How do you improve the smell of your gun safe?

[draggon]

If it's happening to both your safes then the problem is somethings rotting, probably a carpet lining or similar and that the problem is most likely mold.

Doesn't have to be really obvious or advanced to be smelly.

Masking the smell is the wrong way to go, need to stop it happening.

Probably doesn't require anything drastic like replacing linings or whatever, just stop the process. The easiest thing is to reduce the moisture that's required for rotting to happen.

Baking Soda has been mentioned, I am loath to put anything in a gun safe that is potentially corrosive.

What does work is silica gel and/or clay kitty litter.

Both these are available cheaply as cat litter, the silica gel is reusable, the clay is not.

Both will get rid of moisture and smell. The silica gel gets rid of moisture quicker but smell slowly, the clay the other way around which is why I use both initially.

I put big buckets of the stuff in my safe, not just a cup or two. never had a problem since doing that.

[Toolman]

Generally, guns don't stink. They smell like Hoppe's, CLP or gun oil. Uncleaned guns that have shot black powder may stink. If black powder ain't the culprit, I would pull up the carpet & check everywhere in your safe to see if there's a dead critter in/under there.

[Ozzieman]

Update on safe stink.
Removed the guns over night (And no there were NO dead critters) and let it air out.
Still had a smell. I think it’s made up of old guns, some not so clean and old ammo pouches that are older than I am (WW2 M1 Grand).
There was no mold and I have several items that remove moisture from the safe. I also put a hygrometer in the safe overnight to see what the humidity was and it stayed under 20%.
Also this is a fire proof safe and air tight.
All the carpet is good and really couldn’t find anything.
Put two drier sheets and it’s gone. And it has that fresh smell.
Thanks for all the input.

[BarryLee]

Have you considered utilizing activated carbon? I am pretty sure you can buy sheets of carbon filter felt like material from industrial supply houses. The material is used to filter odors and contaminates out of air and water.

[saltydog452]

In a previous life, I picked up and delivered foodstuff. It wasn't unusual to have a trailer that had a funky smell to it. You never know what was in there before you got under it.

A funky smell in your trailer will get an outbound load declined.

If the situtation was such that it was impractical to get another trailer, it was fairly common to spend 5 bucks on a pound of cheap coffee grounds, scatter them around the floor a bit, and sweep them out when you arrived at the shippers whse.

It worked every time.

There isn't too many things that smell better than fresh coffee.

salty

[Magnum Wheel Man]

SALTY... where are you from ??? I've been in the powdered food ingredient industry for what seems like forever... the only way we could put coffee creamer ( or another neutral flavored powder ) in a trailer that had hauled tires before, was to do the coffee trick... & yes, it worked every time

[saltydog452]

Texas.

The absolute worse is Captan. Its the stuff that is added to give natural gas its odor.

A close runner-up would be Asian canned foodstuff, damaged in loading, and spent a few weeks in the confines of a Sea-Land container. Shark Fin soup do get kinda ripe after a while.

By comparison, either would make the the repulsive odor in the safe of the gent that started this thread smell like Sunday morning in church.

salty

[ethan95]

http://www.hoppes.com/products/ca_air_freshener.html

+1 i got them form my safe and my dresser drawer And those damp rid things you can get at home depot work great too, not a shimmer of pitting on any gun since i got them. there cheap and reusable.