Hello all,

So the other day I noticed some rust starting to form on the barrel of my S/S rifle. I take really good care of my rifle, but I guess I didn't do a good enough job cleaning after I went shooting the last week. I cleaned the rust off with some gun oil and steel wool, but I noticed that there are still some black specks where the rust was. I spent quite some time with the steel wool trying to remove the black dots, but to no avail. Does anyone have any idea what these are or how to remove them? Some of them appear to be tiny (very tiny at that) dents in the metal, could the rust have done this?

Thanks in advance,

Pitting corrosion.Using steel wool [ unless it's stainless steel wool] doesn't help as particles of the steel wool can rust and that rust continue into the stainless steel !
There was a thread on the forum explaining this process if it's still available.Stainless steel should be machined, ground etc using tooling reserved only for stainless steel.Otherwise bits of carbon steel will be imbedded into the stainless and cause pitting.The stainless also should be "passivated" which is a treatment with acids which removes contaminants and increases the protective oxide coating.
Keep the stainless clean and lightly oiled and don't use steel wool.

All steel will rust stainless too..its just relative. I hope that the small "dents" are not what we in England call "pitting". Usually found on the inside of shot gun barrels.

Stainless steel will rust.
The black pits are the spots where iron in alloy has oxidized.

Just look at the SS knives and forks in your kitchen drawer, the old ones will have lots of pits and sometimes you can even see the red rust on some spots.

You still have to wipe down SS firearms with gun oil, I prefer Eezox oil as it dries, I hate the feel of oil slimed guns.