air tight or vented
 

I took my luger out of the safe to clean it today as i do every 2-3 mo's. it is an airtight small safe that i have been using for about 5 year's now. i've allways cleaned the gun and left it un-wrap'ed. the gun dosen't look as nice as it did a year ago, i have been using WD 40 and 3 in1 oil.
Is being kept in an airtight safe a bad idea? or should it be vented where air can cir. around it.
Thank's for any advice.

Well, not to be a pain, but unless it sucks the air out, it isn't air tight.

In addition, WD40 is not a good oil; as it stands for water displacing; and 3 in 1 oil is good for sewing machines and the like.

I would think that using specific gun oils like hoppes or breakfree or the like might be a better idea.

Letting it have air circulating around it in Georgia sounds like a bad idea to me....


Ed

Air tight has one advantage -- you won't worry mice could live inside :)

Small safe can try this:

Link: Dehumidifier

Applying light oil for storage is not a good idea. Light oil flows, and could stain the wood grip panels.

Renaissance Wax works well.

Link: What is R Wax?

WD 40 will gradually damage the finish. As Ed says, it's a water displacer, not an oil or lubricant.

Thank you all for your advice, i think i will go with breakfree as Ed suggest.

air tight storage
 

how about that stuff you can find in shoe boxes, plastic medicine bottles, etc. (Sometimes little bags, sometimes plastic capsules).
How about putting this stuff together with a gun in an air tight container to absorb the rest moisture?

Andy,

Should work. Mauser used them in their post war Parabellum boxes as well:

Silicon bag absorbs moisture, but you need a rechargable one. This thing saturates after absorbing certain amount of moisture. In long term gun storage context, there are two options: (1) you drives the moisture out of them; or (2) you throw it away and put a new bag in.

Rechargable means option (1). You put saturated silicon package into oven of 350F for a few hours and silicon will be dry again and its moisture absorbing function is restored. Regular silicon bag is not chargable because the bag is paper made.

Silicon in paper bag is an excellent choice for manufacturer of shoes, self-assembly furniture box, etc. Low cost, one time usage, good enough.

The above dehumidifier.com products are nothing more than silicon. Silicon color changes from blue (dry) to pink (wet) so you know when it's saturated. The ones hold in aluminum container is rechargable. There are at least two packaging forms.

I still run against BreakFree (tm). It does not effect gun blue, but that's only part of the story. No effective way to prevent it flowing to the wood grip panels. It's liquid, what would you expect. For gun cleaning, it's an excellent choice, but for gun storage, I reserve my concerns.

I belive the stuff is called Silica Gel you can order it at the following link:
http://www.silicagel.net/index.html

Jim

I use a product like this.
http://www.gunsafes.com/Browning-Eve...umidifier.html

Just for info.....i went to wallmart this morn. to buy some breakfree, it is now called "Winchester" breakfree CLP.. same stuff, same name and address on the can. same price, just a diff. color black and gray. i guess winchester bought them out?

I think that, like the Winchester brand, it was probably bought by the Herstal / FN group.

Judging from their websites, Breakfree is owned by Safariland.

Thank you!
 

Thank you all!

Remington makes a rechargeable dehumidifier designed for safes. This past year we added a sunroom to our lower floor, and put a hot tub in it. Unfortunately my safe is on the lower floor. Rust has become a major issue as the hot tub makes a salt-water mist. I caught what was going on with the handtools in my work room :crying:as well as a suit of armor I was working on. Until I could rectify the problem I got the remington gun safe dehumidifier as a short term fix,,,:thumbup:,,, it worked really well. I do use breekfree, I do clean monthly, and I only open the safe to get what I need. I recharge it weekly by just plugging it in the wall for six hours or so and then back in the safe it goes. When the crystals go pink it's time to recharge. At the cost of 25 dollars or so it's a cheap fix considering the cost of what it's protecting. It's taking care of a 42 gun safe which is pretty good size. I imagine a smaller safe without a hot tub close by would last much longer,,,, but it's rechargeable so who cares?

I finally did resolve the mist issue, but that's another story.