Bluing a 98 Mauser

Welcome wife of bley !!!

My wife became a gun-nut 30 years ago when she married me. She reloads all her own ammo for her rifle & revolver. So welcome to the family.

Bluing question: Parts to be professionally reblued will be submersed inside the tank of solution. Therefore the inside & outside of the receiver will be treated. The outside will be polished where the inside will not.

Michael

What process does he plan to use?

If he is going to use any of several immersion methods, it will be hard to avoid bluing the interior.

If he is going to smear it with cold blue, it will be hard to get inside.

I don't know what you do to the interior when rust bluing.

Just use cotton swabs; the bluing solution won't hurt the skin.

I will have to say that unless the solution is what is called Belgian blue, and meant to be used after the metal is heated by boiling, it is cold blue and won't result in a long-lasting blue. It will rub off and oiling the receiver will usually just wipe it off.

If he wants a permanent blue job, he will either have to use a rust blue (Belgian blue) or have the bluing done by a gun shop. I don't recommend tank bluing as a DIY job; it involves using boiling hot caustic chemicals that can eat through the skin in seconds, and requires serious precautions like an emergency shower.

Cold blue (no matter what the manufacturers claim) is good only for touchup.

There are several paints, including some good bake-on paints, that can give a very nice finish and simulate bluing.

Jim

Your husband should just do the prep work himself and then let a pro hot dip it. The cost just to dip shouldn't be all that much....I'd guess 50 bucks would be a fair price at an average gun shop.

I recently did the prep work on a Rem 700 and let a local gunsmith blue it. I did far more polishing than he ever would have. When I took him the barrelled receiver, it looked like chrome. After the blue, it looked like a black mirror. Of course, you don't have to go for the shiny look, you can simply sand it or even just bead blast it.

WifeofBleys, maybe this will help. I used a cold blue kit on a 22 rifle one time, even with oil on it, it turned to looking like rusty rebar within days. Now, for what you can pay a guy to do a re-blue, you can buy a bottle of Pilkington's classic American rust blue, and boiling tank from Midwayusa. Then you need a way to fire the tank. An old gas grill works great. This is what I did and the results are great. The gun I did was in September, and has sat in the owner's hunting cabin to this day, and still has not rusted. There is some hand labor involved, but it's worth it. I don't know how to put in a link, but if you go to my profile, the pictures can be found in the thread titled "bubba can reblue." Hope this helps you. PS, this method will only rust, (blue), the areas you apply the solution onto by hand.

Rust blue (also called Belgian blue) is pretty good at preventing additional rust. For one thing, it IS rust (as is all blue) but is more porous and retains oil well, which is the major factor in preventing further rusting. It is a bit of a pain (boil, swab, boil, card, boil, swab etc., etc., but the end result can be very nice.

Caustic or hot tank blue didn't come into use until around 1935, so most guns made before that were rust blued; the others - mainly revolvers - were Carbonia blued, which requires a gas furnace, or blackened as part of heat treatment, like Krag and Springfield rifles.

Jim