Will a Makarov rust if left in the car?

I'm trying to decide on a car gun. I don't want to use something that's too expensive, in case of theft. I've been leaving a G17 in there, but don't want that stolen.

Then I thought of a Ruger P97. Stainless, polymer, low price, big caliber - but - if I needed to get out and stick it in my waistband, it's pretty thick.

Now I'm thinking about a Makarov. Cheap, reliable, but - BLUE. I'm afraid condensation is going to rust it. (I also would prefer a larger caliber...

Thanks for any help,
Steve

I've carried one in my car for a couple of years now and really haven't had any problems. You should take the grip off periodically and check there though. I took mine off awhile back and while it looked fine visually, when I wiped it off with some Breakfree, the patch was a reddish brown - probably the beginnings of a rust problem. No problems on the rest of the pistol. I'm sure the climate in different areas could cause differing results.

You could get a refinish job on it. The price on that will take the total price up in to a range where there are a lot of choices.

You could keep it in a sealed plastic sandwich bag when you're not in the car. Just a thought.

RIG Grease .
dunno why a Mak would be any different than the mulitude of guns we used to leave in trunk / gun racks in various temp conditions growing up. Guns just stayed in vehicles, during hunting seasons, or heck year round, jsut to have when going fishing. RIG is what I always used. Handguns, rifles, shotguns all blue never rusted.

Hey, I live in temperate rainforest, a few hundred yards from the ocean...
I'm a freaking expert when it comes to gun rust! I say "expert" because my guns don't rust (any more), and they're almost all blued steel and walnut.
There is a product called EEZOX out there. I'm sure they have a web site... and anyway, this stuff sprays on like gun oil but then dries to leave an invisible waxy coating. It's wunnerful, wunnerful stuff!

You just hose out your gun like you would with WD40, and let it dry. The excess will run off and leave a film. DO NOT oil the gun, EEZOX is all the lubricant you need and oil will just melt the film and leave the metal exposed. Repeated treatments will not build up and leave a residue because the wax is carried in some sort of solvent - each new treatment just melts off the old film and leaves a new one.

Make sure you take off the grips and spray the metal under there. The places where wood/rubber/plastic meet metal tends to collect condensation and are the first places to rust.

Oh, and the stuff does wear off if you handle the gun a lot. If you handle the gun a lot, wipe it down and re-spray the outside once in a while.

Keith

If you get fingerprints (salt and fatty acids) on the finish, and you leave the gun in an area where the humidity isn't controlled, yes, it can rust.

Sorry but I have to say somthing. IMO leaving a handgun in your vehicle long term is simply irresponsible. Peroid. Why would you do somthing like this?
"I don't want to use something that's too expensive, in case of theft." :barf:
You're more worried about your weapon value loss than than the actual theft itself. Gun ownership-especially pistol ownership should be a responsible venture. Every time some idiot leaves a gun in his car and it gets stolen, he/she just armed another bad guy. Have control of your weapon at all times, carry it on you, instead of leaving it in your car. Show some responsibility for owning a handgun and stop making the rest of us gun owners look like bafoons.:fire:
Carry the firearm on your person where you know its whereabouts at all times and wipe it down with a cloth like somthing from Sentry Products. Then if you care for your weapon like this you wouldnt have to worry about finish etc

Every time some idiot leaves a gun in his car and it gets stolen, he/she just armed another bad guy.

Great! Blame the victim instead of the bad guy who stole the gun!

How about if he leaves it at home - we all know a gun could never be stolen from a home...

Here (in the real world), you must leave your gun in the car frequently. There are lots of places you can't carry; to include most places of employment. A responsible person HAS a gun - he doesn't leave it at home because he can't keep it on his person 24 hours a day. Having an inexpensive "car gun" makes perfect sense to me. It'll be there for him if he doesn't have another for some reason - and for his wife and family members who may borrow the car.

And if it's stolen, it's stolen! Criminals will get guns if they want one and there's little we can do about it. What we CAN do is try and avoid being a victim, by having a gun!

Keith

Edited to add: Bafoons is spelled "buffoons"...

GUN RUST: An acquaintance of mine bought a brand new Savage .243 in a flat blued finish. He took it to the range to shoot, then wrapped it in a blanket or something and placed it in the trunk of his car. A week later he pulled it out and probably 20-25% of the metal had surface rust on it. It looked horrible. The guy almost cried. I tried WD40, gun oil, bore cleaner and rubbed the rust with a cloth. It started coming off slowly and he finished it up. However....the finish was still damaged under the rust. So what did this guy do? He went back to the store and bought another one of the exact same model. Gee, it must be nice to be single.

just like you would use to protect your car or anything metal from being left out side. Lots of people use this on guns that get handled alot and don't get cleaned regularly. External parts only. Use oil or something else inside.

