Bluing a Firearm

Old CW4

Old CW4

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I don't mind posting these until you folks tell me to stop so here goes:

Bluing: Any firearm owner with a beloved old gun has probably 'worn' it down to the stage where it could use a touch up. Here is how you do it (and I hope I don't draw the wrath of the monitors down on me):

Your first choice is to go to a local gunshop which reblues. They will sand and wire brush your firearm down to a smooth finish and then put it through their tanks. The result is a gun that is shiny and perhaps 'pretty' but hard to tell even who made it and the model.

Better is to do a partial cold--hot reblue at home. Clean up the gun and remove the stock if a rifle or the grips if a pistol or revolver. Okay, get your goodies in readiness. A propane torch, some liquid Oxpho Blue from Brownells, and a rag or two.

Sit thee down in a comfortable chair with the lit torch on the floor at your critical side, left or right. Heat the gun, frame, barrel, whatever, to an almost 'too hot' point. This is kind of like a pan or pot you remove from the kitchen stove, you really don't want to maintain your grip on it but you can if you must. This is where you want your gun metal to be.

At this point, dip your rag, cotton ball, whatever, into the Oxpho Blue and liberally coat/smear/flood the heated metal with a cotten ball or rag tip drenched in the Oxpho Blue. Heating the metal does a ciouple of things for you, it removes residual oil plus other contaminants and heats the 'pores' of the metal so they will expand and accept the bluing.

Drench the heated metal with the bluing. It will turn a dull charcoal gray and/or bluish color. Stop at that point. Leave the barrel/component over night. The next day, hand buff it with at least 00 or 000 steel wool. Man! You will see a nice shine and lovely bluing but do it a second time with or withour heating.

You will then enter the world of first class and truly lovely bluing. If properly done it will last a long time and equal 'professional' bluing jobs, also lasts just as long and is easily redone.

I've refinished/retouched many a customer's gun this way and haven't had a bitch yet.
 
Once again, I love this stuff. I am gonna have to read all of your posts.
 
Dinkum, For rifles and shotguns, I hold the barrel with a bare hand and warm about half of it, blue that (the bluing will 'take' and dry almost instantly), then turn it around and do the other half. Remember, heating only! You do not want any gun part or component heated past the point where you can't hold it in a bare hand. For steel pistols or revolvers, I do about the same.
 
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Can you tell us anything about parkerizing? I have an old Smith .38 that I would like to have parkerized for the military look.
 
hot diggety, I'm gonna try that! Since "cold" cold-bluing just hasn't worked all that well for me. . . .
 
Mike L, I have never parkerized, Mike. However, Brownells and other firms do sell kits. My usual first stop when I want to learn about something like that is Google. Bring up Google and enter 'how to parkerize guns' and I'll bet you get a wealth of 'hits.'

In fact, I will try that later today. Maybe we can compare notes....?
 
Mike L, I did a Goggle search. Wow! More than I ever wanted to know about parkerizing. Articles on how to, where to get kits, and so on. A wealth of info.
 
Chief;

I'd never do it that way. Putting a torch to steel, even a little, is to irregular an operation, and bound to cause some annealing.

It's much better to take a tank (preferably stainless) and fill it with distilled water. Bring that to a boil and then put the metal into the tank. Let it sit in there and get warm; when you lift it out the water will evaporate "ASAP" and you can hit it with the bluing solution.

Also, with shotgun barrels you are much less likely to run into a problem due to low temp solder which was often used.
 
eisman,

Despite your name (derived, I think, from the German word for iron), you apparently haven't worked much with iron or steel. I said throughout my post that you must heat the gun metals to a warm temperature, and NOT past the point where you can't maintain a grip on the part, i.e., the barrel, and that's about 120 degrees F or a bit more.

Hot bluing, on the other hand, really heats the steel. Read up on hot bluing and see what sort of temps all parts of your gun are subjected to in that process plus the boiling rinse at 212 F.

Please be advised that rifle and shotgun barrels are NOT hardened and tempered steel. Barrels are in fact fairly soft and malleable . They must be to survive the heat and expansion/contraction of rapid firing and the violent expansion when a cartridge case is forced out to grip the inside walls of a chamber with pressures of 50,000 psi or more. Fire a rifle, shotgun, or any firearm rapidly several times and feel (or get burned) by the very hot barrel or barrels. Myriad shooters have been badly burned by barrels made searingly hot by continued and not rapid fire.

I had a feeling someone would come in with observations like your's so I yield to your superior knowledge and wisdom. I'll post no more about guns and apologize for suggesting you harm yours. You take it over.
 
Chief-

At no point did I mention hot bluing. Neither did I suggest that shotgun barrels were hardened steel.

The point I was trying to get across is that using hot (or even boiling) water is a way to impart a constant, low defined, temperature to a metal part without causing any harm. It is a very good way to heat metals for the application of "cold" blue solutions; the primary advantages being that you can heat the entire part uniformly and to a repeatable temperature.
 
Old CW4, thanks for your posts, look forward to reading them. What about aluminum? Is there a way to fix bare aluminum gun parts at home, ie. aluminum magazines or worn picatinny rail egdes ? Thanks for posting & sharing your experiences & know how, saves me (at least) from making alot of mistakes the first time around.
 
onado2000 said:
Old CW4, thanks for your posts, look forward to reading them. What about aluminum? Is there a way to fix bare aluminum gun parts at home, ie. aluminum magazines or worn picatinny rail egdes ? Thanks for posting & sharing your experiences & know how, saves me (at least) from making alot of mistakes the first time around.
Click to expand...

Not trying to hijack CW's thread, but the aluminum parts are anodized.
Brownells use to make a spray you could use to go with anodizing, but I've never used it. I would be a little concerned with the "build up" using it on parts that are close tolerance.
I've used a black permanent marker to touch up very small areas (like the edge of your rail )where the anodizing has worn off. If it black of course :D

BTW CW, I've used cold blue quite a few times over the years, and it works great. I would never do it with my old Winchesters, but for guns that see field time it is great. Its rewarding to see the difference, and its fun
 
Old CW,

I find your info extremely valuable. Please continue to post your random thoughts on your vast knowledge of gun refinishing, smithing, and everything in between. Regardless if other forumites disagree with you, I find your reference material very applicable to tasks that I want to do myself. Thanks for your past posts, and also for the next ones as you deem appropriate.
 
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