If you are forced to store a gun that will not be used for a while but you do not want to sell or otherwise get rid of it, what do you do with it? Does long term gun storage loom in the back of your mind? The more important piece here isn’t necessarily where you store your firearms long term, it’s how to prepare them for storage. Want to bury your firearms and gun accessories out in the field behind your house? Go for it. Just make sure you prepare them properly first. Whether you’re dropping them down a hole on the old family property or simply storing them away in your gun safe, preparing an AR-15 (or any firearm, really) for long-term storage requires you to take a few different steps. This isn’t just cleaning it and stowing it safely until you head to the range in a couple of weeks. The process is a bit more involved than that. If you’re looking to store your rifle for months or years, you’ll need to:

Clean Your Gun Thoroughly

Of course, this is going to be step one. Cleaning your firearms should always be a key component of safe gun storage, no matter how long or short they’ll be stowed away. Whether you only use your gun on an indoor range or you haul it through the dust, mud, and grime of hunting, if not taken care of you can damage or even break your firearm if it is stored still dirty. Even repeated trips to the range can cause particulates from the shells to cake the inside of your barrel, making a full cleaning every time you hit the range a necessity. At the very least, make sure to clean your firearm fully before storing it, even if you just cleaned it before the last time you fired it.

Make sure you’re breaking your firearm down as much as possible and cleaning out every little nook and cranny to avoid encouraging any internal rust or other damage. Also, since your firearm will be sitting untouched for a while, be sure to carefully clean away fingerprints so the oil from your skin doesn’t sit on the gun and affect the finish. When everything is clean, apply only a thin layer of lubricant to the metal surfaces. Avoid getting lubricant on any plastic or wooden components of your firearms since the ingredients in the lubricant will ruin non-metal materials over long periods of time. If your rifle does have wooden components, treat them with wax to minimize swelling or cracks.

Choose Gun Storage Options Wisely

The biggest issues with long-term gun storage are protecting against moisture and grime, which can wear away at a gun if left to sit for long periods of time. This is most easily achieved by ensuring that your firearm is stored in an area that is sealed and waterproofed. It’s also a good idea to remove some accessories. Your AR-15 rail grip can probably stay, but any optics should come off for long-term storage, simply to minimize scratches to your firearms and damage to the AR accessories. The big thing to keep in mind is that choosing reliable storage methods will go a long way toward minimizing the potential for environmental effects that could wreck your gun. Good protective measures include:

A Gun Safe

This is probably the first thing you should consider when considering firearm storage. This is a great option for short- and long-term storage because it safely secures your firearms while providing easy access to your firearm when you decide you want to clean it or go and shoot. Gun safes are designed specifically with gun protection in mind, so they will help guard against moisture and grime — assuming your firearms are stored properly, of course. They are a great option in particular for those of you who live in more humid areas, as you can easily access and check your firearms for rust with a key, passcode, or fingerprint scan.

Silicone-Treated Gun Socks

The silicone-imbued material is great for storing firearms because it repels moisture. Now, don’t take that to mean you could store your firearm in areas that are prone to flooding and not worry about it; that’s definitely not how it works. The silicone treatment is enough to ensure the fabric of the sock doesn’t hold onto moisture, which means a lot less worry about rust since there isn’t material trapping moisture right against your firearm. The fabric also provides some level of scratch protection. Silicone-treated gun socks aren’t a perfect solution, however, since many of them close with a drawstring, providing a less-than-perfect seal.

Gun Bags

Like silicone-treated socks, gun bags are a good option for giving your guns extra protection against scratches. Unlike silicone gun socks, however, gun bags don’t provide nearly as much protection against moisture, and are best used alongside options such as a safe. This isn’t necessarily a problem unless you live in a humid area. If that’s the case, you’ll want to employ additional moisture removal methods. The upside, as many of you likely already know, is that gun bags are a good multi-purpose option since they can be used for both storage and transport. This is also a good way to store some of those custom AR parts and accessories with the gun without actually having them attached while the gun is stored.

Wax Paper

We’ll mention this one because it is actually a viable option — however, this comes with a hearty word of caution. You can, if you have no other options, use wax paper to protect your firearms. It repels moisture and helps reduce scratches while a firearm is in storage. However, to be even remotely effective, you’ll need to wrap your guns carefully, mummy-style, and secure it with masking tape. If there are gaps or points where your gun pokes through, the wax paper loses a lot of its effectiveness. Again, let us reiterate: this is a stopgap measure. If you’re planning on long-term storage, it’ll be much better for your firearms to invest in actual gun-specific protective measures.

Moisture Removal Assistance

You’ve probably noticed that the litany throughout this blog is that moisture is bad for guns. We’re going to hammer that point in just a bit more because of how little time it takes for moisture to spiral into rust. Save yourself heartache and expenses and invest in some dehumidifying help. Powered dehumidifiers will be better to remove moisture from the air in a larger space, like a full room. Desiccants — like those small silicone packets that come in new shoe boxes — are smaller and don’t need to be powered to work, but you may find you need to swap them out on occasion, especially if you live in a humid area.

What To Avoid When Storing Your Gun

There seem to be many involved in the firearm community that feel like storing their guns in the cardboard box it came in is plenty of protection. If you hear that advice, ignore it. While that might be a decent way to make sure you avoid scratching your firearm at all, cardboard of any kind isn’t ideal for storage because it absorbs moisture. As moisture builds, it will get trapped right around your gun and encourage rust.

The other big one to avoid is anything with a sheepskin lining because of how long sheepskin takes to dry. Like cardboard boxes, sheepskin will hold on to moisture rather than repel it.

Proper protective measures will help your AR-15 (and other firearms) last much longer, no matter how much time they spend in storage throughout the year. Depending on what they’re made from, custom AR parts and accessories may need slightly different storage and care than the firearm itself. Our RailScales are all machined from G10, so you don’t have to worry about rust or humidity damage. 

Cleaning Your AR Down The Road

Cleaning your G10 RailScales is also a task you may have to perform down the line as with any basic maintenance of the rifle itself. You simply need a brush of some sort, preferably a toothbrush or a cleaning brush from your gun cleaning kit, and some gun oil. Lightly coat the brush with some oil and begin working it into the panel, if you get too much oil on the panel don't worry as G10 is a very porous material and will soak up quite a bit of it. This small little maintenance detail will keep your G10 RailScales or XOS panels looking brand new and giving them new life if you have been rough with them at the range. Be sure to check out our linked video for a better demonstration of the cleaning method.