On guns in cars... tough call. each situation is unique. If you have kids around (they aren't necessarily bad guys), you might want to think long and hard about how easy that gun is to get at when you ain't around.

Course, in your neighborhood you may need to have the gun around to protect the kids. If you use your brain and think about it long and hard I think you'll make the right decision. Whatever that is.

No judgements just thinkin out loud.

-bevr

Sorry Keith,

I agree to disagree. I’m not blaming the "victim", but as I stated it's my opinion we should reasonably safeguard our firearms from theft. Storing one in a vehicle is not considered reasonably safe IMO. (And state statutes share my opinion)
"How about if he leaves it at home - we all know a gun could never be stolen from a home"
An individual is equally at fault if their firearm is not secured in their home as well. Fifty years ago we didnt lock our doors or vehicles, but unfortunately those days are gone in many places in the US. The more people start taking responsibility to secure their weapons , the less unauthorized users will have firearms in their hands. This isn’t just my opinion but many state statutes hold the gunowner liable if the owner does not show a reasonable effort to safeguard the weapon in their own home i.e. safe/bolted lockbox. Can safes and lockboxes be defeated? Yes they can, and you can only do so much to secure your firearms within reason. It’s just pure safety and common sense. Storing a firearm in a vehicle is not a secure place and was shown not to be in case law.
"Criminals will get guns if they want one and there's little we can do about it."
This is where you are wrong. We can’t stop every gun theft, but we can try to be more responsible in our gun ownership. And by being more responsible we certainly will slow the gun grabbers and thieves. You make a good point about the place of employment. I don’t have a solution for this scenario. A possible solution would be to lock the gun up in a locker or desk drawer at work if permissible. Maybe a bolted lockbox inside the vehicle trunk. Maybe this is our compromise Keith? :D
Although not as secure as carrying it on your person, in instances where you can't it might be a compromising solution. Then again, someone can just drive away with your car and your guns. Unfortunately far too many individuals toss their favorite Glock or 1911 under their seat and forget about the firearm until it gets stolen or a child grabs a hold of it. Then, it’s too late. It might be different up in Alaska, but if you open up a newspaper in the lower 48 it is an all too common occurrence.
And thanks so much for correcting my poor spelling. I was out sick when they gave that class in school.
:o
Just trying to make a point about being a responsible gun owner. Flame on!

I had a CZ-75B I carried in my car. Someone broke the doorlock and the locked glove compartment and stole it while the car was parked on the street in front of my house. I filed a police report and bought another CZ-75B .About a month later I got a call at work from the police dept. My CZ had been recovered. My 17y.o. punk neighbor had stollen my gun and was "renting" it to his punk buddies to pull armed robberies. For a cut of the money he would let them use my gun. Thank God nobody got hurt. Now, when I leave my gun in my car, I lock it in the trunk with a cable gun lock thru the action. It could still be stolen but it will be a lot harder. It's harder to get to but it's also harder to steal.

Maybe a bolted lockbox inside the vehicle trunk. Maybe this is our compromise Keith

Knock yourself out! We'll just have to disagree. I keep my guns where I can get to them and use them, quickly. A self defense gun locked up in your trunk or home safe is hardly a defense gun, is it?

In point of fact, I don't leave a gun in my car very often. There aren't very many places around here where I can't carry my gun so it's not an issue, for me personally. But, if circumstances were different - if I had an employer with a "no guns" policy for example, you can be sure that my gun would be in my car waiting for me. And it wouldn't be locked away in a place where I couldn't get to it quickly - you never know when you'll need that gun, or how quickly.

As for criminals and guns - I don't give it a thought! I've bought too many guns from private parties to kid myself that a criminal can't get a gun whenever he wants one. Open up the classifieds and take your pick. And of course there are many more sources for black market guns that don't advertise. Every drug dealer buys and sells guns on the side or takes them in trade, and all of their customers know it. No 4473 required!

I take the normal precautions to protect my guns from criminals. I lock my doors and own two dogs. And I have several guns handy (not locked away) to shoot anyone who gets past those standard precautions.

Keith

The biggest problem with rust is condensation. Use of a good rust preventative like RIG will help and you can put it in a case with some rust preventative paper. Inspect it often .

