Gun Blueing?

Anything you can do at home won't stand the test of time or humidity. Since the cost of a re-blue job is mostly in the labor of disassembly, polishing and reassembly, you can save a bunch by doing that yourself, then take the pieces to a gun shop that does bluing, for a dip in the hot bath. If you want to go that route, I'll do the blue for a good price if you don't mind sending them up north to a Yankee. Remove pyrotechnic device from addy to email me.

G96 brand...44-40 Cold Blue is pretty good stuff. Clean well, clean again..apply till you get the depth you want.

Gunner

Rule #35 "That which does not kill you, has made a huge tactical error"

About all that will prevent rust is oil and lots of it.

Some of the instant blues are OK, but none can match a hot blue job for fast and easy, but not cheap to set up for a one of job.

You could look up cold rust blueing and put the humidity to work for you. Labour intensive, but can result in good finish.

I have used some of the Birchwood Casey stuff from the local big store, and it worked for what I needed and it was cheap enough.

No matter what you go with, the better you polish, the shinier the finish will be. Some go in for flat or sandblasted, but those don't do much for me, so I went with the sand then buff route. I found that a nice even sanded finish at 220 grit or 320 grit worked nice and was less labour.

Cheers Trevor Jones

I'd check the bore before worrying about the exterior finish, unless they're to be decorative or treasured heirlooms rather than functional. No dis intended at all: I have a couple of heirlooms I wouldn't shoot but enjoy having. My wife does too.

I have all my black oxide (blueing) done by a gun smith, way cheaper that the minimum lot charge by commercial guys. Do all the prep work yourself and find a gun smith that does hot blueing, or use the offer of the last poster.

Do not expect it the next day, they wait until they have a bunch of parts until they heat up the tanks.

Thank You, Randy

Remove 333 from email address to reply.

You can hot blue at home if you want to bad enough. Years ago, I cut up a metal barrel and flattened it get steel for tanks and then proceeded to blue my buddies shotgun. I just wanted to see if I could do it. My buddy was happy with the results.

I used chemicals from Brownells and borrowed a couple hot plates to heat the tanks. TSP works great for degreasing.

As others mentioned, the metal prep is the most labor intensive part of this.

Wes S

"Don Foreman" wrote

Those old 22's with bad bores can be made into good shooters again pretty easily. The barrels are drilled out oversized and a rifled liner soldered or epoxied in. Then a new chamber is reamed and the extractor cut is made and the barrel recrowned. Voila, like new again. I do this work also. Actually an HSM could do it. The only special tool needed is the chamber reamer. Liners are available from Brownell's, as are the reamers. Tom

There's a lot of different methods out there, the major work with any finishing project is the surface prep. If you're not an ace with a buffing wheel, you'll end up with a lot of damage if you use one. Best thing to do is to do a lot of hand work. There's gunsmithing books out there that detail the process, pick one or more up. You have to keep the flats flat and not do a lot of damage to lettering.

Cold blues aren't terribly wear-resistant, the best of these is Brownell's Oxpho-Blue. If you want to do the job at home, the easiest process is probably the "Belgian" blue. This involves a tank of hot water as long as the barreled action and the chemical solution. Heat up the action in the water, swab the solution on, watch the stuff dry, card off residue and repeat. This gives a real blued finish that's durable. Kind of tedious but doesn't require vats of boiling caustic and it's easy enough to do, my dad did an '03 action in an afternoon. It also doesn't dissolve alloy or zinc components that may be attached, or attack lead solder. Herter's popularized the process, Brownell's retails the chemicals these days. If you've got a good library, Angier's "Blueing and Browning of Firearms" gives the formula and process tips.

If you want a new bore, Brownell's also has the barrel liners and tooling to do that. Just depends on how much time/money you want to sink into the project.

Stan

Hey Tom,

Did you get my email?

Jay Cups

Tom Wait wrote:

Thanks All for your responses

Jay Cups

snipped-for-privacy@prolynx.com wrote:

Yes I did. Did you get my reply? Tom

No I didn't.

My email address is randall at fontaine-etal.com not the randallX as states in the news group. Mean time I'll check my Spam Blocker.

Jay

Tom Wait wrote:

I shouldn't add anything at this point because I didn't read the thread, but I've done a number of barrels with cold-rust blue and I really like it. I've used it for some shop tools, too. Too much chromium (I think) in the steel defeats it, but most gun barrels take to it very well.

Other types of "cold blue" are thin and superficial. Hot bluing (which I have done) requires a big-deal setup and extraordinary efforts to clean the barrel (boiling it in lye, for example). With cold-rust, you can get by with a little less perfection because you can always card it again and give it another treatment, which tends to cover the little errors.

This may all have been said. If so, excuse my repitition.

-- Ed Huntress

========================= While not labor intensive / "old-world craftsmanship" you may want to consider the new spray-on gun finishes. Black, deep blue, stainless, brown, camo ...

Glass bead the guns with fine beads, spray and bake.

see:

If you want to do it the hard way see

Unka' George (George McDuffee) .............................. Only in Britain could it be thought a defect to be "too clever by half." The probability is that too many people are too stupid by three-quarters.

John Major (b. 1943), British Conservative politician, prime minister. Quoted in: Observer (London, 7 July 1991).

I'll take your word for it, and I'm not one to eschew new technology except when it undoes something I value. I do not value rubbing down rusty gun barrels with steel wool or wire brushes, so I'd look into it -- if I intended to blue any more guns.

'Not likely. But for those who do, I'll be interested to hear how it works for them.

-- Ed Huntress

Aack. That would bother me. But I guess I'd have to try it to know for sure.

So, you just let them shine on? I remember when Remington first used stainless for their shotgun barrels (1961? Give or take.) The market wasn't ready for bright stainless then, so they plated the outside of the barrels with iron, and then blued that.

The first time I saw a bright stainless barrel on a shotgun was also back in the '60s, when somebody was making a "salt water" gun for use against...pirates? I think most of them were bought by bluefishermen in NJ who used them to shoot at the boats that trolled across their chumslicks.

It looked right for the task but I always wondered how it would work in a duck blind.

-- Ed Huntress

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"Ed Huntress" wrote

Stainless can be blued without the plating. I plan to add that proccess to my shop in the future. If you don't like the shiney or satin finish on stainless bead blasting dulls it up real quick. Tom

Hokay, if I ever have a stainless barrel, I'll remember that. What stainless grade do they use for rifle barrels? One of the precipitation-hardening grades?

-- Ed Huntress