Whoops... Rust! (images)

[northwestneighbor]

So I was hiking around up in the mountains with my Norinco SKS yesterday. Since I was pretty exhausted when I got home, I left the rifle leaning up in the corner with the bolt closed and went to sleep for the night without thinking twice.



The next morning, I have a look at the rifle and my God! Rust!




In the chamber, the bolt face, extractor, and a little on the bolt carrier and receiver.

It got nicked with some snow a couple times during the hike, but I thought I dried it off pretty well on the spot with my cotton shirt (lol). I was shooting Wolf FMJ 124 gr Military-Classic. Being a bright sunny day in June, the snow was rapidly melting and it felt like an exceptionally humid day for the region. I'm thinking maybe some salts, some humidity, and maybe a little snow caused the rust. Maybe if I had driven home and fallen asleep with the bolt left open the whole time it would have dried out sooner and not rusted?

Anyway, I went at it with some M-Pro 7 and a copper brush and it came off with a bit of scrubbing. I also ran the bore snake through about 10 times with the M-P 7.

...I probably shouldn't have wiped up the mess with dusty paper towel...



I also scrubbed some green rust (copper?) out of the forward gas block where gas vents from the barrel against the piston. the face of the piston also needed a bit of work.

Since I know that the gun got some exposure to moisture yesterday, should I assume that was the primary cause? I just find it interesting that the rust only seemed to appear in parts of the gun that are exposed to the powder residues (which would suggest corrosive ammo, right?) Maybe the primers aren't corrosive under normal conditions but are corrosive in high humidity?

Should I expect it to come back in the same places? What do you guys think? Got any advice or rust stories of your own?

 

[briansmithwins]

Not corrosive ammo.

Corrosive ammo would show up as rusting on the gas piston and gas tube.

I suspect you just got water on parts that weren't protected by bluing or oil.

BSW

 

[Mr White]

SNOW???? Its freakin' June 30!!! WhyTF would you go anywhere there is snow???

The rust is your rifle's way of saying " Don't ever take me near that #$%!!@ snow again!!!"

 

[rangerruck]

get one of two products; Sweetshooters, or EEzox. Now then, I have had myself built a stainless steel trough, that is big enough and deep enough to hold all parts of any rifle, when I strip it down. I put in all these parts, then poor in the sweetshooters or eezox, get at least 1/2 gallon. yes, it will be a lot of money, yes, so will the trough. but I have weapons that have no bluing on them whatsoever, that never rust, ever. I then soak in the trough for at least 3 days, then i let al that crap drain off for a day, then i dunk again, this time in sythetic motor oil. Talk about smooth working stuff!!!!
There used to be a good test showing eeezox against other products/ Iam talking on steel sheets, that have been dunked in salt water, ice water, left outside for so and so long, etc., and eezox smoked them all. Sweetshooters I do not use they way the directions say to, for shooting down, and prepping your bbl, I just dunk and clean with it. the molecular structure of this is so tiny, it is like put a zit cleaner on your metal, that is meant for your face, but strong enough for metal. It is such a good astringent, that it gets into the tiniest of places, and floats out any locked up h20, oxygen bubbles, anything trapped in the metal that is not supposed to be there.
And when you finally take your metal parts out of the tub, and let them sit, they will dry really scary fast, and they will take on a ghostly color to them, they are just bone dry. That is why I then soak again in syth oil.

 

[mainmech48]

Looks as though everything cleaned up nicely with no permanent damage, which is good. At least you didn't let it go long enought to get pits started.

I wouldn't worry at all about the bore and chamber. That's one of the main reasons why they chromed them in the first place. Ditto for the head of the gas piston.

Getting the green or blue reaction from swabbing the gas port with solvent is normal. A teeny bit of copper gets in there with every shot.

A trick I learned as a kid for getting some extra protection for my hunting weapons so we could get away with not having to disassemble them and wipe everything down with an oily rag every evening religiously is to apply a coat or two of automotive wax to all of the metal, especially under the wood. It doesn't gum-up or freeze, won't rub-off anywhere near as easily as oil or grease and will keep the moisture from attacking the steel much longer.

 

[northwestneighbor]

Interesting, cool replies.

SNOW???? Its freakin' June 30!!! WhyTF would you go anywhere there is snow???

The rust is your rifle's way of saying " Don't ever take me near that #$%!!@ snow again!!!"