Law enforcement officers, particularly Special Operations types, leave their weapons in their vehicles for immediate access and often do so for extended periods. Other officers in my neck of the woods leave shotguns, less lethal weaponry, etc. in their vehicles for the same reason. Condensation is the enemy. Your car is subjected to great temperature variations and, depending on where you live, probably high humidity. If you keep a gun in a car, you need to routinely inspect it and routinely reprotect it with CLP or your protectant of choice. Properly done, the weapon will be fine.

Try Sentry TufCloth. It really works.

state statutes share my opinion
I'd like to hear more about the states and statutes that share your opinion.

If locking your car is sufficient to secure the vehicle how could it not be considered sufficient to secure its contents also?

You got it right the first time when you said "IMO". Opinions are fine. Trying to bolster the credibility of your opinion with imaginary laws isn't.

Trying to bolster the credibility of your opinion with imaginary laws isn't.
Gee JohnKSa give me a chance! Why are they imaginary laws? Is it because you lack the knowledge of their existence? Therefore they are imaginary? :confused:
Why the accusatory tone? Granted I’m new to the High Road, only eight prior posts. Nobody is trying to bolster their credibility. Trust me...I’m nobody!! :cool: Are we picking on the new guy? :o If you disagree with my opinion that's cool, and that's what makes these forums quite interesting, IMO :p I’m throwing around my opinion again! Watch out!

If locking your car is sufficient to secure the vehicle how could it not be considered sufficient to secure its contents also?
Different areas of the country are going to view a locked vehicle with a firearm in it differently because laws concerning firearms, the safeguarding of firearm and firearms in vehicles are different form state to state. When I lived In AZ years ago it was quite legal and an accepted practice to ride around with a handgun concealed in a vehicle in the glove box or under the seat as long as it was in a holster without any permit. Cool! :cool: In other areas of the country further West, i.e. California throwing a gun under the seat can be viewed as wreckless and endangering the public as well as against the law. Why? 'cause its California, thats why! :eek: Seriously, Im no lawyer, but people fail to realize that different areas of the country are going to have different views on the same act! The guy from Alaska (Keith) has a very different opinion that myself (who doesnt live in Alaska). Statutes and culture in different proximities!

I stated:

This isn’t just my opinion but many state statutes hold the gun owner liable if the owner does not show a reasonable effort to safeguard the weapon in their own home i.e. safe/bolted lockbox.

It is a FELONY in the state of California to have an unsafeguarded handgun against unauthorized users (includes and specifies children) in your own home or vehicle. By "safeguarded" (my quotes) they mean locked in a safe, lockbox, or triggerlocked. This is a fairly new statute (not more than 4-5 years old, I believe.) If you leave your Colt 45 laying around without any locking devise or lockbox in your home or vehicle, and an unauthorized individual (i.e. your nephew) handles that weapon, loaded or unloaded, that is a chargable offense in the state of CA. I recall reading in the news years ago about an individual who resided in CA, who stored a handgun underneath his seat when his six-year-old daughter got a hold of it while playing in the car. I’m not quite sure if there were injuries or even an accidental discharge. Neighbors reported him and he was charged and convicted of the "unsafeguarded handgun charge" and wreckless endangerment of a minor. Does this mean California CCW holders have to go around with a triggerlocked gun in their holster? Certainly not. (By the way, a CCW in CA is a pretty rare breed unfortunately) A CA CCW holder however must be in control of that weapon and be responsible for the safety of that weapon.

Also try N.J.S. 2C 39-5 under transportation of weapons. Good reading!

These two states, CA & NJ have draconian gun laws for sure. Unfortunately there are places within the United States that hold the gunowner to a higher standard. I’m not for more gun laws nor am I for California's politicians who are gun grabbers. (They were gun grabbers when I lived there....maybe this has changed?) I’m simply illustrating that things are different in different parts of the country. Maybe these laws simply don’t exist in Alaska or Texas, and that’s fine. They do in other parts of the country. In fact consider yourself lucky as some of these state have laws that carry things to the extreme.

Keith
And if it's stolen, it's stolen! Criminals will get guns if they want one and there's little we can do about it.
This is a piss poor attitude. Unfortunately, it's not uncommon. As responsible gun owners we should do everything we can to thwart unauthorized use whether it's kids or thugs. Its just common safety.

