Best Gun Safe Dehumidifier (2021 Reviews)

Best Gun Safe Dehumidifiers

Eva-Dry Wireless Mini Dehumidifier

We love this little dehumidifier. It's small, and it's cheap, and it doesn't need a power supply in your gun safe. You just hang it up and the silica gel beads absorb any humidity in the safe. If you have a large safe, just buy two or three!

At 9" x 8" by 3" it's small enough to slip into even the smallest gun safe. The beads will absorb moisture for up to a month (6 ounces of moisture), and when they turn from orange to green, you know you need to recharge. Simply take the unit out of the safe, plug it into an electrical outlet for about ten hours, and the beads will be dried out and ready for use again.

A few customers have reported the unit getting very hot if it's left plugged in too long, so it's best to recharge while you're around to keep an eye on it. But there are no moving parts to cause problems, it doesn't matter if you get a power outage while it's working in your gun safe, and it's a reliable product that comes with a 5 year guarantee.

Pro Breeze Wireless Mini Dehumidifier

This little dehumidifier is even smaller than the Eva-Dry (7" x 6" x 2") and works on the same principle, with silica gel beads that absorb moisture from the air. Similarly to the Eva-Dry, the beads start orange and go green when they have absorbed as much moisture as they can hold. A single unit can dehumidify up to 33 cubic feet and you'll be able to go 20-30 days before it needs a recharge.

The reason we've put it second in the list is that it appears to be just a bit less reliable. There are reports that it can take a lot longer than the specified 8-10 hours to recharge, and it only comes with a 1 year warranty instead of the 5 years you get with Eva-Dry.

GoldenRod Dehumidifier

The Goldenrod comes in a number of sizes from 12" up to 36" long, costing around $25. You'll be able to dehumidify up to 100 cubic feet with the 12" version, and this goes up to 500 cubic feet with the 36".

Technically speaking, the Goldenrod isn't a dehumidifier - it's a small heater. Installed at the bottom of a gun safe, it will heat the air, which ensures a convection current (since hot air rises), reduces relative humidity and prevents condensation. If your gun safe is located in an unheated garage or workshop, this is a really great product to help keep the atmosphere in the safe warm and dry.

You'll need a power supply, so you're going to need to drill a small hole in your gun safe to pass the cable through, then attach the separate plug. (The plug isn't particularly robust so you might consider buying a replacement next time you're at the supermarket.)  The rod comes with mounting brackets which allow you to install it easily and safely.

It's filled with vermiculite, which ensures the heat is evenly distributed along the length of the rod to avoid hot-spots. It can get up to 150F, which is too hot to touch, but the manufacturers assure us that it can't get hot enough to ignite a piece of paper or start setting off your ammunition.

Made in the USA, the Goldenrod gets great customer reviews. And you can always use it together with the Eva-Dry to ensure your gun safe is really well protected from humidity.

Lockdown Dehumidifier Rod

The Lockdown rod is similar to the Goldenrod but comes in only two lengths, 12" and 18". It's slightly lower wattage, which is why we put Goldenrod at #3 and Lockdown at #4, but it can still cope with up to 100 cubic feet of space.

And it's nice to know that with its 12 watt rating, this rod isn't going to bust the bank when your energy bills come in. You can run it for three days for less than 13 cents!

The clip-on plug is really pretty flimsy, so as with the Goldenrod, you might want to spring an extra few bucks for a more solid plug from Home Depot. But installation is not hard; the mounting brackets let you fix the rod securely to the bottom of your safe, and you only need to drill a hole large enough to feed the cable through, before adding the plug on the other end.

Barska Safe Moisture Absorber

We like the convenience of the Eva-Dry but if you have a microwave, the Barska is even cheaper and just as convenient. For just over $10 you get a pack full of silica gel crystals. It's blue - until it gets filled up with moisture, when it turns pink to let you know it needs to be dried out.

To recharge, you just pop the Barska pack in the microwave for four minutes! No need to plug it in - and a lot quicker than the ten-hour recharge for the Eva-Dry and Pro Breeze.

Plus, if you have a small gun safe, it's the smallest of all these dehumidifiers - just 5 x 3.5 x 1 inch!

There's one thing we should warn you about though. It needs four minutes at no more than 600W. If you have a more powerful microwave, then you need to run it at half power or even less. You can actually melt the pack if you put the microwave on too high, so take it gently.

Final Verdict

If you're a gun owner you want your gun to stay in good condition, and that means you'll want to control the humidity in your gun safe to avoid rust and corrosion. Gun safes don't come with built-in humidity control, but you're lucky; perfectly adequate dehumidifiers can be bought for less than ten percent the cost of your safe.

Any of the dehumidifiers we've reviewed should do a great job of looking after your guns. Use both a silica gel type and a rod in combination, and you can be confident that your safe will be dry.