Rangerruck and mainmech, sounds like I need to try some of these techniques. If the general idea is first to clean it of all moisture and impurities with an astringent and then to coat it with a protective oil or wax, then I'll get to it. I was already thinking about just storing a few extra parts i have lying around in a can of oil. Seems to me then I can be certain that rust won't creep up on them during the, possibly several, years that they sit in storage.

This reminds me, is it actually all bad to leave some of the cosmoline residue under the stock? I don't mean in critical areas where metal parts move against each other, but in areas where moisture could possibly be trapped that I wouldn't normally notice. If the stuff is meant to preserve the steel, I kinda wonder why its such a big deal to scrub the cosmo out of every little crevice.

Anyway, thanks for the advice.

 

[SomeKid]

You may very well have dried the snow off, however if it is cold outside, and warm inside, water can condense onto the colder surface, causing it to need dried again.

 

[CRITGIT]

Eezox dries to a wax coating!
CorrosionX is wet but very effective!

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

http://www.thegunzone.com/rust.html

CRITGIT

 

[briansmithwins]

Your rifle looks awfully dry in the 1st pics. What are you using for oil? Mpro-7 is a good cleaner, but it does strip the protective oil film off too.

BSW

 

[Jason_G]

Very fine steel wool will take off rust without doing much of anything to the finish, but use a light hand. I do this once in a while to my hunting guns that see everything from a little humidity to torrential downpours. Works fairly well. The best thing is to prevent (or try really hard) this from happening in the first place. You can't stop it all if you use it in the weather, but do the best you can. Use a good rust preventative on your field rifles, and don't put them away unless they are dry.

Jason

 

[mainmech48]

Cosmoline was intended to preserve metal, etc. during long term storage under relatively 'controlled' conditions. Exposed to high temperatures it will eventually dry out, cake - even burn if it gets hot enough. Dried cosmoline between the wood and metal parts can set-up and sort of glue them together, making routine field stripping difficult.

One good reason to remove as much cosmoline as possible is to keep it from drying out in those little nooks and crannies. If it does, moisture can creep in under it, get corrosion started and keep you from detecting an impending problem while it's still small.

There are a lot of products on the market these days, and everyone has their own favorites. Two specialized preservative products that I think very highly of are Blue Wonder's "Armadillo" and "Renaissance Wax".

The latter was developed for and is used by museums on wood, metal and leather artifacts for both long term storage and displays. It's fairly expensive, but a very little goes a long, long way and I'm still working on the jar I bought 8 years ago.

Armadillo is a polymer product developed specifically for firearms and edged weapons. It's worked extremely well for me and is my current favorite for "working" guns.

 

[Neo-Luddite]

with the bolt closed

The SKS design seals out moisture pretty well--AND seals it in, too!

 

[northwestneighbor]

Cosmoline was intended to preserve metal, etc. during long term storage under relatively 'controlled' conditions. Exposed to high temperatures it will eventually dry out, cake - even burn if it gets hot enough. Dried cosmoline between the wood and metal parts can set-up and sort of glue them together, making routine field stripping difficult.

One good reason to remove as much cosmoline as possible is to keep it from drying out in those little nooks and crannies. If it does, moisture can creep in under it, get corrosion started and keep you from detecting an impending problem while it's still small.

There are a lot of products on the market these days, and everyone has their own favorites. Two specialized preservative products that I think very highly of are Blue Wonder's "Armadillo" and "Renaissance Wax".

The latter was developed for and is used by museums on wood, metal and leather artifacts for both long term storage and displays. It's fairly expensive, but a very little goes a long, long way and I'm still working on the jar I bought 8 years ago.

Armadillo is a polymer product developed specifically for firearms and edged weapons. It's worked extremely well for me and is my current favorite for "working" guns.

ah, thanks for clarifying that.

and thanks everyone for posting, i'm gonna treat my guns with one of these products soon.

 

[Funderb]

god forbid that were an AR,

you'd be screwed.

 

[FMJMIKE]

Buy some Corrosion-X.......You will never have this problem again!!!

 

[alemonkey]

You don't deserve to own that rifle. Pack it up and send it to me.

 

[ThomasT]

Its funny what Mr. White says. That rifle came from a country that is slathered in snow for most of the year.

I think you need to learn about lubes. The world is full of good lubes. To bad it seems to be running out of oil. LOL