Warning-rubber hose may cause rust.

[superhawk996]

Several months ago I set up pegboard to hang guns.  I cut the long pegboard hooks down so they were straight pegs.  Pistols were placed by sliding the barrels onto the pegs after cutting them to length.  The smaller calibers (.22 and .25) got heat shrink tubing over the steel pegs.  The 9mm/.380 sized got silicone tubing.  The .40 to .45 sized got rubber vacuum hose.  Getting the diameter of the pegs near the barrel diameter keeps the guns from tilting down, not necessary, but it looks better.  Yesterday I grabbed one of the .45s and discovered rust at the muzzle, just at the bottom where it's pressed against the rubber...WTF?  I then found that everything on rubber hose had rust, none of the others that I checked did.

 

Luck being what it is, the nicest two (Kimber Ultra Carry 2 and Colt Series 70) have the nastiest rust.  The Kimber has a SS barrel and it's the most rusty.  Looking further in where the rubber was touching the top of the barrel near the chamber is also rusted.  The factory Glocks have just a tinge of brown staining that I probably wouldn't have noticed if not looking for it, an aftermarket SS Glock barrel has obvious rust.

 

The hose was old, but 'fresh' off my roll and I don't think anything got onto it.  My assumption is that something in the hose material interacted with the steel.

 

Kimber and Colt  😢

 

[blackhawkxx]

Wow!  Did they clean up OK?  We have all seen vinyl coated pegs to hang guns so is it that particular rubber or rubber in general?  Was the silicone and heat shrink tubing guns OK?

[SwampNut]

Holy shit that sucks.

[superhawk996]

7 hours ago, blackhawkxx said:

Wow!  Did they clean up OK?  We have all seen vinyl coated pegs to hang guns so is it that particular rubber or rubber in general?  Was the silicone and heat shrink tubing guns OK?

I didn't get super detailed/aggressive with the cleaning, I knocked it down some and gave them a healthy shot of OneShot as a preservative.  I'm going to shoot them as soon as I can get a chance, then see what's left and go from there.

 

The heat shrink and silicone guns were all fine.  Many of these were previously on coated hangers designed for the purpose and had no issue.  It's just the rubber hose that fucked them up, but not all rubbers that would do it, it's something about the composition of this rubber.  Rubber is a pretty loose term, kinda like metal.  Titanium and zinc are both metals, but they're a bit different.

[superhawk996]

6 hours ago, SwampNut said:

Holy shit that sucks.

Initially the Kimber bothered me the most because it's a very nice gun and got the worst damage, but the Colt bothers me way more because it's an old gun.  It's a '76 which was a fairly low production year.  Being that it has a fair bit of wear helps take the sting out of it.

 

Something I'd never paid attention to before; most of the barrel is blued and the chamber area is in the white, interesting.

 

[SierraKLR]

Rubber is porous enough to hold surface moisture.  Think Armor-All on tires, radiator hoses and fuel hoses.   

[SwampNut]

Yeah, retained moisture is my assumption here.  Like leaving a piece of wood, or even heavy sawdust, on a cast iron machine table when it rains.

 

[superhawk996]

On 3/24/2023 at 10:36 AM, SierraKLR said:

Rubber is porous enough to hold surface moisture.  Think Armor-All on tires, radiator hoses and fuel hoses.   

I thought of that, and the fact that I had handled the hose so it would also have skin contaminants.  But being that it attacked the SS barrels so harshly leads me to think it's more of a chemical reaction, kinda like what happens with dissimilar metals in contact with each other.  I've read that some hoses have graphite in them, and graphite will attack stainless, so my guess is that this was the cause.

 

This unplanned experiment made me a believer in Glock's Tenifer process, those were the only barrels that were unharmed.  It supposedly makes the barrels and slides nearly diamond hard, and apparently nearly as rust resistant.  According to some forum people, Glock has a test barrel with a million rounds through it.

[SwampNut]

Graphite is conductive, so galvanic corrosion would make sense.

 

There's a funny problem with carbon bicycles.  If you don't use carbon paste in the joints from CF to alloy, they can weld themselves to each other, or you may break the CF trying to tighten it enough to hold (before it welds itself).  CF paste has a grit and a dielectric to solve both.

[blackhawkxx]

6 hours ago, superhawk996 said:

graphite will attack stainless

I never knew that.  On old cars the outside key locks were stainless, at least the outer part and graphite was often used in to keep them working smoothly but I don't know if the inside was stainless.

[SwampNut]

42 minutes ago, blackhawkxx said:

I never knew that.  On old cars the outside key locks were stainless, at least the outer part and graphite was often used in to keep them working smoothly but I don't know if the inside was stainless.

 

There's probably a difference in overall conductivity with powdered graphite as opposed to something structured and continuous.  Not sure if I'm wording that in a way that makes sense.  But powder may not have the same effect as a solid.  Also the locks I've opened up all had brass pins and some kind of gray metal tumbler or also brass.  But I don't specifically recall car lock construction.

 

 

[superhawk996]

Old car door locks were stainless on the face and sometimes a stainless retainer plate for the pin springs, the springs might be stainless too.  The rotating part and outside part on those I've played with were some kind of 'pot metal' type stuff.  The pins are brass, the springs could be stainless.

 

I have lots of SS and I'm pretty sure I know where the graphite powder is hiding, looks like an experiment is required.  I'll put a piece of the offending tubing on it too.