Removing rust without excessive finish damage?

0000 Superfine grade steel wool & oil is not too aggressive.

It is what re-finishers who re-blue guns use to clean the red bluing salts residue off the parts and expose the shiny blue left underneath.

If the rust is just light surface stuff, use Flitz metal polish first.

If that doesn't do it, use 0000 SF grade steel wool & oil.

No,NO,NO to electrolysis, scouring pads, etc.

Bluing is rust. Just a different color rust.
Anything chemical, or electrical that will remove rust will also remove all the bluing.

rc

I have a rimfire rifle that is c1950 which I don't think was ever cleaned or ever oiled. There was rust on the barrel in certain spots, the rest of the barrel was a kind of blue with a touch of brown (rust).

After degreasing with alcohol, I used 0000 steel wool to remove the major rust. Then I didn't have any bluing right off, so I darkened the bright, new metal with sweat from my brow, over the course of several days, wiping my perspiration onto the new metal. I did this several times a day.

About a week later, I got some Birchwood Casey Bluing, regular and super-strength. I removed the oils again and proceeded to lay on bluing, let it evaporate under a spotlight, lay on more, etc. When I thought it looked dark enough, it was really kind of patchy-looking, that is, until I wiped the entire gun down with Break-Free! Suddenly, what looked patchy was gone and one could not tell now just where I touched the gun up! In fact, the new bluing has a patina, kind of look, just like the rest of the gun metal!

I would use Kroil rather than plain oil, it leaves a superior corrosin resisting film and helps desolve the rust.

Another vote for Kroil. Kroil is advertised as "The Oil that Creeps" and can get under minor surface rust and loosen it to allow it to be removed. A buddy of mine who can't clean a gun to save his life brought me his rusty 870 that he uses in the duck blinds. I removed the wood and coated all the metal parts with Kroil over the weekend. Monday evening I wiped it down with a T-Shirt and the T-Shirt was solid rust colored when I was done, with virtually all of the surface rust gone. Takes a while but removed the rust without abrasives.

Just my .02,
LeonCarr

bigj said:

I just got a chance to look at some guns my dad has neglected. The have varying degrees of rust from light specs to some that surely have considerable pitting. I'm going to clean the bores for now but what about the outer surface and interior of the receivers? I don't want to do ANY damage that I can avoid. I've read that 0000 steel wool with oil is good, then I read that the oil is bad because it keeps the rust there and that steel wool is too aggressive.

Click to expand...

I've heard the "oil will trap rust and scratch your blue" theory too. All I can say is that I've done literally hundreds of guns with oil and 0000 steel wool and have yet to scratch a single one.

I once tried to scratch the bluing on a rusty scrap barrel. I finally managed to get the bluing to fade slightly, but only after 10 minutes of white knuckle rubbing. If you have the slightest understanding of the phrase "gentle rubbing" you won't have a problem.

+1

And to those suggesting copper wool?

I find it pretty ineffective, and getting the copper rub-off off the bluing is about as hard as getting the rust off in the first place.

As I said before, gun bluing shops use 0000 steel wool and oil to do the final carding after the parts come out of the bluing tank.

If it scratched bluing, those guys would sure not be using it on a brand new rebluing job.

rc

I too have always used 0000 steel wool and oil. It doesn't seem to harm even the cheap cold bluing formulas and in fact it is what one is instructed to use to card the cold blue formulas.

I use bronze wool and oil. A fringe benefit is it doesn't rust in storage and lasts forever.