Thread: Maintaining firearms

Put one of these in your safe. Solved it for me

https://www.mitre10.co.nz/shop/dampr...B&gclsrc=aw.ds

Originally Posted by timattalon

I am not sure why you singled out blued steel. Stainless is a bit more rust resistant but will definitely rust.....I treat it the same as my blued now. It takes longer to rust as much but pitting is still a pain.

Just becomes apparent faster, all are cleaned and maintained at the same intervals

Originally Posted by 40mm

Or to remove those agents which are corrosive/harmful to firearms from New Zealand.

Stop giving the government ideas. They will end up banning water especially when they realise that will also have the upside of preventing floods, pollution in rivers and human tax leeches.

Oily patch in bore used to give a while over with inox now I use lanocote and store muzzle down

Originally Posted by muzza

a wee light bulb running in your gunsafe will keep moisture at bay - obviously an incandescent one , not an led.

Shouldn't have to be an incandescent one, all the power going into an LED bulb ends up as heat in the end anyway. I have a rod dehumidifier in the gunsafe, but when I wanted to protect the tooling in my milling machine cabinet out in the workshop I just put the lowest watt 240V LED bulb I could find in a $2 bayonet fitting from Mitre 10. A spare lead and a block of wood to mount it on - job done. I checked it on my way to work this morning - the base of the bulb was 90C and the air temperature in the cabinet was several degrees warmer than the rest of the workshop, which is all that's needed. That's a large and poorly sealed cabinet, too. LED bulbs have a much closer power rating to commercial gunsafe heaters than most 240C incandescent bulbs as well as a much longer life expectancy.

If I was putting one of these in the gunsafe I'd probably set it up in a way that shaded the direct light from the wood stocks, just in case it caused fading etc. Between the current rod heater and Corrosion X I have very few problems.

One of the reasons I like Corrosion X, in my (limited) testing I've seen no issues with a cold-bore flier after use. I believe that is often not the case with some other products - particularly containing teflon.

incandescent bulb is about 15% light output, 85% heat.
LED is about 90% light output 10%heat.
sure you can dry thinks out in a confined space with a LED but its going to be damn massive and so bright you wouldnt even be able to see your guns

Originally Posted by gonetropo

incandescent bulb is about 15% light output, 85% heat.
LED is about 90% light output 10%heat.
sure you can dry thinks out in a confined space with a LED but its going to be damn massive and so bright you wouldnt even be able to see your guns

What do you think happens to all that light when it's in a closed container like a gunsafe? It's not getting out of the safe as light. It doesn't build up inside the safe so you get a massive burst of pent-up light when you open the door. But the energy you're pushing into the bulb has to go somewhere - remember than energy cannot be created or destroyed, only converted from one form to another (First Law of Thermodynamics). In this case, it's getting converted to heat through interaction with the safe walls and safe contents.

If the light can escape the space you're trying to heat as light, then I agree an incandescent bulb would be better. In this particular case though, I can't see it making a difference. Hence my earlier comment about "it all ends up as heat in the end anyway".

the light will be absorbed, but the size of the LED required to generate enough heat would be so damn huge that your gunsafe would look like a searchlight. wheras a 100w inandescwent will generate 85W of heat for the 100W power used. its all about the efficiency

Hmmm, not sure we're on the same page with this. If I'm wrong, I'm happy to be corrected. Using your figures, what I'm saying is:

> The 100W incandescent bulb will produce 85W of heat and 15W of light at the bulb itself. That 15W of light inside the closed cabinet will be absorbed by the various surfaces, and thus also converted into heat. So 85W of direct heat plus 15W of light that turns into heat via absorption. Net: 100W of heat inside the safe.
> The 100W LED bulb will produce 10W of heat and 90W of light at the bulb itself. That 90W of light inside the closed cabinet will be absorbed by the various surfaces, and thus also converted into heat. So 10W of direct heat plus 90W of light that turns into heat via absorption. Net: 100W of heat inside the safe.

Now the dedicated rod-type gunsafe heaters are about 10W only (at least mine is), so a low-power bulb should be plenty to do the job.

Oil the bore. Rennaisance wax or lanolin wax on the surface of the barrelled action. Then chuck the rifle in a silicon 'gun sock' to protect it from dust and getting knocked around.

Originally Posted by Frodo

Oil the bore. Rennaisance wax or lanolin wax on the surface of the barrelled action. Then chuck the rifle in a silicon 'gun sock' to protect it from dust and getting knocked around.

I'm really not looking to come onto the thread just to contradict other posters or appear like a know-it-all, but I'm not sure about the silicone gun sock. Silicone is supposed to be a real pain when refinishing a gunstock, resulting in 'fish-eyes' in the surface. Everything else looks good to me!

Ballistol.