Gun safe "droplets?"

[Monkeyleg]

A couple of years ago I bought a safe used from a friend. Just for informational purposes, it was an older Liberty safe without fireproofing. The handgun shelves are "upholstered" carpeting, pretty much like gray shag carpeting. It's not the fabric that Liberty now uses to line the interior and the shelves.

Anywho, I have some pistols laying on the shelves, and a few rifles/shotguns leaning against the supports.

All of the pistols and revolvers and long guns seem to be fine, except my Kimber Pro Carry. When I take it out of the safe, the bottom-side is speckled with tiny droplets of oil, or water, or some other liquid.

Every other pistol or revolver seems immune to this. And, if I rub my fingers along the slide of the Pro Carry, it's really hard to tell if the moisture is oil or something else.

Any ideas on what's going on?

Thanks for any replies.

 

[patentnonsense]

Put some dessicant bags in there -
if the droplets stop you've just avoided a lot of damage.

 

[sgt127]

Take the gun out and let it sit for a few minutes. If the drops evaporate, its water. Either get the moisture absorbers or a Golden Rod dehumidifier. If the drops stay put, its oil seeping out from either the gun or up from the carpet. Might also get a few dowel rods and put them through the trigger guards so the guns stay leaning and air can circulate around them. I don't like leaving guns laying on any fabric, too easy for moisture to get trapped.

 

[Mal H]

If you can't figure it out with the advice already given, you might give this a try: assuming the Kimber has remained in the same location until now, try placing a different pistol there and move the Kimber somewhere else. The problem will either stay with the location or the Kimber.

 

[patentnonsense]

Light condensation may settle only on the coldest surface - probably the part of a dark gun which faces the coldest surface of the safe, presumably its floor. Dessicant bags don't cost much in relation to a ruined gun!

 

[Majic]

Did you mistreat it one day and now it breaks out in a cold sweat you get near it?

 

[Monkeyleg]

Majic, that's almost what it looks like. And, yes, I did mistreat it earlier this year.

OK, here's what I've done. I moved the pistol to a different spot on the shelf, and put a dowel through the trigger guard to keep it elevated. Put a stainless pistol in its place.

There's no moisture of any kind on the stainless pistol, nor anywhere on the first pistol...except the forward part of the frame that's touching the carpeting. It's still "sweating." This pistol has an anodized finish, which I routinely schlurp down with oil, let it soak in, then wipe it down. It's the only anodized finished gun I own; all the others are blued, parkerized, or stainless.

FWIW, I have not one but two Goldenrod dehumidifiers in the safe.

I've never seen this happen before, and the pistol's been in the safe since I bought the safe 2+ years ago.

 

[patentnonsense]

Japanese woodworking tool kits sometimes include a volatile oil (called camellia oil or some such) which is intended to condense on the metal surfaces - maybe your safe's lining was treated with something like that?
But if it's not water it's not a problem, right?

 

[Majic]

To take a stab in the dark so to speak, find some small piece of anodized metal and place it on the safe's carpet and observe that. I retired from the chemical industry that made raw nylon. We would ship that material to a sister plant that spun and dried the material into nylon fibers for various uses (Anso carpet was one of our biggest sellers).
The raw material does has an oily texture and just maybe the anodization leeches a small amount of oil out of the fibers. This is just a just a wild guess and I would really have to contact one of the chemists that I know to find out if this is possible.

 

[Monkeyleg]

Thanks for the suggestion, Majic. I took two anodized floorplates from AR mags, oiled one of them and then wiped it down. Put both of them on the carpeting. Within an hour, the mag that had been oiled had tiny droplets of moisture on it, while the unoiled mag showed nothing.

So, the carpeting is drawing out moisture from the oil. Why it only does that on anodized metal and not blued, I don't know. I don't oil the exterior of my stainless guns, but I do on the blued and parkerized ones.

 

[hksw]

1: What is the safe sitting on? (e.g., cement, carpet, wood, etc.)

2: How often are you opening the safe?

3: What has the weather been like at your location for the past couple of weeks?

 

[Stay Low]

Boating related stores sell nice convenient dehumidifiers that are cheap ($8 or so) that are disposable after they fill up. Ya fill up the plastic tub with the dehumidifier and it collects moisture in the bottom of the tub. They seem to work. It has helped my humidity issue in the safe.

 

[Monkeyleg]

This seems to be a popular topic.

The safe is on the second floor of the house, on hardwood floors. Humidity in the safe is at about 50%, which is much lower than the outside humidity. In the winter, the humidity in the safe drops to about 25%.

One thing that struck me today when wiping down those AR floorplates was that I was using an oil rag bought a few months back from a local gun shop. The label mentions "oil and other rust-inhibiting" ingredients.

Prior to this rag, I just sprayed the pistol with RemOil, waited five or ten minutes, and then wiped it down. It may well be that the rag has other liquids that could be drawn out by contact with the carpeting. I've read that anodized surfaces need to be oiled, and to let that oil soak in. Perhaps the opposite is true, and that the oil can be drawn out as well.

Any metallurgists lurking here?

 

[tango3065]

I had the same problem till I bought one of those big silca gel boxes that u heat in the oven when it fills up with moisture. They work great, and by the way mine is is the oven as we speak, and this is the first time I have had to reactivate in 4 months of use.

http://www.dehumidify.com/index.html