To all,

I just recently got my bluing system up and running and today I decided to try to blue a few barrels. Felt I was comfortable enough for this next step.

I have blued quite a bit of smaller parts with good results.

I am using the big Brownells system.

Anyway, I got things up to temp and started bluing the barrels. Everything looked great all the way through the process until I had the barrel soaking in the water displacing oil bath, the final step.

After about 15 minutes in the bath, I noticed that on one of the barrels, near the barrel shoulder, there was a red mark on the barrel. The rest of the barrel looked great with a very deep black/blue finish but that one little spot, perhaps 1/4" wide by 1/2" long had a burnt red color to it.

Let me say that these barrels are very low priced barrels which were used basically as a test run to use larger parts for bluing. They were new, in the white CM barrels from Adams and Bennett.

I made sure everything was cleaned very well from polishing to when they first when into the cleaning bath.

The other barrels turned out great so far. I will see after the 24 hour cure time but look great right now.

What did I do wrong with this one barrel?

Have any of you seen this before?

I made sure the barrels were well off the sides and bottom of the tank as well as each other. My temp started at around 291-292 degrees at the beginning of the bath and raised to roughly 295-296 by the 25 minute end.

Any thoughts would be great. I have heard of poor quality barrel steel doing this sometimes, could this be the problem?

Anyway, thanks for the ideas,

Kirby Allen(50)

Usually the color difference is caused by a difference in the nickle content of the steel, of course that should be consistant throughout the barrel. There could have been a spot of impurties in the steel that needed to be brought to a higher tempurature for a longer time or "shocked" into turning blue.


www.duanesguns.com

Kirby, welcome to the wonderful world of caustic blueing. It's the modern equivalant of a witch's cauldren.

It's hard to tell without seeing it. Small rusty red spots can turn up on the metal if the salt bath is old, not balanced or too hot. I try fixes in the order of work involved;

1. They'll usually disappear when rubbed with a paper towel soaked in WD oil.

B. They may require another trip throught the cleaner and salt bath.

3. Strip back down to the white and start over.

Remember that the ideal temperature given for the salt bath is at sea level. You have to adjust for your elevation. Being that you're in MT, that might be the problem. Just as water boils at a lower temp at higher elevation, you'll want your salt bath to balance at a lower temp. Brownell's tech line may be able to help you with that question.

Got too hot
Doug

Maybe it was touching the bottom of the tank there or not enough aggitation. Rojelio

One of 3 things:

1) Too hot

2) Iron turns red so it may be a cheap high carbon steel

3) Touched the bottom of the tank

Seeing that it is only in one spot, I would say it touched the bottom of the tank.

-Spencer