What Is Bluing on a Rifle?
A gun that has been left to rust, or an old antique one found in the attic of Grandpa's old house, may need a little help to regain its gun-metal color and restore it to its natural state. A rifle such as this may need to be re-blued, which is the refurbishing of the metal surface.
Other People Are Reading
-
Usage
-
Bluing is used for a number of reasons, namely to help provide resistance to corrosion. It can also be used to provide color to steel parts. Bluing also helps to maintain the metal by resisting minor scratching, thus helping to improve the looks of a rifle.
Hot Bluing
-
The two most common types of bluing are hot and cold. In hot bluing, the steel parts of the rifle are immersed in a mixture of potassium, nitrate, sodium hydroxide and water that has been heated to boiling. For stainless steel, the parts of the rifle are put in a mixture of nitrate and chromates, also heated to the boiling point. Hot bluing is perhaps the most affective form of bluing as it provides a permanent degree of rust resistance for the rifle.
-
Cold Bluing
-
Cold bluing does not require the heating process. Instead, commercial products are used and found in gunsmithing magazines or at outdoorsman stores. Cold bluing is used primarily to care for small touch-ups such as stopping a small scratch from becoming a large spot of rust over time. Cold bluing does not protect against holster wear on the rifle nor does it prevent a lot of rust resistance.
Rust Bluing
-
A third version of bluing is rust bluing, which was originally used before the process of hot bluing was developed. An acid solution was used to coat the parts of the rifle to allow the parts to rust evenly. They were then immersed in boiling water to stabilize the rusting process. This removed the remaining residue from the acid solution. After the rife was dipped in the water the rust was scrubbed off to leave the gun a deep blue when finished. Rust bluing was abandoned due to the fact that it was labor intensive and sometimes took days for the parts to finish completely.
Limitations
-
Bluing works great on steel and stainless steel, but it does not affect aluminum or polymer. This is due to the fact that during the bluing process the iron is changed to the black oxide of iron, and so does not work on non-ferrous metals. Also note that holster wear will eventually remove both hot and cold bluing, though cold bluing will wear through over a shorter period of time. Touch up these areas with cold bluing as often as needed.
-
References
- Photo Credit rifle image by studio vision1 from Fotolia.com
