Pedersoli Kodiak Double (short barrel) 58 cal, painted barrel instead of blued :-o

[Beagle333]

If you have access to a cabinet or a smith who'll do it..... a nice rust blue is really hard to beat. I had my barrel on my GPR rust blued and it is superb.

[BPJONES]

As mentioned by oldred, do not use the caustic acid hot blue method on soft soldered barrels. The acid will eat the solder.

[oldred]

If you have access to a cabinet or a smith who'll do it..... a nice rust blue is really hard to beat. I had my barrel on my GPR rust blued and it is superb.

The Mark Lee Express Blue does the job in a day without a cabinet and the result is the same. Done properly (and it's actually quite easy) the Express Blue will produce the fine rust coating in only a minute or so instead of eight to twelve hours. I have done both the old classic slow rust bluing and the "Express" formulas and honestly I can't tell the difference in either depth of color or durability, Express Blue is all I use anymore.

[quail4jake]

I would be very surprised if you get anything better from any of these Italian replica outfits. Once you buy it, good luck! I would take the opportunity to do some homespun gunsmithing and turn it into an aged appearing good shooter. It's a miracle that those barrels are regulated so well, if it shoots to your satisfaction then it's a keeper. Consider striking the barrels and polish to take the burr off the roll stamps or even remove the roll stamps, file and polish the rough edges, smooth the crowns and do a real old time rust brown. strip and sand the stock, darken the mortise edges with oxalic acid, strike the buttplate edges and refit the breech tang etc, apply a nice simple oil finish. Work the locks to smooth and polish off the bogous case hardening stuff, file the parting lines out and brown those parts. I did this with my Pedersoli 12 bore double, a Zoli Zouave, Uberti S&W #3 and a few others...look great and I'm not afraid to use 'em hard. I had a couple other "spaghetti specials" that didn't perform well and I sold 'em as they weren't worth the effort. Sounds like your's has real potential, good luck!

[quail4jake]

You can get all the stuff to smith muzzle loaders from Dixon's in Kempton, PA. They give good advice too, old time nice Family business...good folks. I wonder how an expanding ball would work in that?

[flynth]

I thought readers of this thread would be interested to know how this was resolved. Basically, the seller agreed to either swap the rifle, blue the barrels for me, or to pay me the equivalent of how much it costs to have such barrels blued. I chose to take the money as I didn't want to swap those good shooting barrels for another pair of possibly unknown regulation and I already ordered Mark Lee's express blue with a suitable container so I will be able to blue them myself.

Also, the seller sent me photos of their testing of other Kodiak Express Mk 6 58 cal barrels they have in stock. Based on their tests other barrels appear to be genuinely blued. After looking at their photos and the conversation I had with the seller I think it is likely I got an odd rifle and others probably should expect their Kodiak Mk6 barrels to be properly blued. Neither I nor he has any idea how among thousands of blued rifles, one that is painted can appear. It is definitely not used - it came new in the box from Italy.

Anyway, from my point of view this resolves the issue. I got compensated for the lack of bluing, other rifles they have in stock appear to be blued as they should. Rifle shoots well. Today I took it to the range and shooting in a standing position resting the rifle on my left hand on top of a wooden pole cut to length I found that with 120gr of powder, .575 ball and a 12 thou patch both barrels consistently shoot about 3 inches apart both at 50 and 100 meters. That is a pretty good result.

[Pamtnman]

I thought readers of this thread would be interested to know how this was resolved. Basically, the seller agreed to either swap the rifle, blue the barrels for me, or to pay me the equivalent of how much it costs to have such barrels blued. I chose to take the money as I didn't want to swap those good shooting barrels for another pair of possibly unknown regulation and I already ordered Mark Lee's express blue with a suitable container so I will be able to blue them myself.

Also, the seller sent me photos of their testing of other Kodiak Express Mk 6 58 cal barrels they have in stock. Based on their tests other barrels appear to be genuinely blued. After looking at their photos and the conversation I had with the seller I think it is likely I got an odd rifle and others probably should expect their Kodiak Mk6 barrels to be properly blued. Neither I nor he has any idea how among thousands of blued rifles, one that is painted can appear. It is definitely not used - it came new in the box from Italy.

Anyway, from my point of view this resolves the issue. I got compensated for the lack of bluing, other rifles they have in stock appear to be blued as they should. Rifle shoots well. Today I took it to the range and shooting in a standing position resting the rifle on my left hand on top of a wooden pole cut to length I found that with 120gr of powder, .575 ball and a 12 thou patch both barrels consistently shoot about 3 inches apart both at 50 and 100 meters. That is a pretty good result.

Flynth, three inches apart at 100 meters (110 yards) is good indeed for a modern double percussion rifle. British and Continental double rifles of the 1870s-1890s achieved perfect accuracy at up to 300 yards, but then again, they cost an arm and a leg, so that kind of precision was expected. May I suggest that, if you have not already done so, you continue to experiment a bit more with a bit more powder, maybe slightly thicker patch material. The goal is to see if you can get the rifle barrels to actually converge, or land within an inch of one another, at 100 meters. That kind of pattern is true regulation, and if your rifle is already that close, then a bit more fiddling with powder and patch thickness might get you over the goal line, as we say in America. Then you would be hitting exactly to point of aim with both barrels, making any follow-up shot a true on-target followup.
By the way, I would like to commend you for your mastery of English. Several years ago I was hunting in NW Scotland and a pack of hungry long hikers descended upon the remote village and guest house I was in. I listened as this group of fine young men spoke in the most excellent American English over dinner, and I went over to introduce myself to them, ask what cities they were from, etc. After all, I was the only American there, and the only American likely to be there most of the season. And to my surprise, they were all Polish. Very impressive.