Long term storage recommendations.

F

Felenari

New member
I'm moving to Colorado soon and I've got some blued guns I'd like to keep as nice as possible but all I've got are my Pelican cases for now. I have desiccant packs up the wazoo in there but I heard a thicker water displacing lubricant or grease wil also help leaps and bounds. The lever on my lever action has had some fine speckles of rust on it here and there so I've been wiping it down with a remcloth after I clean the firearm before storage. Any recommendations? I do live in CA so all the strong stuff is probably illegal here.
 
Define 'long term'. The time it takes to move, even from one state to another, isn't that long.
Desiccant packs literally wear out by getting saturated and require periodic replacement. They don't do much in a regular non-air tight case anyway.
Grease, any grease(even Vaseline, that is the same thing as Cosmoline.), is what you need for long term storage. And put 'em in big plastic bags, not your cases.
Remove the rust on the lever action with 0000 steel wool and light oil(regular gun oil will do nicely) then grease 'em.
Wax on wood stocks. Neutral shoe polish is wax.
 
I've always used RIG , wrapped with rust inhibiting paper and into a plastic bag.
Watch out for condensation , though CO is a fairly dry state.
Only a thin coat of RIG is necessary and this was the gun is ready to go without a big cleaning job.
 
Hard telling from the write up what you are doing (storing in CA?)

The desiccant packs would work fine with a Pelican case as its air tight.
 
The Western Slope is a lot drier than the Eastern Slope of the Rockies. When I lived in Rifle, CO, there was not an issue with humidity; back that was way back when everyone had glass fronted wooden gun display cases............

Silicone socks should help; whatever you do, DON'T bring SF to CO; they're already losing control to transplants there; enjoy your new home state and go shoot often!
 
T. O'Heir said:
Desiccant packs literally wear out by getting saturated and require periodic replacement. They don't do much in a regular non-air tight case anyway.
Click to expand...

But these are Pelican cases, which are airtight, and desiccants can actually do too much in them or in any other sealed case. If the desiccant has adequate capacity, it will dry out everything inside the sealed volume and will not wear out because no additional water comes in to replace what it picked up.

The problem in this situation is they can lower the moisture content of wood stocks to the point they start cracking. I don't know of any problem with synthetic stocked guns, but wood and wood finishes can be damaged, so I would watch out on that score. You only need to get relative humidity below about 68% to prevent most rust. A heater, like the Golden Rod heaters for gun safes, will do a good job of this but are too big for a Pelican case. What you can do, instead, is if you have a cool area like a basement, but one that's not too humid, you can let the guns and cases settle at that temperature, seal them and then store them in a warmer area than that.

Note that desiccants can get some organic vapors as well, so if you apply a protective coating that can be worn out by gradual evaporation, be aware the desiccant can accelerate that wear. Putting VPN in with a desiccant, for example, can use them up faster.

What heating does is increase the ability of the air to dissolve and hold water vapor. This doesn't reduce water content in the container, but it does increase how much of that water is held by the air, thereby reducing the amount in everything else in the box. In layman's terms, it's called drying by applying heat. But also, by holding on to the water harder, the warmer air makes it unavailable to promote rust.
 
Wow, didn't think I'd get this many replies this fast. Thanks all.

Long term is kind of up in the air for now. Anywhere between 6 months to two years ish. I'm storing a bkued rem 700 with a synthetic stock and crummy paint job, two pump shotguns with synthetic stock and the one I'm most worried about is my wood stock blued lever action. It's not a particularly amazing gun or anything but it's special to me and I try to keep it in as nice condition as possible. I didn't know wooden stocks could crack like that from it being too dry. Totally makes sense, it just never crossed my mind that a firearm could be too dry.

When I move to Colorado I'm going from the bay area California to Ukiah California first to finish the last few things on my trailer before we move. That could be a few weeks to a few months. After that I want to tour the country with my wife a bit before school if nothing terrible befalls us right before we leave this time. Knock on wood.

My wife and I have handguns for home defence so I'm not too worried about covering the guns in grease or anything but if oiling them really well and wrapping them in some oil paper works for a year then I'm game with that.

The rust on the lever was a very fine browning on the outside curve of the lever. When I wiped it with the rem oil cloth it left a rusty residue on the wipe but the finish looked brand new. Is the 0000 scrub necessary? It's a low serial henry so I don't want to damage it if I can help it.
 
RIG gun grease. Put a coat on and buff it in.

As for rust, don't use steel wool. Steel wool may be soft, but it's still steel on steel and the end result is you'll remove some of the bluing too. Instead use coconut oil and a nickel (yes, a 5 cent piece; nickel is softer than steel) to remove the rust. Then treat with RIG.

I don't trust foam. They tend to deteriorate over time.
 
I've stored guns with the following combination for more than 5 years with excellent results.

Wipe the guns down, inside and out with Breakfree Collector.

Then store in Poly Gun Bags. They will protect the guns in storage and keep the areas you couldn't oil from rusting.

They come in packs, but you can buy them in bulk if you ask.
 
I'll check out both thanks. I'm trying to sweet talk my lady into installing a secret hatch in the trailer with a lock box in it so we can take them with on the trip.
 
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