I am from dry Texas and I bought a VTR 308 with matte finish two weeks ago. I took the gun on a hog hunt to south Texas for two days. The weather was dry with low humidity. When I arrived home, I was going to clean the rifle and I noted a lot of light brown rust on the barrel and on the bolt. Is this common with the matte finish? How do you prevent the rusting? I can not imagine what will happen if you are hunting in a wet climate. Thanks for your comments.

For the rust to appear it must have been subjected to some sort of humidity, condensation is a common culprit. Yes it is more prevelant with blued finish be that matte or gloss. Wipe down your rifle with a rag using light gun oil. If possible don't store rifle in a case, a gun cabinet, locked closet, etc. If you must store in a case get a case with the foam egg crate insides, be it hard plastic or alum.

I hunt in wet conditions, all I do is wipe down the rifle with a rag and light gun oil. I then pass a couple moist gun oil patches through the bore at the end of my hunting day. Prior to the next hunt I pass thru dry patches to remove any excess oil in the the bore. I do this with blue and ss finished rifles.

A gun safe or cabinet is beter than any gun case. I have a 25 watt bulb burning in each of my safes which raises the temp inside the safe a bit higher than the ambient (room) temp. Moisture will always move from warm to cold. I neve have any rust problems.

After you are done "caring" for your guns, store them in one of these.

http://www.cabelas.com/product/Bore-...h-All+Products

Gun cases are the worst !!!

Well, great work! You have helped me to improve my knowledge about this field. Thank you so much for sharing.

I'm from Ohio and have a 700 PSS that has done the same thing. Do to rain and humidity here a Remington Armorer made the suggestion to get one of these or something like it:

http://www.cabelas.com/gun-safes-rem...difier-3.shtml

It seems to help. Also, unless you are transporting the weapon to the range or woods don't store it in standard (the gray solid stuff ) foam because that stuff holds moisture like crazy.

Sometimes light gun oil will not prevent rust. My guns get slathered with gun grease or Militec 1: They never rust.

I have become a big fan of Sentry Solutions TUFF cloth. I have used it in multiple climates from Iraq to Haiti. I do not remember if there was any rust on my M16 while serving in Haiti because we cleaned our rifles at least once a day, but I do remember that trip helped influence me with this product.

matte finishes have a higher surface area then high gloss finishes. matte has micro ridges and valleys, this is how they diffuse light and cause the matte appearance. these ridges and valleys give moisture somewhere to stick to and also impede evaporation. the micro ridges and valleys also create a larger surface area allowing for more possible steel to be exposed to ambient sources of oxygen. high gloss finishes are flat in comparrison and dont experiance the above effects as greatly.

foam lined gun cases create a closed, sometimes saturated enviroment. this can be a breeding ground for rust IF the air is saturated with common water condensation. there are several industrial products on the market which will displace water from saturating air by instead saturating it with oil. the most notable of these products is ZE-rust from flambeau. products like this are designed to cause a oil condensation within the closed enviroment preventing rust but evaporation of water is greatly slowed in the given enviroment.

raising the tempature within your gun cabinet will greatly improve evaporation but it will also super charge any existing rust. just remember that rust is simply iron oxide (type 1) and increasing the tempature will speed up the oxidizing much in the same way acids are supercharged when heated. of course this wont be a problem if the evaporated water has somewhere to go like silica gel or just by opening the cabinet every now and then to allow the water saturated air to escape.

in general the kiss principle will prevail. drying the gun then wiping it down with a good oil should be sufficient.