I live in the midwest and I want to store my guns in a steel cabinet in the garage.
Is there any danger of letting them get below 20F for long periods of time?
Is there a good way to protect them if so?

I've had my guns in a safe located in a barn for the last 15 years- all I use is a large can of desiccant I bought at Wal-Mart back then, I reactivate it by baking it in the oven as per the directions.

I oil the guns as I use them, I haven't had many cold snaps as low as mentioned in your message.

No rust. The safe is closed for 2-3 months at a time (I don't live where the safe is located).

I bought some of those anti-corrosion chips Brownells sells and included them in the plastic storage bags (also from Brownells) some of the rifles are in (these are the guns I don't use regularly).

Haven't had a problem.

It's not the cold but the warming, especially if it gets above freezing, and the subsequent condensation. If you can keep thing drys inside the cabinet the cold won't hurt a thing.

-WSJ

I left a number of nice long guns in a storage facility for 4+ years. All were oiled and wrapped in blankets and stored in a locked hope chest. Nothing bad happened to any of them. Temps were probably from sub zero to 100+ degress over the 4 year span. Stored in N. Idaho.

Add some constant heat to the cabinet. That way the moisture will not condense on them. In a safe a 15W bulb works. There are devices made for this like the Goldenrods.

quote:

Originally posted by slancey:
I live in the midwest and I want to store my guns in a steel cabinet in the garage.
Is there any danger of letting them get below 20F for long periods of time?
Is there a good way to protect them if so?

When I lived in upstate NY, I kept my gun safe in the tack room of my horse barn. I treated them twice a year (and after using one) with Birchwood-Casey SHEATH, then put them in those silicon-impregnated "GUN SOCKS" that you can buy from WalMart. Despite the fact that the area where I lived near Syracuse is one of the most humid regions in the entire U.S. where we had up to 200 inches of snow per year and temperatures went to -30 F at least twice during a 10-year period, NONE of them ever got rust or corrosion on the metal surfaces. This includes some "in-the-white" Mauser military buttplates.

You can also wrap them in VPI paper and put them in tightly closed plastic gun bags (tied shut). You can get VPI paper and the bags from Brownell's. This is the method used by the military these days for LONG term storage of firearms. The beauty of this method is that the guns are not crudded up with a lot of grease, etc., and can be used right out of the pastic bag.

I have seen metal parts in an attached and unheated garage concrete floor get no rust in 50 years.

I have seen hardened steel tools in an unattached tractor house with dirt floor in fair weather get rust over night.

I have see large cast iron tools in out of the rain but open walls on concrete floor get rust once or twice a year as the temperature rose quickly at 100% humidity.

Those large tools can be almost completely protected from rust, by draping a sheet over them.

One problem we face with painting viscous oil on metal as rust protection is that the oil has a high enough vapor pressure to evaporate in a few months. [Remember vapor pressure from high school chemistry?]

There are some mixtures of oil, solvent, and waxy stuff that gets down in the cracks, the thin stuff evaporates, but leaves a film of the thick stuff that does not evaporates, but stays around to protect.

If the garage has just one low wattage light bulb running all the time, and no bad drafts, then the temperature can be a degree or two above of the outside world's dew point.

Ventilation is a problem.
When it is getting colder, you want ventilation.
When it is getting warmer, you DON'T want ventilation.
A good compromise on ventilation seems to be old sheets draped over the metal.

While I was building my weapons Vault , I made a gun safe out of an old freezer . It worked very well .


I simply Armored it with 1/8" Micro SS on the inside and the door and installed a no nonsense safe lock on the door . I did that only to keep possible thieves from breaking into it . I bolted it to the garage wall. My Security Buddy Sniper my big German Shepard had just died .

It set to the weather but it's a sealed unit with NO AIR other than what's in it while the door was shut . I used one small packet of desiccant . I never had any problems with rusting or anything like that .

I was being cheap and didn't want to purchase another Safe . I was after all building my Vault .
Then again we don't see -20 but do see a fair amount of humidity along with salt air some times !.

Shoot Straight Know Your Target . ...

I store my guns in my vault in my 1200 sg. ft. shop no heat no air. I was also worried about rust. I keep them wiped down with gun oil and use a golden rod heater plus several large desiccant bags. So far so good two years running.

quote:

Savage 99: Add some constant heat to the cabinet. That way the moisture will not condense on them.

DITTO.

Well, I did not heed any of the good advice here on this thread. I left a Savage Cub .22 in the gun locker in the garage for about a week and got some surface rust on the bolt, action, and barrel. I'll have to get more oil on the metal I guess. Maybe try the desiccants as well.

Back in around 1968 I found a can of Rifle Grease (Military Surplus) about the size of a half of a pound coffee can(still have over half of the original can). I've used this grease on all my rifles by appling a coating and wipping off with a rag(keep the same rag and use to do quick wipedowns) - have not had one rust in all these years - not even unfinished metal. It gets in the pours of the metal and seems to do a good job. At the last big gun show in Tulsa, I saw someone selling it for $7.50 a can. It would be the smartest investments to protect your guns.
Just my thoughts.

I keep a couple containers of desicant in my safe, which is kept in an insulated garage where the teperature my vary from 40-90 dergrees. I also keep a light coat of oil or wax on my firearms for additional protection. No problems. Lou

When storing weapons in a metal enclosure make sure it's up off the ground . Also lining the inside with something like cedar will help control moisture as well . How ever I would vie for old Ref. or Freezer ( Door Seal ) air tight cabinet . Place desiccants in there as well . Your problem solved .

Grease is messy as is Oil , I prefer not to handle them when they're coated . Maybe for LONG term unattended storage it's best but for short periods and occasional use it's not IMO.

Shoot Straight Know Your Target . ...

If you have access to an outlet, a simple light socket with a 25 watt bulb lit up inside the safe/cabinet will go a long way towards keeping moisture at bay.

Now the gun cabinet has:

25W bulb hard wired, always on.
Holes sealed with duct tape.
Door jamb lined with weather stripping tape. Now the door has a very tight fit when shut.

I'm going to leave the light on for a couple days before putting any guns back in. I'll also add the desiccants as mentioned earlier.

I agree with one of the posts about temperature swings. In northern IL, we had a 60 degree temp. change in 2 weeks. I think that may have caused the rust problems.