Hi, folks,

A custom Springfield sporter in .30-06 is finally nearing completion, and I have a question for you, please. My thought is to tailor the level of engraving to the rifle's accuracy. (We are using the original barrel, which has an excellent bore.) It is an iron-sight only rifle, but I am a long-time competitive shooter, and accuracy is important to me; I'll shoot the rifle quite a bit for fun, as well as hunting.

The 'smith, a good friend who lives ~1000 miles away, has done early, limited accuracy testing in the white with the Lyman 48 peep sight. So far, it shoots adequately, but not spectactularly. However, he has eye problems that render his use of aperture sights less than ideal, and he only tested 2 time-proven match loads.

My thought is to have him rust-blue it, and then I can spend however long testing handloads, etc. If it only shoots fairly well, it would get no engraving. If it shoots well, then a good bit more embellishment would be warranted. Nothing gaudy, but handsome in a restrained, old-school style.

My question is, how much trouble, or how impractical would it be, to have the rifle engraved after rust bluing, and then have it rust blued using the same process, over the engraving? I'm sure this sounds like a half-baked plan, but please bear with me.

Any information, thoughts or experiences you can share would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks very much,
John

Just had a grip cap engraved which had been blue. Jim Blair did the work. It was stripped first then engraved and then reblued after completion of the work. While there may be "short cuts" I suspect that this is the best way.

I would recommend asking your 'smith what he would prefer to do.

If you want the engraving blued over, then test it in the white and then engrave it, and blue it. Some like white engraving, in which case, blue it, test it, then engrave it and leave it.
I don't get the graduated levels of engraving though; put what you like on it from the start.

Why not just keep the metal lightly oiled (or waxed) Shoot it all you want, then decide

...I am not an engraver, but when my friend engraved a gun for me {FEGA Professional member, now passed on sadly] he told me that he polished lightly to de-bur between steps in the engraving...this would scratch the rust bluing around the engraving I would think. So it may not be a practical idea to expect the bluing to remain pristine around the engraving.

Just my 2 cents

You can easily engrave through a rust blued,,or hotsalt blued, finish. Then apply additional cycyle or two of rust blue over the surface of the new engraving on that blued steel to finish up the job and match in the two jobs.

I do it on surfaces that are in nice orig condition, fine polish and blue just as they are. But are to be engraved and even possibly inlayed and then blued afterwards.
No need to remove all that nice sharp polishing and blue to in the white steel,,then engrave ,,then reblue again.

If the surface is NOT up to par for the beginning of the engraving work, that's a different story. Or if you are going to do a sloppy polishing job when you wisk away the nice existing polish and blue, seems like a no brainer not to proceed in that direction.
Depends on the skills available.

It also depends on the what the person doing the engraving wants to do....

Most engravers will NOT want to work on a Blued surface. Heavy cringe factor involved.

'Cutting Through the Blue' is often thought of as as sort of a Gun Show - Carnival Act where slipshod work is quickly turned out while the customer watches. The white graver cuts are then touched up with ColdBlue only to rust later on.

If you're working with an engraver already, ask him or her what they would want.

Most will I'm sure simply tell you to receive the rifle finished polished and In-The_White.
Wood can be completely finished, checkered, ect.
They might not even want the wood,, if only to mark the wood line on the metal pieces like the bbl and action.

Then take it yourself and wring the accuracy out of it and decide then how much engraving it deserves.

A little touch here and there?? or a better treatment and some more coverage perhaps.

There will be no difference to the engraver at that point should you have treated the rifle carefully during your testing period.
A few wispy scratches here and there on the metal from handling disappear quickly in prep for the engraving.

Covering some of the areas of the metal with a layer of the Blue Painters masking tape keeps them clean and scratch free during that test shooting time and comes right back off again.
The engraver gets to work on the parts while 'in the white'.
..and the Rust Blue is applied to the final finished polished and engraved parts ready for final assembly.

You didn't mention which Springfield action make or model you are having a conversion done. Some of these Springfields are very hard on the surface and most engravers are not going to cut the action unless it is annealed. That would then need to be rehardened.. More cost !!

I wouldn't let anyone cut on a good Springfield action as it would reduce the value of the rifle. The barrel and trigger guard could be engraved. If you go with engraving have all work done and the last thing would be to rust blue.

