I have a rifle that has a lot of surface rust all over it with little or no blueing left on it. There is pits on it as well but bore is good and brite and the mechanics of the gun work very good. The question is I don't think I can polish it enough to get all the rust pits out of it some are deep so re blueing the gun is out of the question for me, what else can be done to preserve the gun as it does shoot fairly well?
Last edited by M-Tecs; 01-21-2015 at 11:26 PM.
how deep are the pits? hot dip bluing from a local gunsmith isnt usually super expensive.
Don't know what kind of rifle you spoke about so here goes. If it were me I'd have it bead blasted and then parkerized. Saw a marlin 336 that had been done like the above. Some of the larger pits were still visible but since it was a garage find and he didn't have any money in it I'd say it turned out nice. He also redid the wood with a dull military finish which didn't reflect any light.
Can't polish pits away. Pitting is removed by draw filing. A good bluer will remove all pitting before polishing and bluing. A lot of guns can be saved by a good prep man. The quality of the blue is directly in relation to the quality of the prep work. This takes time and time is money. But there's also a saying that "you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear!
Pits would have rust you can't sand out.. unless you sandblast. I restored a 40 year old 22lr lever gun before I knew anything, turned out really well. Used a 400 grit sandpaper to remove the bulk of the rust (and old bluing) and then used CLR to dissolve the rest of the rust. Rinse in ice water (warm water would instant-rust the clean steel), and wiped on a cold bluing chemical.
I'd use a better rust solvent these days and an epoxy-based A+B airbrushing paint, like Duracoat. High-temp powder coat (450F+) is another option.
You could fill the pits with a careful application of epoxy before airbrushing with duracoat.
Not knowing what you have, this may be invalid. I redid a Win 67 that had extensive piting on the last 1/3 of barrel. Draw file till pits are gone, hand sand to 400 grit and rust blue. I spent 0$ on the rifle, as I already had the Laurel Mountain Forge browning, and it came out quite well. I later did a Browning SA22 from 1959 that had some pitting as well(could not resist it for 125$, no extra charge for the rust). Same process, remove pits with a file and then prep normally for a rust blue. Depending on your situation , it could be a fun learning experience. Read up on the rust blue threads on his forum. Then make up your mind, if you don't like the waty it comes out ,you can still paint it.
“You don’t practice until you get it right. You practice until you can’t get it wrong.” Jason Elam, All-Pro kicker, Denver Broncos
Black oxide with drain cleaner (see archives) It is a bit dangerous (caustic)http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...ng-small-parts
I think M-Tecs hit the popular choices pretty well.
A rusted gun that has pitting is probably NOT a good candidate for bluing. A little light rust that can be removed is do-able but once you get to pitting bluing becomes a poor choice. A painted or applied finish is going to be a better choice if you're trying to hide that type of damage, not to mention cheaper. Spending a lot of money on polishing only to have a poor surface to start with is going to be frustrating and expensive. Bluing is fine when you start with well polished, SMOOTH, carbon steel. Bluing is very thin and is no good for hiding imperfections.
I had a buddies 1903a3, he left with a friend during his divorce who was kind enough to store it barrel down in a root cellar on carpeting. Somehow inside of barrel didnt get ruined. The outisde was different story. I have an industrial buffer. Think I started at 220 compounds and went up from there. Worked like a charm.
Short term, I found what is supposed to be the best cold bluing, that can be bought and blended it for short term. Looks great. You'd never know. Should say this was one his dad sporterzied a long long time ago so had been blued at some point.
Due to the stinkin meth-heads using it for some purpose the Drain-out crystals (the stuff discussed in that thread) are not made anymore but as of now it's still possible to find a few bottles of the stuff on-line, WallMart pulled it from the shelves about a 6 months ago. The last I looked at and considered buying was on Amazon but by the time I paid shipping it was just as cheap to get the real bluing salts from Brownells. I think the Drain-Out was about $4+/- per bottle from WallMart but was $19.99 plus shipping on Amazon! I guess for just small parts where a person could get by with about 2 QTs of mix (4 bottles) it might, or might not, be worth it but the stuff does indeed work really good if you can find it. I don't know what it is the meth-heads do with that stuff but any that may have been left locally has in all likelihood long since been scarfed up by them, if price is not a factor to someone just needing a small amount then it can still be found on-line but you had better hurry!Originally Posted by Shooter6br
I just took off some rust from a Marlin 336 as per other threads suggestions with brass wool and ATF, worked like a charm. I have found however that it is not all just surface bloom, there is pitting rust. Plan will probably then be to get it blasted and a coating like cerakote.
This is a 1894 Cerakoted Midnight Blue(not by me):
There was a thread here about a process that was parkerizing or like this where the parts were dipped hot or even boiled to give a green/grey finish. Ring any bells?
Last edited by sthwestvictoria; 02-11-2015 at 09:39 PM.
ars longa, vita brevis
Depends weather its worth spending any money on I have cleaned out some real bad pits and surface rust and then cold blued to the casual observer it looks just fine
Anyone try PB Blaster? Should let it soak
Then reblue or whatever
Almost any oil or solvent will work just fine with the steel wool, it's the mechanical action of the steel wool that does the work the oil just smothers what remains and helps prevent it from growing. Even light surface rust that appears to be completely removed will leave pitting even if it's too small to see, the problem is these microscopic pits will start to rust again if the oil film is lost. This will occur far easier in these areas than the rest of the surface that still has the mild protection offered by the oxide coating of the bluing, usually not a problem except it makes keeping the surface well oiled a lot more critical.
my pits are deep...can we sandblast them and creakote after?
the bore is ok
I don't know how much money you want to spend on the gun. You have to balance the cost of the finishing vs. value of the gun. Removing the rust is only a third of the process, you have to stop the rust and apply a new finish. The good news is there are a lot of options. Look at some of the applied finishes offered by Brownells and you'll likely find something that will give you a decent result for not much money.
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