If you have been grinding your way through ARC Raiders, you will eventually hit a major progression milestone: upgrading your Gunsmith workshop bench to Level 3. It is a massive power spike for your arsenal, but getting there requires tracking down a few elusive components. Specifically, you are going to need 3 Rusted Gears, alongside 5 Advanced Mechanical Components and 4 Sentinel Firing Cores to complete the upgrade.
The Core Challenge
Rusted Gear is classified as a rare Industrial item. Because it shares the exact same loot pool with much more common materials like Rusted Tools, finding them purely by accident can take forever. If you want to get your bench upgraded without losing your mind, you need to target specific maps, points of interest, and container types.
Best Farming Locations
Rusted Gear spawns predominantly in zones explicitly tagged as Industrial on your map. When you are queuing up for your next raid, focus your efforts on these specific hotspots:
1. Dam Battlegrounds

• The Scrapyard: A prime target packed with broken vehicles, yellowish cargo wrecks, and old service trucks. Search everything on wheels.
• Power Generation Complex / Extraction Buses: Locate the two parallel buses sitting right next to the northern extraction elevator. Make sure to breach the luggage compartments at the back and sides of these buses; community testers report an extremely high drop rate for Rusted Gear here.
• Water Treatment Control: Another high-density industrial point on this map that features a solid concentration of lootable crates.

2. The Blue Gate

• Warehouse Complex Underground Garage: This area contains a massive concentration of civilian cars. Bring breach charges and check every single hood.
• Checkpoint & Highway Collapse: Great for a fast, linear run through broken-down vehicles. The only downside is that it features heavier player traffic and a strong ARC presence, so keep your eyes peeled.

3. Stella Montis

• Assembly Workshops (Northwest): Head to the loading bays and look for the distinctive green, white, and yellow breachable containers. These hold high-value industrial loot and yield consistent gears compared to standard civilian spots.

4. Spaceport & Buried City

• Spaceport: Focus your search entirely on the Vehicle Maintenance building, the Rocket Assembly floor, and the Container Storage yard.
• Buried City: Hit the multi-level Parking Garage for vehicle loot, and search the side-opening white rusted industrial crates inside the main Warehouse.

What Containers to Search
You will almost never find Rusted Gear sitting out in the open on a table or shelf. It is almost always hidden behind a breach wall or inside a specific container type. Keep a lookout for these three main targets:

• Intact Car Hoods: Any car, truck, or bus with its hood closed can be breached and searched. Look for service trucks especially.
• Bus Luggage Compartments: These are the breachable side and rear panels on larger transit vehicles. As mentioned with the Dam extraction buses, these are high-value targets.
• Industrial & Side-Opening Crates: Look for large white or yellow rusted metal containers that require breaching. They are often tucked away in loading docks and warehouses.

Pro-Tips for Efficient Farming
To maximize your efficiency and ensure you actually make it back to base with your hard-earned loot, keep these rules of thumb in mind during your runs:

• Prioritize Night Raids: Running maps during a Night Raid significantly bumps up both the spawn rates and the overall quality of industrial loot containers. It is riskier, but the rewards make it worth it if you are explicitly hunting rare components.
• Secure Your Safe Pocket Immediately: Rusted Gears are heavy, weighing 3KG each. The moment you pull one out of a container, drop it directly into your safe pocket. If your pocket is full, make a line straight for the nearest extraction point so you do not risk losing it to a surprise player ambush.
• Do Not Recycle or Sell Them: It can be tempting to clear out inventory space by breaking them down into 4 Metal Parts and 2 Mechanical Components, or selling them to a vendor for a quick 2,000 Raider Coins. Do not do it. Strictly hoard every single gear you find until your Gunsmith bench is fully upgraded to Level 3.