The 870 Barrel Ring Color

[zinj]

I've noticed that on 870s, whether Wingmaster or Express, the barrel ring tends to take on a reddish or purplish hue. Anyone know why?

[Red Label]

That.....is a very good question. I want to know too!:confused:

[Lee Lapin]

The barrel ring is a different alloy from the barrel steel and takes the 'color' of the blue differently. It even takes pakerizing in a different color, usually. The barrel ring is brazed/soldered/whatever onto the barrel, you can see the thin line of material between the parts on most of them.

lpl/nc

[dfariswheel]

Yep.
A lot of parkerized 870's rings have an almost gold color that people wonder about.

[rantingredneck]

That was one of those questions I always wondered about when cleaning mine but never thought to actually ask. Thanks for the info!

[Big Az Al]

REM does a quite a few barrels at one time, they have the bath just right temp for the barrel, put the barrel in for "X" number of minutes, it comes out black. Other alloys don't work at the same temp's, being red it went in at to high of a temp, for that alloy, other wise it would take either the same or very little color at all.

The old WIN Nickle steel barrels need to go thru the hole working range of the bath, other wise you have the prettiest red and purple barrels. The method for turning these Black would CUT REM's blueing production by more then half. And REM does an incredable number of GUNs thru their process!