I have a matte blue finish on my Browning A-Bolt that I think may be the same you are talking about. It's about a year old. I don't know how it was applied (but I like it) and my rifle was made in Japan. BM

I don't know anything about bluing, but when you find out let me know. I just bought a safari express in 375 recently and love the finish on it. (provided of course that you keep it oiled :-)

Red

The local gunsmith near me does a real nice matte blue.



He uses a very fine material in his bead blast box to prep the steel before he blues. It is Very fine , almost like talcum powder.

sure...

low pressure, high feed FINE bead blasting... followed by a VERY hot dip in a bluing bath...

jeffe

The process is Potters Glass Beads in an AC grit, followed by a hot blueing solution of Dulite blueing salts. Pressure on your bead blaster should be about 100psi. Blueing on the reciever would mean starting the blueing salt temps out at about 270deg. with a steady climb to about 290 before the reciever blues. Barrel will blue first within about 5 minutes in the 270 temp, which won't hurt anything, you just got to leave it in long enough to finish the receiver.

Much obliged for all the replies.

Matt's response was the recipe I was looking for.

Joe

I was able to produce a very nice satin texture with sublimed limestone. This is powdered limestone in a similar particle size to baking flour.
I think I used about 75-80 PSI. It is very forgiving, doesn't cut fast or deep, so lettering and corners are safe. I did have a problem when carding with steel wool, it would smooth the metal, too well. I ended up carding with degreased rawhide, between dips. I used homebrew bluing salts, all the chemicals are easy to find, do a GOOGLE search you'll find beaucoupe recipes.