16ga.com ~ View topic - prepping for re-blue

Looks like it was worth every minute of your time , Came out looking very nice for a home make over . Now shoot the tar out of it , What doves ?

Joined: 04 Oct 2010 Posts: 41

Looks very nice. I've got a couple of 11-48's in 16 gauge that I'm going to do this to, as well as some older beater guns that were given to me by a relative. They are good functional guns, with little to no collector value (Stevens favorite, Revelation 20 Ga pump (Mossberg 500))

Have been doing quite a big of reading on rust bluing. Seems like people use a lot of different methods mainly on the oil/sealing at the end. Looks like a lot of people bake a mixture of linseed oil and tint onto the metal after the last round of bluing, but you say you just wiped it down with gun oil? How is that holding up?

Joined: 04 Oct 2010 Posts: 41

I guess my biggest concerns are

What blue to use (Brownells, Pilkingtons etc)
How shiny can you get the metal (I've heard 400 grit, that going finer doesn't give the rust flowers enough to hold onto)

I'm also curious as to doing the bluing in a day. I thought it required 24 hours between coats/carding each time?

Gotta get going on this. I've got 3 barrels to go to Mike Orlean and when they get back I'm going to try this. Have an 11-48 receiver that's been welded on that I'm going to practice on before I get into any barrels.

Joined: 17 Jan 2014 Posts: 1379 Location: Denver, Colorado

Mr. Jeep: All good questions and probably similar to the ones I had before starting my first project like this. My first re-blue was a 16 M12 that was so rusty it would stain your hands to hold it for any period of time. When you really have nothing to loose (as far as value, collector or otherwise) it makes projects like this much easier to tackle. I have used Brownell's Oxpho Blue and liked it, but it's hard to easily obtain (i.e. buy off of a shelf!), as are some of the others you mention. I have found that the Birchwood Casey stuff is quite effective and easy to find here (in everything from big-box sporting goods stores to the local WalMart). I don't doubt that there may be ways to improve on what I've done (as far as darkness or hardness of the finish) but for my purposes this works just fine. My previous projects seem to be holding up well with the limited use they've seen in the last year or so.

I now think that there is no one-path to a decent blue-job. Modern chemistry has placed tools in our hands that maybe weren't there even a few years ago. I'm no expert, but I'd be hard-pressed to tell some cold-blue jobs from hot-blue ones. I assume that proper rust-blued metal is superior in every way to what I've produced, but this is quite acceptable for my needs.

I can tell you that if you let others convince you about how hard or complicated something is to do, the odds are pretty good that you won't even try it. This is relatively easy and even...fun.

Joined: 17 Jan 2014 Posts: 1379 Location: Denver, Colorado

Better example of finished color.

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Joined: 04 Oct 2010 Posts: 41

Going to have to try it! I've got an 11-48 in 16 gauge that somehow had the spring rod that goes back into the stock broken off, and someone welded a pipe nipple between the rod and receiver. The result is a functional monstrocity.

My plan is to send the barrel from that gun off to Mike Orlean, and hopefully have choke tubes installed, and then rust blue the barrel. I have another 11-48 in better shape with Full and Mod barrels for it, and will rust blue all of them so hopefully I'll end up with a 26" barrel with tubes, and 28" full and mod chokes, all of which will work on the one good reciever I have.

I'm going to practice on the welded reciever, as it's not something I'm worried about messing up.