Best remedies for drowned handguns?

Blow dryer/hair dryer. It gets hot but not hot enough and the blasting compressed air is enough to drive out most water. Then I would say WD is fine too but I hate the smell. Reoil and you're good to go.
 
Neetsfoot oil is good for leather.
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It will soften leather holsters and ruin them.

After cleaning and lubing the gun, put it in a plastic bag (leave it open some) and shove it into the holster while the holster dries out at room temperature.

This is how leather is shaped and formed into a holster in the first place.
Wet, insert form, allow to dry.
 
ZeSpectre's post reminded me of how we cleaned our M-60 MGs after range or field time. We'd sneak them off to the mop closets in the latrines and blast them out with hot water. The hot water would heat the metal up enough so that it would evaporate the residual water. Of course we'd oil them well- (at Schofield Bks, everything got oiled well) and never had a rust problem. This method of cleaning was also very good for your upper body strength as well... it seems that getting caught always resulted in doing lots of push ups.
 
WD 40 still excells at water displacement. It also protects those nooks and crannies inside the gun.
A heat gun is a handy tool. They cost about $10 from Harbor Freight. Keep the heat gun away from plastic framed guns.
 
And, as the oils in WD-40 decompose, they fill those nooks and crannies with a nasty, sticky varnish that is a huge pain in the butt to remove.
 
I'm well aware there's better stuff than WD40, but that's what almost everybody has NOW or can easily score more or less anywhere...from a neighbor if necessary.

This is a case where acting NOW with something "good enough" is better than waiting for the "best" solution to come available.

My motorcycle has a cast-iron front brake rotor. Within half an hour of drizzle I'll see rust on it if it's been parked. Mind you, it comes right off the first time I hit the brakes but braking power is a bit down that first time, so I have to do a couple of controlled stops to get the crap off. Point is, rust can set in MUCH faster than people realize, and gun springs are the parts most likely to rust.

Because even in a stainless steel gun, the springs ain't stainless.
 
With steel guns you can unload the guns, remove any plastic or wood grips, and dunk 'em in boiling water for about a minute.

the heat dries 'em back off FAST when you pull them back out. Then re-lube RIGHT AWAY to keep 'em in good shape.
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I tried this with a cosmoline saturated SKS one time. I was astonished at how fast it rusted. It went from bright metal to red rust in a few seconds. The SKS was blued not Parkerized.
 
"that's what almost everybody has NOW or can easily score more or less anywhere...from a neighbor if necessary."

Most people have an oven.

I'd say that most people also have a hair dryer.

A quick trip to just about any store will get you rubbing alcohol or brake parts cleaner.

A dunk in denatured 90% alcohol might even be better than brake parts cleaner.

Sometimes the "best" solution is, in the long run, actually the worst because of the additional issues it causes.
 
I try to avoid rain because the water will make me melt. You know, 'cuz I'm so sweet.;)

My carry guns are plastic. The steel bits get a good wipe down and blowdrier treatment. Once I am satisfied with the steel I go over the lower half with blowdrier and q-tips. Spray with Rem-Oil and we are good.

Not that I would need to clean them, my guns are "Perfect":p
 
It has been my experience that WD 40 will not gum. I have never seen it happen in 35 + years of using it.
WD 40 WILL dissolve old, dried up oils-and if you don't use enough WD40 to flush those out you will see varnishing and gumming.
 
Recent Kayacking upscuttle had me flip in the brackish waters of my local tidal estuary. The pistol was a S&W model 60. After my yacking was done I got home stripped the rubber grips fired up the teapot first rinsed it in as hot a water as comes from the tap and then flushed with boiling water from the tea pot. Then into a 225 f oven for 30 minutes a generous dose of CLP and a drain on a newspaper and then a wipe down. THe ammo 5 +5 went to range work and did fine. It was nearly time to swap out ammo anyway. I use the timne changes to trplace smoke detector batteries and carry ammo.
 
Rusty Duck cleaner, in Sept 2004 my house was flood 3 times in 3 weeks. After the first time I got all the guns out and got a case of Rusty Duckgun cleaner it dries moisture cleans great. Just don't soak your lap with it, it ain't no fun.
 
When a couple of mine handguns got drenched in a sudden houston downpour, I brought them home, wiped them down and then first cleaned them with denatured rubbing alcohol which took all of the water off and dried them completely. I then soaked them in a bath of oil for a day, a couple of days to "drip dry" then I put them back together and no problems. Grips were off obviously. That was years ago and no rust yet, so it worked for me.
 
denatured rubbing alcohol
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Rubbing alcohol (isopropyl alcohol) is not fit for consumption, so it does not require denaturing.
It will make you vomit in very short order.

Denaturing is adding other chemicals to ethyl alcohol (the drinking stuff) to render it unfit for consumption.

If you are going to use isopropyl at least search for the 90% stuff.
It can absorb more water that the 70% stuff, that is already 30% water.
 
My guns are so well lubed and greased they laugh in the face of water!
Seriously i gotta lay off the white silicone stuff,im over doing it.
 
My Brother dropped my Dads Colt 1911 army , in Bear Lake in 1974 in Mannatoba Canada. Was like 50' deep. It's still there.
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How about your brother? With my family he would probably be down there with the gun, or at least wishing he was!
 
First unload and remove the gtrips. If the gun got dunked in salt water, rinse with fresh water to get any salt out of it. I then blow out as much water as possible with canned air, like is sold for cleaning computers. I then do the WD-40 treatment, followed by 90% alcohol, which you can get at any drug store or Wally. Then blow it out again, and lube like normal. Don't forget the magazines. They need to be cleaned and dried also.
 
don't put a gun in the oven. the springs are small, and take the heat more than the gun, and even 250 degrees can alter the heat treat of the springs. people can argue, but I have seen the heat treat in expensive knives change with just exposure to commercial dishwasher temps.


dunk it in any form of petroleum based solvents you can with the grips off. I have used mineral spirits in a cake pan often. add enough to cover the gun.

water will drop off the gun and cling to the bottom of the pan, so having a little cooling rack for cookies, or a trivet in the bottom of the pan will keep the gun above the water. after just a few minutes, take the gun out, dry and relube with whatever your normal gun oil is.
 
Dang there's a lot of replies :)

I do the boiling teapot to mine or a bucket of HOT water when I am cleaning my Ruger Blackhawk's.

They're Blued and I've never had an issue doing it that way.

All I do is remove the grips then dunk them and shake 'em up real good then pull them out and shake them off blow them out and they're dry in in moments and I can then oil them no problem.

I clean my BP rifle the same way...
 
"It has been my experience that WD 40 will not gum. I have never seen it happen in 35 + years of using it."

While I, on the other hand, HAVE seen it leave a very nasty, very gummy, and very hard to remove residue.

One of the people who used to work for my Father thought it would be a good idea to spray the pivots and mounts on one of his transits with WD-40 after they got caught in a sudden rain.

Around the same time Dad got a total station, and the transit was shelved. About 18 months later we had to use it again. Or, I should say, we tried to use it again.

I got the duty of cleaning it. The WD-40 had worked its way into the base plate and made it virtually impossible to turn the thing. It took me the better part of a week to fully disassemble it, clean it, put it back together, and run a series of calibration checks on it to make sure that it was still accurate.

I've also seen similar residue left on guns that have been hosed with WD-40 and then been put into long-term storage.

I simply won't use WD-40 on my guns anymore. It's not worth the hassle.
 
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