Do your engraving on the floorplate and trigger bow only .. leave that in the white until you have made up your mind.

Hi, folks,
Many thanks for your help! The Springfield action is not going to be annealed, so any engraving around the action area would be accents in areas that will not be overly hard. Part of the front receiver ring has been very nicely stippled in the pre-war manner, which will also add visual appeal.

I'd like to do some "period" style engraving forward of the action on the barrel, around the front sight base, and of course the trigger guard and floorplate. Those of you who've read Michael Petrov's great books on custom gunsmiths of the prewar era will be able to imagine the work very well.

The idea of testing it in the white originally seemed rather daunting, but with care, it should be do-able. Thanks for the tips on protecting the metal during testing after preparation! I'll talk to my smith who is scheduled to do the bluing, and also to the engraver.

Thanks again, and I do appreciate the benefit of
your perspective and experiences!
John

As Les said, the hardness of your receiver depends on the vintage of the rifle. 03s from number one to 800K are super hard. Ones with serial numbers of 800K to 1.3 million are double heat treated and also very hard.
Any 03 over 1.3 million is nickel steel and are not very hard.
All 03A3s are either 4140 or 8620 chrome moly steel and are very hard on the surface.
So, engraving any but the nickel steel ones will be, challenging.

Now, why should firing a rifle in the white be daunting? It won't be hurt at all; bluing does not prevent rust; oil does. You aren't going to hurt it; I routinely fire rifles with no bluing. Just shoot it as normal. If you drop it, the bluing guy is going to polish it again anyway.
Just for reference, annealing a receiver and re heat treatment costs $135. I send them out all the time for that.

quote:

Originally posted by dpcd:
As Les said, the hardness of your receiver depends on the vintage of the rifle. 03s from number one to 800K are super hard. Ones with serial numbers of 800K to 1.3 million are double heat treated and also very hard.
Any 03 over 1.3 million is nickel steel and are not very hard.
All 03A3s are either 4140 or 8620 chrome moly steel and are very hard on the surface.
So, engraving any but the nickel steel ones will be, challenging.

Now, why should firing a rifle in the white be daunting? It won't be hurt at all; bluing does not prevent rust; oil does. You aren't going to hurt it; I routinely fire rifles with no bluing. Just shoot it as normal. If you drop it, the bluing guy is going to polish it again anyway.
Just for reference, annealing a receiver and re heat treatment costs $135. I send them out all the time for that.

Who do you send them to and how could one tell if a 03/A3 is 4140 or 8620 without destructive testing?

I have never, and would never have a need to, send an 03A3 in for re heat treating. I was just commenting on the hardness of each model of Springfield. Only the Nickel steel ones are suitable for engraving as is, because they are quite soft.
Blanchards.
I only send Mausers.

There was an engraver, well-know but deceased, by the name of Ben Shostle, that specialized in engraving through blueing and then leaving it that way. My personal experience is that it's hard to do that without one or two little pricks and slips that will mar the blueing. Plus you can't remove any burrs around the cuts that way.

Now here's twist for you. You can get certain panels straw or sky blue by heat treating the polished and engraved steel first, then cover those areas with some form of varnish or clear cerakote to fix those colors, then do your rust blue. I have done this to get blue sky backgrounds on game scenes, as well as brown bodies on animals. As a very ambitious project, I will do a field of flowers with yellow (gold inlay), purple/blue (heat treat), reddish (copper inlay), sky blue (sky) and black (fine lining) with the remainder rust blue.

Russ,
Wow!! One learns something new every day!

Thanks for the good information!
John

A few scratches or even some fingerprint surface rust on InTheWhite metal can be gone in no time before it hits the engravers bench.

The engraver will probably touch up the polish to their standard anyway no matter what condition they recv it in. Just the way things work.
Don't fret over it, it's done all the time. InTheWhite projects sit for yrs some times before getting finished.
Even then they sometimes sit after being engraved,, still in the white.
Like DPCD says it isn't the bluing (or Case coloring) that prevents rust,,it's wiping the metal down with some oil.

Do your thing, then decide what you want and turn it over to the engraver and have them do theirs to your final directions.