I understand there might be occasions where you need to store a handgun in your car (where legal of course). Keith made a good point in that sometimes the owner has little choice but to store a handgun temporarily in a vehicle. If you absolutely have to store a handgun in a vehicle, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to use one of those safe boxes which lets you access the firearm quickly but still secures it from unauthorized people like kids and bad guys. Hopefully the lockbox will slow down a thief and hopefully he would move on and not "burn" time on the box and instead get frustrated and abort. Or the other alternative is that he steals your whole car and works on the lockbox at his leisure in his chop shop. Is it foolproof/theftproof? No, but if it ever came up in a civil liability case, you could show you tried to safeguard the weapon as a reasonable person would. :D
Even if you choose this route, why not take the firearm in at the end of the day and store it in your house, wiping it down with your favorite gun cleaner before retiring it to the safe for the night? This way you don’t have to worry about such a resistant finish if wiped down in this fashion. And if you vehicle does get broken into, at least they wont be in posession of your firearm. Try explaining to a jury why you leave a gun in your car each night when its so easy to carry your firearm from your vehicle to inside your house inside residing locked in a safe where it would have been safer in the first place. Today the gunowner has to take more precautions for both safety and liability reasons. Unfortunately its all about liability in many parts of the country. Consider yourself lucky if this is a foreign subject to you as the "disease" hasn't got to your area of the world. Be safe and be responsible. Chucking your loaded Glock under your seat and forgetting about it until its stolen or used by a minor to inflict harm on him/herself is simply not cool. Make sense?

Getting back on topic ... :)

I heard a long time ago not to store pistols in leather holsters because the leather would absorb moisture and cause the pistol to rust quicker. I suspect the rifle in the blanket suffered the same effect.

Something interesting I learned in a Firing Line topic on rust was that it isn't just the humidity that causes a weapon to rust, but condensation from change of temperatures. The point being made at the time was that storing weapons in your hot, dry attic might not be as safe as you think because the uninsulated attic would drop temperature overnight and then increase again the next day.

This is a piss poor attitude. Unfortunately, it's not uncommon. As responsible gun owners we should do everything we can to thwart unauthorized use whether it's kids or thugs. Its just common safety.

The best way to thwart crime is to HAVE A GUN. If that means you must leave it in your vehicle at times when you can't carry it on your person, so be it!
That doesn't mean you just toss on the seat and walk away, obviously you're going to put it out of sight - perhaps under the seat or behind a loose panel or something you've created for the situation. Locking it in the glove box is a waste of time since it's the first place they'd break open.
Wherever it is, it's readily accessable, or it's a waste of time having the gun in the first place.

Let's look at the reality here. If a criminal breaks into your car, he's doing so (in most cases) to STEAL THE CAR! It hardly matters how your gun is secured.
If he's just "turning over" your car for valuables, don't you think that locked box is going to be the first thing he carries away? And if it's bolted down, don't you think he can get it open - he's a car thief, which means he showed up with tools! That's how car thieves operate - it's their stock in trade...

I don't think it's careless to leave a gun in your car. I think careless would be not carrying a gun because you are afraid to leave it in your car.

The gangsta's can get their guns with or without stealing yours. If they can't get one from their buddy, they can open the classifieds and take their pick.

Keith

...and bogus local bans are no longer...and private companies (do a search on AOL's latest antics) stop banning them on the premises...and shooters only have pro-gun friends and family...and only take what they can carry to the range...then folks will no longer have to worry about locking their piece in the car.

We have a responsibility as gun owners, that is true.

However, I'm not going to stop going to the range (with 2 or 3) and stopping for lunch on the way home.

I'm going to adhere to the laws in my state regarding peaceable transport.

I'm not going to violate company policy and will respect the right of private citizens I visit to request that firearms not be brought into their home. I'll also respect local laws regarding firearms in schools and on municiple property, as well as the Federal law which says I can't bring one into the Post Office.

I'm not going to suggest that one of my board brethren is irresponsible for asking a legitimate question.

There are tough choices that these circumstances referenced instigate.

If you choose to carry (and can do so legally), there are still some places which will require you to leave your piece outside. Do you leave it at home? Or do you lock it up?

I can't answer for everyone, but given my circumstances, I'm inclined to carefully lock it up (and not for any longer than I have to...and with the vehicle within eyesight whenever possible).

As to the posted question, almost any metal object will rust over time with excessive exposure to moisture. There are options for more secure storage that would allow for some dessicant to be stored with your Mak', but lawful security vs. lawful accessibility is part of the decision process.

Best wishes,

CZ52'