4” flood in safe room. Need advice.

Had a flood a few years ago. get 'em out of the safe, wipe the wood stocks down quick, pull the but plates, obviously yes, clean the metal and relube. Check them every couple days.

After checking your guns, you need to check your safe; sitting in water can lead to rusting out of the bottom.

After you let the stocks thoroughly dry out for a few days, then BLO or similar; but get the water out first.

That sucks! I hope you noticed in time to prevent the worst of it.

I am wondering if you should be taking buttplates off

Sump pumps are like defensive ammo. You hope to never need one but if you ever do then how many is enough. 5 in a circular pattern doesn’t meet many folks standards, and 7 big one’s in a straight line satisfy many with a cult following, but the ugliest possible arrangement of 17 or 19 seems to be reliable and dependable enough for the pros to use. Still there ought to be a full bank of replacements ready to just slip into place and keep going. Just make sure the water doesn’t just go straight through but runs out a sprinkler so that it gets spread about for maximum effect.

if you choose the 17 or 19 just make sure to keep your leg out of the way when you lock it in. Even the pros know about sump-pump leg.

5 of 'em laid out in a pentagram is a devilishly intracate way of removing the water.

I would remove the butt plates then let them dry on their own indoors. Helping them dry with heat or blow drying could cause damage to the wood. When they have dried out the buttplates should fit perfectly. If not, the stock still isn’t dry. You may need to insert some soft wood like matchsticks into the holes so the screws are secure in place.

1KPerDay said:

Worse than I was told. Judging by the waterline visible on the stocks it got about a foot deep. Pistol rugs totally soaked and rust already starting on several nice collectibles. I’m going to be busy for the next few hours.

would dropping them into trays filled with ATF save anything?

Click to expand...

Can't hurt, till you can get to them.

Firstly, bummer dude!

I've mostly had this discussion within a library context, where freeze-drying is the current intervention method for treating valuable books.

I found some good information on this topic on TFB:

https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2017/09/20/deal-firearms-ammunition-damaged-flood/

Step one is probably removing as much surface water as possible. Getting soaked wood away from metal also seems advisable while the wood gives up its excess absorbed moisture.

I would recommend mixing a goodly quantity of Balistol and water into 'moose milk', which I understand displaces water as it evaporates and leaves a thin protective layer. It is supposed to be safe with wood and leather as well as metal, leaves no harmful residue and a little can go a long way. As a right now first step, it may do the least harm, though it is not the only choice out there.

Initially, you can spray metal with WD40 (water displacement 40).

ATF, or any light oil will help the metal. I would recommend spraying some down the barrels/actions. Don't forget magazine tubes. They will rust INSIDE as well.

Be liberal with the oil, get them wet, wipe with no scratch towel, and spray again.

dcloco said:

Initially, you can spray metal with WD40 (water displacement 40).

Click to expand...

Thats what id do.
Pull any woods and (plastics are usually ok with wd40) soak em in wd40, then put them on the side. Go thru all of them after they are soaked, and get the water out of nooks and crannies....it sucks but really no different than dealing with a wet weather rifle/handgun.
There was an sks that got tossed in the ocean that we pulled out hosed off and wd40'd after a good cleaning it never rusted any worse than what it did on the trip home.

If it's real light 'bloom' rust, any gun oil, (motor oil , ATF) and fingernails are the best way to remove that. Absolutely won't damage finish.

I grew up the son of a fireman, and was a volunteer firehouse deputy chief for some time before I left my home county (likely take over again as I move into the new house next year). This was something I learned about very young - every house fire we ever fought ended up with a flooded basement. Can’t really put gun safes on the ground level and expect them to stay there either, since they find their way through the floor as the floor weakens during the fire, and gun safes in garages are often stored near multiple 5 gallon cans of gas, or shelves full of motor oil, paints, etc which serve as high temperature accelerants in the vicinity of the safe... so what’s a boy to do? Either a steel pillar structure under the safe to keep it from breaking through the floor on the ground level, or lift the safe to about waist high in the basement - praying the water won’t get any higher during a catastrophic event...

WD40 to drive off water, and get hands on and intimate as quickly as possible.

Unless they were submerged for a LONG time, this isn’t likely to be as bad as you think. Those Garand stocks probably have a lot of oil already in them. Think about what they went through in their years of service.

Take them all apart and give the metal a good cleaning and oiling. Take the stocks and hang them butt down in front of a fan for a day.

Then once they are really dry, oil them with ballistol.

Then it’s time to tackle the safe. Push one side back and slide a 2x4 under the front, then do the same for the back. Set the fan in front of it for a day. If you have a shop fan like mine, it will likely take less. But any air movement will help. Let us know how it goes. Sorry buddy. This sucks for a whole host of reasons.

1KPerDay said:

Damn... my dad’s mint engraved M15 is rusting. And my like new German P220. And a bunch of other stuff. This frickin suuuuuuuuuucks

Click to expand...

Major bummer!
You can also dump any that are stainless in bags or piles of rice to help dry them, but youll have rice dust in everything.
Wd-40 tho will help stop the rust faster, and as long as its still just light red dust it SHOULD all be ok.

This is why it's always important to have backups to sump pumps and contingency plans in case of flooding. Upsetting to hear about this avoidable damage to what sounds like some great firearms.

Hoping this experience can help others from suffering the same fate.

Man, I’m sorry to read that!

Since you’re in a hurry to protect as many as possible as quickly as possible;

As they stated, I’d pull all grips and stocks, open actions, douse liberally with WD-40 any metal I can.
Then move to the next one, etc. Revolver innards would get a dousing through the hammer gap or trigger cut,,same for auto slides, rifle actions and bolts, etc.

Once you’ve done the water displacement treatment on them all, then it’s close-work time for detailed cleaning and re-lubing inside and out starting with the most vulnerable (or valuable) like that Model 15.

Everyone's nightmare, keep us updated on how it’s going when you get a chance.

Good luck and stay safe.

When I had a house fire several years ago, I had all my guns in 2 of the cheap lock boxes. there was no fire damage but alot of water made its way in. it was 3 or 4 hours before we could get them out of the safes and dry them off. I wiped off as much as possible then sprayed wd40 all over them metal wood plastic everything. Basically hosed them down. then when I had time I completely disassembled, cleaned and oiled them. the only one that had any permanent damage was an old single shot shotgun that had a bunch of soot-water mix that was not in the safe.

If I were in your shoes, I would load everything up and take them to a professional gun repair shop to have them gone over. And then turn that bill along with any other damages over to my homeowner's insurance carrier. That way you will have documentation which is everything when dealing with an insured loss. I'd also have a safe company come and deal with it as well.

Good luck sir.

I know it doesn’t help right now but it might in the future.

Any firearms I have stored in the basement I put on platforms I built. So basically 2x4 frame with about half/ 1 inch topping that the safes/guns sit on. So in the event of a flood I have about 5 inch’s of depth before the water crests to get to the very bottom of the safes.

So sorry to hear this and I know you are just sick to your stomach about it but this too shall pass. Keep telling yourself that and use it as a learning experience.

Take care and good luck.

That NEF and Sig are in tough shape, but if those are the worst I would say you are lucky. Take a deep breathe and grab that gallon jug of WD40 and get after it.

Once you get through mitigating the current issues, I would be building a 16" shelf to sit your safes on top of and rework your flood contingency plan.

I have my safes sitting off the ground on a platform I build just for this reason.

@1KPerDay sorry to hear this, such a bummer but it looks like you got there in time to mitigate a lot of the potential damages.