problem with rust

[garza1290]

I have two SIG pistols one is a P220 in 45 ACP. Hurricane Dolly brought a lot of water and the humidity has been higher than usual since. I noticed that the slide on this pistol developed light specks of rust. I wiped it off and thought nothing of it....problem solved. Wrong. Next day more specs of rust were present so I wiped it off, scrubbed with a brush using CLP and problem solved. Wrong again small specs of rust apeared again and I repeated the CLP and brush treatment and it seems like it has not come back today. I've heard there are products on the market that will remove the rust but will remove the bluing. My question is, is there a product out there that will remove or kill the rust and keep it gone without ruining the bluing. Note. The bluing and finish on the SIG P220 slide has, in my opinion, been pretty crummy even when it was NIB. Note....I think that with the moisture, hummidity beening so high, and couple of days of power outage and all the house windows being open would have resulted in this slight rust problem.
I also noticed this small specs of rust on the rear "bracket" that holds the bottom wooden hand guard to my AK in place, I took some light steal wool to it and used Birchwood Casy Perma Blue and it seems to have worked.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Roland

[freesw]

Since you haven't gotten any responses so far, I'll go ahead and mention what I'd do -- which does not mean this is the best thing to do by any means. I trust if anyone knows of a problem with this, they'll mention it.
Ordinary steel wool, however fine, is not supposed to be used on firearms, from what I've read, because it can leave fine steel particles that end up themselves contributing to rust. But, Brownells has stainless steel wool, that is said to be suitable for the problem you describe.
http://www.brownells.com/aspx/NS/store/productdetail.aspx?p=21175&st=stainless%20steel%20wool&s=

Stock number 080-000-321

Mfr: BROWNELLS

Removes Lead & Rust From Steel; Cleans Fouling From Black Powder Shooting

Stainless steel sponge cleans down to the original surface. Ideal for cleaning rust from loading dies, bullet molds, and guns without damaging the bluing. Won’t leave steel whiskers like steel wool. Cut up and wrap around jags or bore brushes to scrape plastic fouling out of shotgun barrels, or lead and powder gunk out of black powder rifles and pistols. Sponge won’t rust and can be cleaned for multiple uses.

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I just thought I'd mention this in case it's an option you weren't aware of, and perhaps someone else will know for sure whether it's safe to use, and/or whether there might be a better method. This would seem to be a widespread problem. Perhaps there are no good solutions, but some have got to be better than others. Good luck.

[Warlord]

I use Militec-1 with some dang good results. You can read up on it here.
http://www.militec-1.com/

[pbrktrt]

corrosion-x works very well.

[bigb00mer]

parkerize or duracoat

[Rmart30]

Send them out and have them hard chromed..... these guys do great work :)

http://www.apwcogan.com/

[garza1290]

Freesw, thanks for the advice. I think I solved my rust problem. I used some "0000" guage steal wool sponges with some CLP. The steal wool left no scratches at all which was suprising. No rust has appeard since.

I'm considering getting Dura Coat on this pistol but I'm not sure yet. For now I just leave it as is.

Thanks againg guys.

[Moxie]

I had the same problem with both my early 220 and early 226. Sent them both to SIG for what at the time was called their "two tone" treatment. They replaced all steel parts with hard chromed or stainless and hard chromed the slide.

At the time it was a little over $120.00 per firearm (advertised special about four years ago). It might be worth checking with the factory to see if they will still do this for you.

The new ones are stainless slides under their proprietary blackening. I replaced my old 226 with one of the new ones and haven't noticed the rusting issue yet in two years. The old (15-plus years) 220 with the now hard-chromed slide is still very, very nice.

I did have a plain stainless slide on my 229 in .40 and it too developed the seemingly untreatable tiny rust specs. Got rid of it for a blackened 229 in 357 and it seems just fine.

Moxie