Antiqued Guns

See PM.

Coupe or eight years back antique-ing was something of a rage on THR BP. Lots of posts and pictures and discriptions of "how I did" it. A number of our Euro members got involved heavily IIRC.

Folks used stuff like vinegar, mustard and pickle juice to damage modern finishes with and such. Some looked very much 100+ years old when done.

Good luck with the search engine!

-kBob

Check here:
https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?search/8483422/&q=Antique+a+gun&o=relevance&c[node]=12
Good luck on getting the finish you desire

I own a Colt 1860 that came from Pietta "antiqued," and have still seen them offered in some catalogs.

I sold this but still have the pic of an antiqued 58 Remington from Taylor's,



It has the antiqued conversion cylinder in it and was a remarkable shooter.

The only one I have used a process that took 150 years.

noelf2 - I especially like those 150yr old aging jobs.

They look so, what's that word...?

REALISTIC?

Howdy

I think this one looks pretty nicely antiqued.





This one too.









I think this pair came out pretty nice.





This is the only one I have that has been 'faked'. Somebody stripped all the finish off before I bought it. Of course shooting it with nothing but Black Powder for ten years, and not always cleaning it the same day has helped.







Longshot Logan was a beloved Cowboy Shooter who died a bunch of years ago. He had developed a pretty thorough way to antique a revolver. Here is a link to his method.

http://www.theopenrange.net/articles/Antiquing_SAA_Revolver.pdf

I like Longshot Logan's process:

http://www.theopenrange.net/articles/Antiquing_SAA_Revolver.pdf

I have done four revolvers and one rifle this way. Examples:








The Ruger Old Armies have had their hammer spurs lowered and a brass front sight cover installed. They are my main match guns for cowboy action shooting competition. I know some, perhaps many, will cringe when they see I removed the factory finish from the ROAs, but dang that black "paint" was just ugly.

My avatar shows one in action:




The rifle that I antiqued is a Uberti '66 carbine. I refinished the stock at the same time I antiqued it, getting rid of the Uberti red varnish. A few years of blackpowder exposure has given the receiver an interesting patina in my opinion:



Some folks think it is awful to remove the factory finish. I don't do it on all my guns, but I like the looks of the ones I have done.

Good luck!

(Driftwood Johnson beat me to the draw with the link to Longshot Logan's recipe. Not the first time!! )

I have been working on antiquing an Uberti revolving Navy "pistol" this month. The project is going to run into next month 'cause I am heading to Dixon's Muzzleloading Fair this weekend.

I can never bring enough money for the Dixon's Fair. Those custom rifles are incredible.

Here's a pair of factory antiqued Uberti .45's. Along with some authentic and artificially aged leather.






Been thinking about aging my own with the same methods I use for tin, copper and brass for my leatherwork.

We'll I have a dumb question. What is the purpose of aging/antiqueing a reproduction gun? Is it just a preference for the distressed look?

That should be obvious. Because it looks like a 150yr old relic but shoots like a new one, doesn't have worn out parts, a dark pitted bore and doesn't cost thousands of dollars.

Same reason why somebody might want something like this:


Over something like this:

noelf2 said:

Well I have a dumb question. What is the purpose of aging/antiqueing a reproduction gun? Is it just a preference for the distressed look?

Click to expand...

I am in total agreement. It seems to me that most of these folks might be re-enactors or into CAS. I would think that re-enactors would pretty much prefer pristine firearms as they would have appeared in the day. As an example, show me an original Colt 1851 Navy manufactured just prior to the ACW as it appeared in 1861, and it would probably show little wear or abuse.

When I was a teen in the 60's, my father acquired many older firearms from the early-mid 20th Century. The first thing he would do is remove the wood and refinish it to look "new" as that was the norm back then. He had a 1894 Winchester in .25-35 (1919 date of manufacture) that had an original oil-finished stock that he inherited from his father, who won it in a punch-card game back in the 30's. I remember him complaining that there was so much oil in the wood that he could not apply the then state-of-the-art wood finish. He spent many nights with the wood under a heat lamp. He also reblued it using a Herter's solution. My oh my, he thought it was pretty, and it basically looked like a new rifle. In retrospect, I think he was wrong in doing so, but those were his guns.

He did the same thing with a Winchester Model 12 16 gauge: ordered a birdseye maple stock and fore end from Reinhart Fajen for it and we spent an entire afternoon re-blueing it with Herter's Belgian blue. That was an education for me in 1970.

That is 180* out from today's thinking.

I hope all of the antiquers completely defarb the firearm of any Italian proof marks, datecodes, manufacturer marks, et al so it actually looks like an old Winchester, Colt, Remington, or other, for their purposes. That way, it will allow the next oblivious owner to offer it on an auction site like GB as an original to any uninformed potential buyers. :-(

I have 3 Pietta 1851 Navy .36 type pistols LNIB that have not been defarbed in any way, but I can create 6 pistols by easily swapping barrel, cylinder, and frame, 3 of which Pietta never put on the market. I can create a Pietta Leech and Rigdon on a Pietta steel frame using the part octagon/part round barrel and the smooth cylinder from the G&G. I could offer it on GB as a rare Pietta L&R for $300+ and most lookers would be none the wiser as it does not appear on Pietta's website nor anywhere else. I could also do the same with my Pietta 1851 Navy squareback TG with the same barrel and cylinder and call it a rare Pietta 1851 Navy 2nd Model Dragoon .36 caliber, which never existed historically.

Leech and Rigdon:




1851 Navy Second Model Dragoon .36 caliber:



That's my take and I know the antiquers have a different view.

Good night all!

Jim

Duelist1954 has an antiqued, defarbed LeMat's grapheshot revolver that is most handsome, most handsome.

expat_alaska said:

I hope all of the antiquers completely defarb the firearm of any Italian proof marks, datecodes, manufacturer marks, et al so it actually looks like an old Winchester, Colt, Remington, or other, for their purposes. That way, it will allow the next oblivious owner to offer it on an auction site like GB as an original to any uninformed potential buyers. :-(

Click to expand...

I saw one like that at a gun show. The real clanger was the installation of the 1970s vintage "Legal Defender" cartridge conversion which bears no close resemblance to 1870s conversions.

Most artificially antiqued guns I have seen, especially the factory jobs like CraigC shows, have had the finish chemically stripped or discolored.
But they don't have any wear marks from handling or holstering.

Lets face it, the Italian do a sorry job with the appearance of most of their reproductions. They often have a ton of flaws, sometimes looking barely like the original gun they're trying to represent. They simply are not passionate enough about having a close reproduction. By and large, they do not care about shooting, firearms ownership, or history. They make them in Italy because it's a lot cheaper to make them there and there is a market for reproduction guns, they don't make them because they actually care about the hobby. That is why they have so many visual issues and why so many want them defarded. It's just to fix what the Italians could care less about, and to make them closer to ACTUAL reproductions so the average buyer can feel that much closer to history.

Excellent job. Looks like something you'd find tucked in the sash of some bandito down on the Rio Grande! That's what I'm talking about, THAT, THAT RIGHT THERE, is why antiqued and defarbed repros are badass.

So if one had a '58 Remy, how could one get a nice antiqued look on to it? Can I send it off to someone?