Preserving a rifle. How?

A few months ago, I packed away my M1A and my .45-70 Buffalo Classic. The blued barrel on the Buffalo Classic rusts if you look at it wrong. I wiped all of the metal, including the bore, down with Kroil after I had given it a thorough cleaning. I did the same with my M1A except that I used militec-1. I put them in the case that I use for them in my basement which can be damp, even with the dehumidifier. I'm not trying to get them to rust. I just don't have a better place to store them. So I'm trying to figure out how to store them down there without rusting.

So I pulled them out today and the Buffalo Classic showed not a spot of rust, inside or out. The bore was mirror like and spotless. My M1A was also spotless.

So here is my query: If you know you're not going to be using a rifle or other type of gun for a long time. How do you prep it? Is there anything that you would avoid?

I'd give it a good wipe down with Eezox. I keep mine in the basement, but the dehumidifier keeps it near 50% humidity. I read on the NRA website that 50% humidity is ideal for firearms storage.

It depends on how long I'm putting them away for. For short term I use Break free CLP. Long term, I smear a film of cosmoline on everything and wrap it in paper with a desiccant block in the case. Although the only one in cosmo right now is a 91/30 mosin that is in superb shape that my grandfather gave me. Ironic huh? I spent hours scraping the shit off only to put it right back on...

I have/had my dad's old AYA shotgun,a Norinco SKS,#1 Mk3 enfield,Mossberg,
etc. etc. in a small gun closet since the mid 80's.Thy don't see the light of day for years and years.Here's my secret.They've been kept in hall closets,in an apartment when I lived in NY and now,since 2000 in our home in NJ.I've used one or two now and then but mostly they're like mushrooms,in the dark.
They all had oil run own the bores and a quick wipe once in a blue moon.
What's rust?Never saw it.
Seriously,keeping them out of damp places is probably the key.:D

Decades ago, a friend left me his Brown Bess while he was sent overseas with the Air Force. If you don't, the barrel on a Brown Bess is not brown, it is in the white. I coated it with Birchwood-Casey Sheath and after three years in my closet there was not a speck of rust.

If not using it for an extended period of time I would def. use COSMOLINE. You can find it in a spray can on the internet.

If it can work for the Russians it will work for you. My 1936 Mosin Nagant was spotless and still in Cosmoline when I picked it up from the gunshow a couple years ago.

Define a long time. Months, years, decades??

Ive got a fairly large collection of rifles, and only two are in cosmoline. New, unfired enfields that were packed in the 50's.

Unless I was going to be stashing guns away for a seriously long time (like 5 years or more) I would not use cosmoline. Too much work getting off unless storage is for a very, very long time or they are stored in a place I don't have that much access to.

For me, a better solution would be a good treatment with the preservative of your choice (i like kroil), and than storage in something like this:

http://www.zcorrproducts.com/

Once I have the funds for it I am going to be buying a dozen or so of these to store some of my rifles in that don't get shot that often.

Even with cosmoline, I would not store them in your guncase in your damp basement. A guncase is not fully sealed from the environment, so in theory could absorb moisture from a damp basement. Once that happens your guns will be sitting in a gun case that has the same moisture level as the room it is in.

Also, FWIW corrosion can happen FAST!!!!! I had the unfortunate chance to experience this.

I try to go through and oil my gun collection twice a year. Once in the winter and once in the summer. Two years ago I was about to start on the summer oiling cycle when I walked into my gun room to find a coating of rust on ALMOST EVERY METAL OBJECT!! Reloading dies that were still in the press, the reloading press itself, various guns that obviously were not well lubricated, etc...The kicker is that I was in this room less than two weeks prior and everything was fine. Fortunately, I was able to get the rust off almost everything, nothing except for one or two rifles appeared to be seriously affected, and to this day I really have a hard time figuring out which ones those are.

To this day I am still not sure what happened. The window was open a crack (which is weird since I have central heat/air and almost never open a window), and it was a particularly hot, rainy and muggy summer here in eastern PA when that happened, so I suppose that was the culprit, but the real shocker was just how quickly that layer of rust developed. If I had not gone in there that day, and had waited another week I hate to think of what I would have walked in on.