Surface rust on Kobra Carry

[Bud North]

Just bought an Ed Brown SS Kobra Carry. I looked at it on Wednesday and when I came back on Thursday, it had some very light surface rust. It polished right off a the store with Flitz meal polish. Has anyone seen this happen with a stainless steel firearm before?

[AZ Husker]

I got one of the first stainless KC's offered, and have never experienced a flake of rust. I do keep it lubed and wipe it down with a silicone cloth after handling it though.

[OD*]

Has anyone seen this happen with a stainless steel firearm before?
Yep, it's not all that uncommon. Stainless steel is rust resistant, not rust proof. ;)

[Jim Bellino]

Miami.....humid salt air will promote slight surface rust. Wipe down with silicone cloth or some light oil on a cloth will prevent it.

[zenner22]

This shouldn't be happening with a brand new firearm. Of course we don't know how long the dealer had it or what conditions it had been kept in. If it was factory new and not been sitting around for awhile then I'd be more than a bit upset.

[500 Magnum Nut]

No I never seen any rust on my Kobra pistols. It might be your climate?

[Shipwreck]

I've seen a post about this issue on a Kobra before - and there were a few responses that claimed the same thing. I don't own one so I can't comment further, however.

[gumby]

No rust here in California--my kc is fine.

[BradC]

I am located just north of you in FL and have never had a problem with rust on my stainless Kobra Carry.

Brad

[moyler]

Congrats on a fine weapon, first of all.

For peace of mind, I would call and talk to EB and see what he might say.

For your climate, I would consider a coating for your gun. Diamond Black is one of the best I have seen in person. Others like Ion-bond.

Good luck~

[sjd78]

I have never had any problems with rust at all....ever! I live in a part of California that gets pretty darn hot and I carry my KC almost every day, sometimes I sweat like heck and still no rust. Just be aware of your climate and maintain accordingly. Keep that thing wiped down with an oily cloth on a regular basis and you will be fine.

[bettysnephew]

FWIW:
A while back someone did a rather extensive corrosion test, and the winner at that time was EEZOX (spelling??). They exposed plates of mild steel to salt spray and left outside for a period of time. Perhaps someone else remembers this and can post a link. Some of the old standbys didn't fare too well if I recall.
David

Found it:
http://www.thegunzone.com/rust.html

[leade45]

Just bought an Ed Brown SS Kobra Carry. I looked at it on Wednesday and when I came back on Thursday, it had some very light surface rust. It polished right off a the store with Flitz meal polish. Has anyone seen this happen with a stainless steel firearm before?

There were some complaints awhile back about the grip safeties developing rust. That's all I have heard, though.

FWIW, my new Kobra Stainless had some brown fuzzies on the ejector, extracter, etc. when I got it. I stripped the whole gun down and rubbed everything down with some Breakfree CLP to get rid of any possible rusting issues.

Keep your gun wiped down with a product like Breakfree CLP or RIG and you will not have rust issues.

[torpeau]

Miami.....humid salt air will promote slight surface rust. Wipe down with silicone cloth or some light oil on a cloth will prevent it.

When I lived at Jacksonville Beach, I saw everything rust -- that salty air is very tough on all metals.

[markhait]

Most stainless guns are made from castings. A casting is chunks of stainless steel and small chips that are melted together to form a dimensional chunk of stainless steel.
Sometimes, metal finds their way into these castings. As would be expected, if the metal piece is near the surface, it can rust. Foundry do their best to make sure their castings are pure, but its just about impossible. They buy their metal (stainless steel), from many different sources, which are typically just scrap pieces left over from some other project. I know all this because I deal with this most days as a manager for a tool and die company.
We don't typically deal with stainless steel, but we do a lot of aluminum work. Most of our aluminum is castings. Castings are a cheap way to get what you need in a size that produces minimal waste. We once had a aluminum casting and our cutters started to break when we were machining an area on the casting. We had to actually dig into the casting with carbide grinders to find out what was going on.
Turns out that when they made our casting, a tap was in the mix! By tap, I mean what you use to thread a hole in metal! Here was a tap buried into our casting.
We had to gouge it out and weld up the area just so we could use the casting.

A long story to try to explain why SOMETIMES stainless steel rusts. Sometimes stainless steel has mild steel within itself.

[Triggerman]

I live on the Northwest Fl Gulfcoast and have not had "ANY" rust in two plus years. I don't think it's the climate causing the problem.

[torpeau]

I live on the Northwest Fl Gulfcoast and have not had "ANY" rust in two plus years. I don't think it's the climate causing the problem.

Much rust on the Atlantic side, but little on the Gulf side -- I think the difference is caused by the breezes.