How to Best Care for Your Firearms This Winter

This month I am going to talk about taking care of your customers’ firearms for colder weather. I will also provide information that you can pass on to your customers so they can keep their firearms free from rust.

If you are a gunowner, nothing strikes fear in you more than rust on your firearms. A lot of gun owners believe that during the colder months they don’t need to care for their weapons because the humidity is lower. Although there may be lower humidity and less moisture in the air, it does not mean that there is no rust. As a gunsmith, you need to educate your customers on how to care for their firearms during the winter.

Safes and Cabinets

There are many options available to keep safes and cabinets moisture free. You may be thinking, why is he talking about moisture when the humidity is low? The humidity may be low, but it will still fluctuate. Steel holds on to heat as well as cold. The temperatures in the room where you have your safe can fluctuate easily. If you walk out of the room and leave the room door open it can change the room’s characteristics. What happens if your power goes out while you are away visiting your family for Christmas?

I wrote a blog awhile back about caring for your firearms during the summer months. The products I talked about can be used all year no matter what the climate. The goal you and your customer are trying to reach is a constant temperature and a constant humidity level. That goal temperature is 70° and the humidity should be 50%. To combat moisture during the colder months, I recommend the same method that you use in hotter months. You should use both electric and non-electric air dryers. Here are some suggestions:

All these products will work great for safes and cabinets. There are some things to consider when using them. You can’t just put them in the safe and forget it. Heating rods need to be installed with care. It gets hot to the touch, so letting your firearms lean on it isn’t a good idea. You need to make sure you have enough room in the safe to install them correctly.

Dry desiccant doesn’t work forever. It can only soak up so much moisture and then it stops. It can be recharged by placing it in an oven. The portable units work using heat and desiccant. These units also cannot be installed and forgotten about. Batteries die and desiccant gets “waterlogged”. Ultimately, there isn’t anything on the market today that allows you to shut the door on your safe and forget about your firearms inside.

Owning a firearm comes with a lot of responsibility, caring for them correctly is part of that responsibility. Make a point to open up your safes and cabinets every couple of weeks to inspect your firearms as well as the devices you have installed to regulate the temperature and humidity. I would also encourage you to inspect your firearms if your area has experienced a considerable temperature change or a power outage lasting more than a couple hours.

Firearm Protection

Cold temperatures are not harmful to firearms structure or performance. But cold weather can play a factor on the firearm’s functionality. The protection that I am speaking about is for firearms that will be used in cold weather conditions. The cold weather I am speaking of is the below zero conditions some shooters may find themselves in. Some examples I am are: hunters, law enforcement, farmers, and military.

In addition, lubrication is also an area where cold weather can affect firearms. Some lubrications in severe cold can go from providing friction protection to acting like glue. Before you start stressing about hunting in the cold and making sure you have the right lubrication, let me calm your nerves. If you are hunting in -30°F, then you may have something to worry about.

Temperatures at that or below that unbelievable temperature we can throw up our hands and say that we really don’t know how firearms will work. There hasn’t been any test done on every gun with every gun oil and lubricant out there. In the battle of the Chosin Reservoir, where temperatures dropped to -40° F, 1911’s and M1 Garands were used as hand-to-hand fighting weapons instead of being used like they were designed. The oils used then glued everything shut.

You are probably thinking, that was seventy-five years ago. Well, not much has changed since then, when it comes to that low temperature. Thank goodness most of us do not have to deal with this. There are some oils out there that do say they are safe to use below certain temps but be careful. The test may have been done on only a couple firearms and not the one you are using. Most of those firearms are AR style rifles and Glocks. They are the most popular firearms these days but if you are hunting you are most likely not going to be using an AR.

Lastly, the best thing you can do for your firearm is when you come home from the hunt or from being in cold temperatures is to wipe it down and let it air out. Many people will come home from the hunt and put the cold firearm right back in the safe. That cold weapon as it warms up with form condensation on the outside and inside. This will kick off the rusting process. The same thing happens to all of those hunting rifles that are placed behind the seat of the owners hunting truck. Over time that rifle will rust from the inside out.

Educating yourself as well as your customers will save them a lot of money in the future. The horror stories of firearms rusting because of improper care happens all the time. I recently picked up a new customer that had rust issues. His dehumidifier and safe desiccants stopped working. He hadn’t looked in his safe for a couple months. He opened his safe and found over 50 firearms covered in rust. I know that’s good business for me, but I would much rather support that same customer by building him a new firearm than totally restoring 50 long guns.

Stay warm.

Semper Fi!

Written by: David Johnson, Leatherneck Gunsmithing