For the record I even set WWII Mauser parts in a pole barn for years at a time coated in various cooking oils like Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Grape Seed Oil, Peanut Oil and could not get them to rust. I also tried a variety of greases designed for automotive purposes and not rust prevention.
You have to go out of your way, not oil and neglect a firearm to get it to rust outside of jungle or ocean environment.
I have likewise set Mausers up on an shelf and parts for over a decade with no oil on them and handled them and not had them rust.
The most rust prone rifles, shotguns and parts I have had even when coated in gun specific lubricants have been flat/matt blued Remington's, Polished Mossbergs Shotgun Barrels and Savage bolt action flatt/matt blued receivers and trigger parts on Savage Accu Trigger blade and springs.
I think Mausers and old Winchesters resist rust as well as they do because of the nickle content in the steel! Savage and Remington prior to Remingtons BK have used the lowest quality bare minimum steel for a long long time. You can feel a difference in Remington 700's based on when they where made with older versions being slicker than newer version. The steel feels gummy and grabs. Just like Remington rifle barrels for decades where pit prone monsters and even the most mild of copper cleaners could attack the poor steel and pit them.
You can tell a lot about a manufacture's steel, production methods and heat treat by how the parts feel when they slide or glide against each other even with out metallurgical studies.
In modern times the mass production rifle manufactures have raced for the bottom in terms of how cheap they can make the product and low they can go in terms of metal specifications and heat treatment and still turn out a lawyer proof product. Accuracy has come not because they sought to make a better rifle but because old machinery became too outdated to economically repair or too energy intensive to run! As the level of heat treatment control and precision has improved it has allowed for lower quality steel to be specified. As purity of steel has improved again lower specifications can be set and easily met with out the need to over specify steel to ensure the minimum is met.
The need to manufacture a part with less complicated machining and less total machine time has also produced very accurate rifles by design. It is no accident that modern designs that also use simple designs and mostly CNC with very little re-ficturing like the Ruger American and TIkka T3 are so accurate compared to rifles that cost far more to manufacture and had better materials and more sophisticated designs like the Winchester Model 70, Mauser 98, Springfield 1903 and just about every SAKO, SAUER, Hyem etc...that came before them.
416R is about marketing to customers and selling lots of crap steel to the gun industry. The gun industry wanted to sell the merits of Stainless Steel to consumers like a 1970's Ginsu Kitchen Knives Informercials and wanted to please the gun industry by giving them an easy to machine buttery soft stainless steel. It was a win for the steel mills and for the gun manufactures and consumer are so ignorant and stupid they lapped it up like hungry dogs to gravy train dog food commercials in the 1980's!
I have been trying to educate gun owners on 416R steel since 1995 when I got on the internet at my first apartment in college. I was on before that but was not on gun USNET sites before that.
416R is to quality rifle steel what 420 steel is to knife blades! LOL There is simply too many ignorant masses that refuse to educate themselves before opening their wallets. 416R, 4140, 4150 steels are all garbage by modern standards and no gun company should be using them in 2023. They use them because their customers are ignorant and keep pulling up to the trough to eat as super consumers no matter what they are fed. As long as no one breaks the cycle or try's to educate the consumer it is a gravy train for anyone that manufactures receivers, bolts and barrels. You as a consumer can not purchase what is not for sale so it works out for everyone so long as no one rocks the the boat!
Likewise few places take the time for optimal heat treat because that would take more time, more money and more quality control and more rework. They make the acceptable limit so wide as to be almost meaningless in that nothing will fail to meet the specification so no rejection and rework is needed.
I am a small thorn in the side of anyone wanting to pass off lies as facts. I have worked as an industry professional in automotive world since 1988. Aviation world since 1998. Heavy Salvage since 1993. Manufacturing since around 2000. Worked my first lathe, mill, metal shaper and welder in 1984 which was also when I first trued up and re-barreled a Mauser. Worked for Bavarian Motor Works, BF Goodrich Aviation/Avionics, General Motors Service Parts North America Engineering, General Motors Defense, Toyota, Hino, Cessna, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Hughes Electronics and so many more. I am 50 years old and do not give a shit who does not like me.
It is not that I think we need super high tech space guns it is that I do not want to be lied to and sold a bill of goods that is a lie.
If we as a consumer demand more we will get more. If we hunker up to the feed trough like 1970's-1980's super consumer's and just accept what is kicked out the door to us like what Detroit auto industry did for decades than we will get high priced junk. Educate yourself, demand more and refuse to buy unless you get it!
they look like now. I should have used 316.
