I have a really well maintained S&W 10-5 except it had a lot blueing wear from the years of being carried in the leather holster. My first attempt to reblue was with a Casey's kit which didn't come out looking very consistent. I took some more time to steel wool it back to plain steel and reblued it again with the same stuff as before. This time I tried something different. I heated the firearm up in the oven to 225 degrees and using a glass pyrex dish I heated the blue up to about the same temparature, well slightly more. I polished the metal to a super high gloss finish and rinsed the entire firearm in denatured alcohol to ensure it was 100% free of residue. I submerged the fire arm in the blue for about 12 hrs. or so, and then let it cool while hanging from a wire. I didn't touch it with my hands for a full day. I coated it with an even but generous film of plain Hoppes gun oil and propped it from the trigger guard on my wooden table top for a about a week. Now, almost 4 yrs. later and several hundred hand loads later, it still looks like a professional bluing job. I don't use a leather holster any more though.
I was so pleased with the results, I've reblued my 25 yr. old Super Black Hawk.
I also did my old 700 ADL, but since I didn't have the means to submerge it, as I did with the revolver's, I heated it and the solution to about 200 degree's and quickly poured the solution over the entire surface several times, making sure I didn't miss any spots. Both of those came out looking really, really nice.
I think the most important elements of the process is making sure the old finish is completely removed, polishing the metal to a super high luster, and making sure the surface is completely free of any residue, acetone or denatured alcohol seems to work well. Don't use any type of solvent.
My buddy sent his expensive collector Citori to Browning which cost him a small fortune. After he saw my 3 little projects he had me blue an old S&W 29 that turned out flawless.
Most expensive blue jobs are done in a tank using heat, which is where I got the idea to try and incorporate that method as well as I could, without the professional sized tank and heating elements. And since the first firearm I tried it on was an inexpensive wheel gun, I figured the risk was minimal.
Use a 00 steel wool to remove the old blue and rust, and then a very fine steel and metal polishing compound to get the luster. This is the time consuming part of getting it right, but it is worth the time is you want it to look right. Using a wire wheel is going to likely put deep scratches in the finish. For the hard to get to spots use a piece of super strong nylon string wraped with the steel wool.
