I have my guns in a gun safe in an unfinished basement. I have a dehumidifier running 24/7 piped to outside. I have a small golden rod. I also have one of the big dehumidifying canisters inside. Still I went to get out my muzzle loader for practice and SIGNIFICANT rust was present on parts of the trigger guard and the scope mounts. Most of the rest of my guns are fine but it worries me. What to do? Thanks. "D"

Try to put the one side sticky rubber seal strips around the door to hold out any moisture and muzzle loaders will rust super easy if not kept super oiled & greased up anyway.....might want to keep oiling & greseing the muzzle loader for a few extra days after cleaning with water?I use CLP spray or rem oil or old 3in1 machine oil and never have rust issues but also wipe down my rifles with a oil cloth real good and try to wipe/clean once a month.Hope this helps and good luck!

A lot of moisture can pass through a concrete slab. If your safe is directly on the concrete this could be the source of your problem. Build a heavy box platform for the safe to sit on and install a good vapor barrier between the slab and the platform. If the safe is tight against a cement wall carry the vapor barrier from under the platform up the wall behind the safe. Depending on area some basements can be quite damp just from water vapor coming off the concrete and it may just be overwhelming your efforts to de-humidify. Keeping the temperature constant in the basement also helps to eliminate cycles of vapor condensation on metal part.

Your problem probably lies with your cleaning regime for the black powder rifle. Any residue from black powder as well as pyrodex will attract moisture before you put the rifle back into the safe. Most of the bp cleaning solvents are water based also which just adds to the problem. I finally decided that the best thing was to clean the rifle, oil it down and leave it out for a few days. When I was satisfied there was no corrosion going on in the bore or on the outside I would then put it away.

Clowdis, that is a good idea but the rust is on the trigger guard and the bore and barrel are pristine. It is a Savage and has never had anything but smokeless in it. I do believe it is what stocker says. Luckily none of my other guns seem to be affected. good hunting. "D"

The best oil I have found for storing black powder firearms is STP oil treatment. It is right where you put it the following fall. Louis

D, In our first house, which had block walls, it was very damp in the basement. I also had several sections that literally had water percolate through them in heavy rain events and it was almost like a hose running in the basement a few times. I bought a product at Home Depot called something like Dri-Lok, you may have seen the display, it has a cinder block with a little pump that pumps water into both sides of the block, the side painted with Dri-Lok is just dry as bone, but the unpainted side has water perking through.

Any way, it made a great 'vapor barrier' and ended the leaking of the block even in really heavy rains. It's a little of a pain in the ass to apply, but it worked well--by the way, I found using a heavy brush worked better than a roller or other methods.

Good luck!

Go on the net and find Eezox and order a can. Spray a rag and wipe the guns down well with it and your problem is solved. For a very long time.

Good ideas above. Also, go to hardware store and purchase a humidity meter.

I have several dehumidifing cannisters in my basement safe, in addition to a Goldenrod. The safe is on a pallet and is not touching the wall. There is a dehumidifier in the basement and it is the largest one Lowe's had. The humidity meter normally reads 52%. It probably doesn't hurt (the humidity)that we are in a drought

This test rated Eezox and Corrosion-X highly.

http://www.6mmbr.com/corrosiontest.html

Get Corrosion-X here:

http://www.corrosionx.com/gun_use.html

I used Corrosion-X on my blued steel gun on a recent coastal brown bear hunt. The gun received salt spray but did not rust.