Gun Rust is an owner’s worst nightmare. You have saved for a long time to finally be able to afford that great shotgun for the bird season. You took your time picking it out. Of course you had your favorite gunsmith fit it for you. Everything is a go. Before you left the store, you decided to get a fancy case to keep your gun safe as you travel. You go home, put it in the closet and are devastated when you pull it out to find surface rust on it.
This is one of the recurring mistakes that I see every year. I have written about it a lot, but I had a customer pull out a Winchester 1200 16 ga, that he wanted to hand down to his 17 year old son, only to find it almost ruined by rust. For 20 years he left it in a gun case, not realizing the rust was slowly eating it away.
You have to understand that any type of moisture is the enemy of your gun. You want to get away from it quickly. If you shoot on a rainy or drizzly day you come in and tear it down for a good cleaning, finishing it off with an oil cloth. When you finish up, put it in a gun safe with silica packets or a Golden Rod.
By the way, the stainless steel gun you have will rust. It is not impervious to any of the things we have mentioned. Please, don’t ask me how I know.