Rust on my carry gun!

[Irving]

HISTORY: Gun has been carried pretty much every day for the past two years. Carried in an MTAC Spartan for about the last nine months, before that, just carried in a nylon Desantis IWB holster. **If you are not familiar with the CompTac MTAC, it has a leather back plate with a kydex body. The Spartan has exposed rivets on the skin side of the leather back plate, but that is not relevant for this situation.

So I went to my parents house earlier today and mowed the lawn for my dad. It took about two hours and I was working up a decent sweat. I was carrying my M&P 40c in an MTAC holster (so it has leather backing large enough to keep the gun off my skin). I usually wear a wife beater tucked in under the holster, and some kind of t-shirt over the top. It was pretty hot so I took off my shirt and just had my wife beater (cotton) undershirt on. I untucked the wife beater so it would cover the gun as much as it could.

Anyway, about half way through the lawn job, I noticed that there was some condensation on the left side of the slide, at the very end (exactly where is rusted in the pictures). I used the shirt I had taken off, to wipe off the condensation and reholstered the gun.

Fast forward to just a few minutes ago, I pulled the gun out of the holster to transfer to the safe just now and I saw all the rust. I figured it was just a little surface rust and would just wipe off. MOST of it has wiped off with a little CLP on a paper towel, but there is still noticeable rust on the slide now.

I'm concerned that now this will happen much more often and just get worse every time. Will I need to have my slide refinished? Should I send it in? Am I doing something wrong to have caused this? What should/could I do differently? In the mean time, is there a better method/product that I can use to get rid of this rust?

Also, I carried all day yesterday up near Pawnee but it wasn't quite as hot (nice cool wind) and I for sure would have noticed the rust last night when putting the gun away.

Thanks in advance for any input.






Here is after it was wiped off.

[MrPrena]

I would definitely contact S&W and tell your story.
That is a serve rust.

[SSChameleon]

Bummer.

I've been afraid of this happening to the .22 I carry when I run in the field behind my house. As the weather warms up the rattlers will get more active and I'll sweat more. If anyone has experience with sweating and keeping a gun from rusting I'm all ears.

[OgenRwot]

Should have bought a Glock

[Bailey Guns]

Should have bought a Glock

Exactly! The one with the ceramic slide that passes thru metal detectors. Ceramic doesn't rust!

Seriously, that's some pretty good rust. However, I wouldn't get too worked up over it. Keep the gun clean and make it a point to put a little extra oil or some sort of rust-preventative on the slide if you know you're going to be sweating. I wouldn't worry about the finish on your gun. It's not a show-piece and as unsightly as it is, that little bit of rust isn't going to affect the function of the gun. A little oil and 0000 steel wool (ask for 4-ought steel wool at the hardware store) should take that rust off without taking more of the finish off. Oil and rub lightly with the steel wool.

The Glock 22 I carried for the last several years on the PD looked like the slide was made of stainless steel forward of the ejection port due to all the holster wear.

It'll require a little extra maintenance but if you stay on top of it - wipe it down after every day's carry - it's not really going to hurt the gun.

Not a bad idea to send those photos to S&W, though. They might help you out.

Just keep in mind a functional, slightly rusted gun will give you the means to protect yourself as long as you have it with you. A gun you don't carry because it's just too pretty for holster wear or other scratches/dings isn't going to help you at all if you don't have it when you need it.

[THe Yetti]

Does it not say stainless right on the slide next to the rust? Stainless steel does not rust. I'd be calling S&W, as corrosion resistance is the entire selling point of stainless steel.

[Irving]

Thanks for the input guys. A few things:

-The slide is stainless, but doesn't it have some finish on it? Even though there is still some rust left after I cleaned it up, it only appears to be deep enough to be on the finish.

-I don't know how old the holster is because I bought it used from this site. I think the guy said that he had only carried a few times with it, and that is certainly how the holster looked. Very happy with the holster.

I'll try to get pictures of what it looks like now. My cell phone may have a hard time picking up the rust in the after pictures.

[SA Friday]

Stainless steel is a chemical mixture, and there are well over 25 different formulas of SS. Some are more resistant to oxidation than others. All of them are resistant to oxidation reactions, but NONE of them are 100% resistant.

With that said, Stewart, your ass sweats a lot of pretty caustic stuff.

[Irving]

Haha. I've run with my gun more than a few times, or had it sitting in the holster, in the bathroom while I took a hot steamy shower. Any time I've run it has been in a nylon holster, but for sure in the leather/kydex one while I showered. Realistically none of my actual sweat should have actually touched the gun at that point. Perhaps on the plastic grip, but that is it. I'm pretty surprised that this happened this time, and not all of those other times.

Maybe I should cut back on the spicy Mexican food and the wings huh?

[SSChameleon]

Maybe you should bottle up your sweat and sell it as bore solvent!