Cemetery comes across a problem we’ve all dealt with at one time or another. Rust. There’s three ways you can deal with rust. One is to keep a coat of oil on your guns, and make sure you wipe them down before you put them away. The other is to keep moisture away from the gun. There are a few ways to do that.
Even thought I love the fact that, as a cowboy shooter that goes by the name of Cemetery, his pistol case is a little coffin, the first piece of advice is not to keep them in the case unless you’re transporting them. This is a surefire way to promote rust. Cases are magnets for moisture.
The second way to prevent rust is to decrease relative humidity. One way you can do that is to increase the temperature within a confined space, thus reducing the relative humidity. This is how a Golden Rod works within the confines of a safe or gun cabinet. Generally speaking, a Golden Rod is the easiest and most maintenance free way to combat rust.
The third way is to actually remove water from air within a confined, largely airtight space. This is what dessicants do. This is the solution I use, because the safe I got a good deal on didn’t have the electrical hookup, and I didn’t have an outlet near where I wanted to put it. Desiccants are effective, but you have to watch them, and they need to be reactivated. Get one that had an indicator compound in them, usually cobalt chloride, which is deep blue when dry, but turns pink as it becomes saturated with water. You can reactivate desiccants by increasing their temperature to 250 degrees. I do my two canisters in the toaster oven at 325 degrees for a few hours. You typically have to recharge once a month in the winter, and once every two weeks or so in the summer. The great thing about desiccants is that you don’t even really need a safe. Any closed, airtight container with a desiccant thrown in will put a stop to rust.