New Police 870 Barrel Residue

[Double Naught Spy]

A non-internet buddy of mine called me about his brand new Rem 870 police model 12 ga. He had read somewhere that they are packed/coated with cosmoline. So he decided to strip the gun and remove any cosmoline. The outside didn't seem to have it, but some internal parts were coated in cosmoline or somthing that looks like it.

Whether or not the substance was cosmoline isn't salient here except in regard to explaining why he stripped the gun (to remove cosmoline).

The inside of the barrel appeared to have been coated in some gray material. As he worked to free the barrel of the graymaterial, he noticed that it did not come out gray, but silvery. Additinally, the reside was difficult to remove, way more difficult than what is needed to clean out basic shooting residue.

Now the query. Does anyone know what the gray/silvery barrel residue is?

I tried searching the forums to see if anyone else had posted about this substance, but no luck.

 

[dfariswheel]

That's a new one.
I've never seen a silvery or gray material in any factory-new gun barrel.

I've seen recent factory-direct Police guns with nothing in the barrel except a thin coat of cosmoline.

Remington says they spray the Police guns, inside and out, with a coat of hot cosmoline as a shipping and storage rust preventer.

They recommend stripping the gun, including the magazine tube, spraying everything, inside and out, dripping wet with something like Rem-Oil and letting it soak for 20 minutes or so.

This dissolves the cosmoline and flushes it off. The Rem-Oil impregnates the parkerized finish and prevents rust while in use.

You might try asking Remington what this might be.
They have an excellent question system on their web site.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

It was new to me as well. I haven't seen anything like it. As for contacting Remmington, that will have to wait until the weekend is over, but you are right in that they may be the only oracle for this.