I stopped into my LGS today to shoot the breeze and saw this; a brand new, straight out of the box 686:

Action was completely locked-up; most likely the internals are similarly rusted. Not mine, and I didn't ask which distributor it came from, but an example of what can happen when they get wet, I suppose. Shop will send it back to the mother ship. -S2

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Wow.......

Makes me want to run to the gun room and start oiling my revolvers.

Oh, my.

That was shipped direct from S&W or a distributor like that, or did it get soaked in transit or while in possession of the shop?

I once had a C&R comm block pistol shipped to me from AIM surplus, and somewhere along the way it ended up getting drenched, to the point that the box was almost coming apart. i immediately stripped it, dried it out, and relubed it with no problems, but I hate to think how it would have looked had I not.

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Only a cold warrior

Just a little surface rust, it'll buff right out.
Seriously, what the heck!

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Straight shootin'
SWCA#2439

Somebody used a not yet coated, case colored hammer in that build I think. Wonder what the innards look like...........

The lock arm is nice and shiney!
Nice try!
Someone did that.

My thoughts exactly Lou. No pitting. Every other part is pristine.

Very strange.

^^^what he said. Remember the old line: "You can't make this stuff up!"

Kaaskop49
Shield #5103

Distributor exclusive with tangerine colored small parts.

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Psalm 27:2

must be the Rust Belt version

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My sgntr is mor thn 30 chrctrs

Dang! Time for to get out the Rem-oil.

Wow! After my 2018 fire most of my guns got wet whilst INSIDE the gun safe and not one of them rusted like that. Some of them lost their glamor with stains and such but every one of them cleaned up to either pristine in the case of stainless guns or "definitely a shooter" in the case of the blued guns.

I sold all of the blued guns. Couldn't look at them! LGS got reasonable money for them and tested them all so we know they were good to go.

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Come and take it!!

I'd say it is a flood gun, but the sights and trigger look pristine. That's an oddity.

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VCDL, GOA, NRA

Can someone explain to me why, if the gun got wet, the only thing to rust is the hammer?

That looks like chemical rust to me more than water rust. If so the internals could be even worse.

That's unreal !
We had a bad flood a few years ago , several friends homes went under and some firearms were not recovered for 3-4 weeks out of the wet mucky water...none had rusted as bad as that hammer... I shudder to think of what the insides looks like .
Most of the flood guns cleaned up with some light surface rust on blue finish , stainless steel revolvers came through even better .
Looks like some type of rusting agent applied to hammer...not simply a little water ?
Gary

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Certified Cajun
NRA Member

The chemical color case hardening for
this particular hammer went awry.

I suspect that the insides of the gun
are fine and only hammer needs to be
pitched.

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Ubi Est Mea

Uncle Ed is probably right. I was guessing that it got wet, but after reviewing some of the above comments that now seems unlikely. I would expect the trigger to have been similarly rusted if simple moisture was the cause. Some type of chemical reaction with the color case treatment now seems more likely. Regardless, not my gun, so not my problem; but interesting nonetheless. -S2