gunbluing

[trantor]

Has anyone had trouble bluing the winchester 94 breech. Apparantly there was a run with a high iron content crappy alloy which doesn't take bluing easily. Winchester recvommend sending it back to them for redoing but that is not an option from Australia, bloody customs and defence dept paperwork is a nightmare. I have done one and it has come out with a reddish brown colour, the barel is a beautiful but the action no good, anyone know anything that may help.
Trantor

[jack404]

Trantor G'day and welcome to the forums!

i do the breech sections seperate to the barrel and recommend colouring ( coloured case hardened , though not origonal it suits the rifle way more eh .

your other option is a black parkerising ( same as we had on the old SLR's )

as thats a full coating the surfaces will match

you need to add 10% manganese oxide to the parking mix and they'll be identical

but besides those two options theres not an lot else to be done..

i am experimenting with the burchwood casey 3 part bluing kits and adding mang ox to that and i've had decent results on differing steels , but will really test it when i restore a old Lithgow made .22 in the next few weeks

these two are two differing metals and are hard to match

i'll post pic's of how i go

again Welcome , good to see more Aussies on board eh !

[Jim K]

IIRC, the problem was a high chrome (not iron) content. Winchester succeeded in bluing those receivers after plating them with iron. I see no reason the same process would not work for re-bluing if a good plating shop can be found.

As always in something like this, I recommend trying things out on scrap material (any stainless steel?) first.

Jim

[jack404]

i've not looked in iron coating

i'll play with some and see if i cant get a decent transfer coat

cheers for that Jim

[trantor]

Thanks for for the heads up on the damn thing. Iron plating would be non-existant in Australia, I am an electroplater by trade ( retired)and never knew of one. Black Chrome is a possiblity if I can find someone good enough to do it. I will let you all know how it goes with maybe a picture ( if it works)
Regards to all

[jack404]

trantor you can "salt" iron onto non ferric metals by coppering them first

[StoneChimney]

Those 1960's Winchester 94 receivers were not blued from the factory. They had a type of black chrome plating. When we get those in for hot blue we blue as normal and get the purple color to the receiver, then we coat the receiver with a gloss black MolyCoat. Matches the original finish almost perfectly.

[muddober]

trantor: I am assuming you are blueing at about 275 degrees fahrenheit. If you are blueing at a higher temperature that may be your problem. As you know older salts have a tendency to blue at higher temperture as they become contaminated. This could especially happen if any aluminum found it way into your salts like the magazine follower.

You might try cold shocking your part by dipping it very fast in cold water(shock it don't cool it too much) and then back to the salts, I have had good luck doing that with Ruger loading gates. You may have to play with it a bit, meaning you might have to cold shock it as it first starts to turn a straw color or might have to let it turn red then shock it.

Also what sometimes works is striping the old red blue off with hydrochloric acid (swimming pool supply company) and then a qiuck polish as opposed polishing it all off without the help of acid.

Ron

[CHW2021]

I have no practical knowledge on this subject; however if bluing is a impractical process, Jack mentioned coppering....sounds like an interesting finish. If you can't get it to look "factory" why not look at other options, parkerizing the entire rifle would almost certainly be less appealing than a copper receiver.

[Jim K]

Today, a viable and easy alternative is to use one of the several coatings ("paint") that require neither special preparation or special equipment. Brownells has them and I know of no reason they can't ship them to Australia.

Jim

[jack404]

brownells no longer ship anything outside con US and why i get help from the members here or use a agent for action parts or prescribed parts ( paperwork needed to import has to be 100% or you can be pinched ) midway is the same

Bud's will though ...