be the best rust inhibitor by far.

Eezox is highly toxic to breathe or touch. look up the msds of the main ingredient.

Salt water.

Lps-3

cosmoline lots and lots of cosmoline muhahahaa:43:

store it in a bucket of mineral oil :D

Only if you DONT like your finish. Stick with Brass and keep it oiled.

What is your current storage technique? Safe, Case, Gunsock, dehumidifer, keep it in the truck... ???

Frog lube or some other rust preventative, plus this in the safe: http://www.amazon.com/Reusable-desic.../dp/B003NUWSQS

I use the brass Chore Boy scouring pads and some oil for rust. Good for lead removal, too!

Saturate a piece of #0000 steel wool with some WD40 and use it to lightly scrub off the rust. #0000 will not harm bluing and the WD40 acts as a lubricant. Once it's clean, pick one of the products already mentioned.

Frog lube non toxic answer also makes it smell minty fresh ( for a little bit)

TCE is not the main ingredient it's just in there and has to be listed due to the law.

Any petroleum based lubricant is also toxic. What's your point????

Living near the ocean for quite some time I've had the same issues.

One: you will never stop rust, you will only delay it.

Two there is nothing that you can apply to a piece of steel that will stay there forever providing rust protection. Although Cosmoline is close.

Here's what I do.
Once every couple of months on my firearms that are stored I pull them out and wipe them down with an oily rag.
Shotguns: I spray a rust preventative oil on a swap and run it through the barrel.
Rifles: after I clean them after a shoot ing trip the bore gets a light coat of oil then a clean patch to remove excess oil.

My guns don't sit long enough to get rust in the bore.

Other weapons that are handled from time to time get a wipe down more often.

Notice I said Oil and not Brand X or Y. You pick something, Some oil either conventional or synthetic that has an SAE weight of about 10 or less. This is typical of nearly all gun oils. I'm just adding it as a note on what not to use. Now WD40, Liquid wrench, or any thin oil in a spray can is a bad idea to use as most are diluted with a solvent and that solven will was away the existing oil on your firearms. Now the exception to that rule is spray grease's and LPS 2 or 3. those are specifically made to spray on thin and thicken up with a fast evaporating carrier. I personally don't care for spray on stuff.
Nearly any oil will work. Me personally I have a five gallon bucket of turbine oil. Very good an expensive stuff. But it makes a very nice GP lube around the shop. And when I didn't pay for it, It's make a very cheep gun oil

And for that matter while I'm talking about Turbine oil plain old 3 in 1 works too. good stuff been around for years and doesn't carry the wizzbang BS logo and high price tag.
There is one product I will mention by name other then 3 in 1 and thats Corrosion X for guns. I keep a bottle of that in my cleaning kit and the stuff works great. It's not cheep but it just something I use.

For reference:

A little test I did.

A bigger/better test.

YMMV, and the tests aren't scientific, but this should give you a good starting point.

.

This or RIG.

For the record; steel wool will screw up your gun's finish.

That is all.

That depends on the cut of the steel wool
0000 steel wool would be hard pressed to do anything to any but the most finely finished firearms, And a Mossberg 500 is not finely finished.
That said unless you know what you are doing or are willing to accept the risk don't try it.

I'm curious to know if you have screwed up the finish on a gun with quad ought steel wool and what kind of finish it was.

It depends on the finish. Polished blue is fine, does nothing to anything I've used it on. Matte blue, don't do it, you'll make a shiny spot. Stainless, don't know haven't tried it.

Frog lube and safe with dessicants, get the $30 ones that allow you to plug into wall to reheat/dehydrate them.

i had issues with 1 or 2 of the guns in my safe, they would rust up even if the one right next to it wouldnt.

, ive switched to bosheild t9 and so far so good, a guy on another board posted up pics of steel washers he treated with 10 difference products and bosheild and eezox were the winners hands down.

For rust...this:)

Boeshield T9 and ZCORR bags.
The bags have been 100% and still work after 6 years. I have turned all of my firends onto these bags and they have gotten the same results. Cheap insurance.

it is the antirust ingredient, and it is a highly carcinogenic substance, much worse than your average petroleum product. Breathing it in or having it on your skin (it will absorb through) is a bad idea and a bad day in the future. Do whatever you want, I'm just advising you as someone who knows about cancer, carcinogens, and stupidity.

It's only "highly carcinogenic" if you choose to say it is. It is only considered a Carcinogen in CA. The US in general consider TCE as a "Possible carcinogen"
and that is a occupational exposure levels.

Ever use nonflammable brake cleaner or non chlorinated contact cleaner?? It's in there too. It's the replacement for 111 Trichlor
And by the way it evaporates so fast it can be used as a rust preventative.

Any Lubricant/anti corrosion that is not toxic in nature? please clarify Bro!, Chlorine is toxic too but we ingest that all our life.

to the op, dont believe the fud, like I said, I have used 0000 wool on my mossy 500 and it worked great for surface rust

Not a gun thankfully, but I did develop light rusting on a stock 10/22 barrel and decided to to the steel wool and oil thing. Scratched it up and dulled it a bit; nothing too crazy but noticeable.

Though I'm not sure what type of steel wool I used, let me check and ill edit this post.

EDIT- ok, I used Norton Extra Fine 000 steel wool with Hoppe's oil (orange bottle)

EDIT: Sorry, I misspoke. Fine bronze wool for barrel finish rust removal. It's been awhile so I checked my gun repair supply shelf and there it was.
Ray

Cosmoline

I use this for my parts.

http://www.uline.com/Product/Detail/...nti-Rust-Paper

Get a bigger safe

Why is this thread still going?

water + salt + a local democrat

If you look at a MSDS for any of our cleaning agents you will find something.
I sold to the prison system.They wanted MSDS for products going to convicted criminals. Go figure