[A. Walker]

What you see... is indeed Charcoal Blue, of the kind used during the 19th Century by Whitney, and later - Colt. One writer at the time referred to it as "a deep liquid pool of black India ink."

http://www.thehighroad.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=93757&d=1235977315


So as not to hijack the other thread, I'm starting a new one to explore this statement. Does this mean that the dark bluing on our modern repros is actually not that far off from how the original guns looked? There seems to be some debate regarding this. I, myself, have seen a few old guns with quite a bit of dark bluing on them. Just how do the modern guns compare?

[husker]

i no my rem 597 would never stand the test of times in the bluing department prb a few others i own to. hell iv had rust start on a 30 minute road trip to go shooting before.