I could get by with blue but prefer the corrosion resistance of stainless. Seems like every moose season it rains the whole time I'm hunting. I base out of a small tent and have no way to really dry out anything. With my stainless guns I just leave them on a table in the rain so I can grab them as I get out of the tent if needed. I don't have rust and I have never seen rust on my stainless guns. I pitted the barrel of my blue bisley while working around salt water on the Alaska Peninsula. I could not properly maintain the gun as I wasn't supposed to be carrying it and had to keep it hidden even when it was soaked. But I'll be danged if I was going to mess around in BIG bear country without something. So now I generally try to buy only stainless guns for peace of mind. I love having the option of stainless and I think they're worth it. Oh in all cases, when I come out of the field, I open up my guns and hang them in the boiler room to totally dry out. I use Rem Oil, Birchwood's Sheath, Beeman MP5, Birchwood's synthetic gun oil, and sometimes Corrosion Block. For a while I was sure the Beeman MP5 was the best but saw a little rust develop on my kid's CZ Scout so have gone to the Birchwood Synthetic. Corrosion Block as described in a previous post used to be easy to find but I can't lately, I wonder why. I loved it for hosing off my outboards, snow blower and such. It worked very well.