Had and interesting theory brought to light in the shop yesterday. Guy brought in two rifles for re-barrel, a 375 H&H and a 22-250. I asked why add the new barrels and he said "because they don't shoot". Fair enough. Then he offered, "because they were rust blued". Now it caused me to raise my eyebrows a bit. So, I asked why he thought that and he told me that he had talked to a number of well known gunmakers at the SCI show and they both confirmed that "rust blue can cause accuracy issues".

Now, I admit I am not the sharpest tack in the box but I never heard this one and find it hard to believe. Rust blue don't get in the bore normally so how could it contribute to inaccuracy?

Jim

Can and will are two different words. The customer is always right.

Complete nonsense; and the customer is very often, wrong, I have found. You don't rust the bores when rust bluing.
Now, salt bluing, yes the bores are etched, but not in rust bluing. I call BS on this one.

Possible I suppose,if someone were to apply the acid solution to the muzzle it could affect the crown and to a small degree the bore at the muzzle.

shooter was rusty

was me, i'd go back to the well known gunmakers and ask them for names and contact infor on at least a few of theses previously known for a fact owners of the ruined guns they claim knowledge of. reminds me of a guy on another site that claimed over and over to have a friend that knew of a guy that carried concealed SOB (small of back) and fell over backwards and the gun disabled his back. multiple operations etc.
got to the point where i asked him for ANY contact infor so the story could be confirmed. he never posted on the site again. same thing here. if its true would be easy to confirm.

Any excuse will do for poor shooting.

Dave

And I have many data points to show it does not affect accuracy; of course, done correctly, as implied above. You do not apply acid to the inside of a bore. If you do, then get another rust blue person.

Sounds like someone who cannot shoot!

Interesting speculation and I believe in some cases it may be correct.

I have a 270 that was a sub MOA shooter which I sent out to be rust blued and new custom scope bases installed.
It’s now a 3 MOA rifle with the same loads that had previously been sub MOA

I contacted the gunsmith it was sent to regarding the issue and he replied that he didn’t have a clue why the accuracy would decline.

quote:

Originally posted by TREE 'EM:
Interesting speculation and I believe in some cases it may be correct.

I have a 270 that was a sub MOA shooter which I sent out to be rust blued and new custom scope bases installed.
It’s now a 3 MOA rifle with the same loads that had previously been sub MOA

I contacted the gunsmith it was sent to regarding the issue and he replied that he didn’t have a clue why the accuracy would decline.

Well if it is not shooting poorly, try shooting some lapped bullets down the bore and see if that improves things. Midway carries the Tubb Final Finish Bore Lapping system. You can buy 270 bullets coated with girt. If rust bluing did anything it would have roughened the surface and changed the surface finish. Shooting lapped bullets down the tube might, and I mean might, smooth things out.

I recently tried the Wheeler Lapping kit on a M1911 that lead fouled something awful. Took forever with shooting five rounds and cleaning with J.B Bore past between grits. After all that work, the barrel still lead fouled something awful in the throat. But, the tube interior was genuinely brighter in all respects. So lapping does polish the barrel.

a customer is always (the one) writ-ing the check

uhm.. yeah.. and so could putting them away wet and fired ...


How about he give you 20 rounds of each, you actually CLEAN the barrel ,and see if there's any rust spots ... the fire them ....

good lord, unless those are just bubba'ed up rusting, seems to be that he's got a penny or two invest ...

he wanted you to replace the barrels, and i expect hot blue them?

well, if he's gunna write, he's got the right

quote:

Originally posted by TREE 'EM:
Interesting speculation and I believe in some cases it may be correct.

I have a 270 that was a sub MOA shooter which I sent out to be rust blued and new custom scope bases installed.
It’s now a 3 MOA rifle with the same loads that had previously been sub MOA

I contacted the gunsmith it was sent to regarding the issue and he replied that he didn’t have a clue why the accuracy would decline.

I'd bet a Big Mac that something happened to the crown or an issue with the custom mounts

Did you tell him to change the air in his tires?

what about the QPQ procedure??…. will it affect the bore??… QPQ is a nitride finish/heat treatment..

I think someone's shooting skills need tuning. Rust bluing should have absolutely no effect on accuracy unless as stated it got in around the muzzle and pitted it. I'd inspect the crowns for damage. Might depend on how the barrel was polished too. I sent out a military barrel years ago to be re-contoured. The fellow mounted it between centers on his lathe using a receiver mandrel and a non-live center in the muzzle. He spun it and used a belt sander and 60 grit paper to do the metal removal. The center ironed out the rifling at the muzzle and it would not shoot well until I re-crowned it.

Bob
www.rustblue.com

In defense of the client, he is a good shooter, High power and f-class. Been shooting a long time. The experts he quoted are some high dollar and well known gunmakers. I do not agree with this however

Chemistry and Physics don't change just because anyone, gunsmith or otherwise, says so.

Any presumed effects of rust bluing in a bore, IMO, would be mitigated after a handful of shots.

It's a question of cause/effect, and the cause is elsewhere.

I was told the same by a well known custom gun maker back about 1990. It sounded plausible, but the more he spoke, the less I believed anything he said.

BTW, The customer is not always right, but the customer is always the customer.

I'll buy the takeoffs. Since they don't shoot, I will pay scrap value ie 10c/lb. And I will even pay shipping!

quote:

Originally posted by TREE 'EM:
Interesting speculation and I believe in some cases it may be correct.

I have a 270 that was a sub MOA shooter which I sent out to be rust blued and new custom scope bases installed.
It’s now a 3 MOA rifle with the same loads that had previously been sub MOA

I contacted the gunsmith it was sent to regarding the issue and he replied that he didn’t have a clue why the accuracy would decline.

Is it possible that the "new custom scope bases" might be the root of the problem? Why on earth would you change the scope set up on a sub-MOA rifle when it is performing so well?

Presumably the rifle came out of the stock when it was getting blued. Is it not possible that bedding has something to do with it?

Was the barrel removed from the action and blued separately?

Too many variables to assign blame to the rust bluing.

I find many customers are wrong on at least half the things they say and want, and I tell them so. I simply can't let "wrong" go; and I won't tolerate it, get their business or not. This technique works for me and most of them can learn. The ones who can't, or won't, take my advice, go some other way. I suppose.

quote:

Originally posted by xausa:
".....Presumably the rifle came out of the stock when it was getting blued........(snip)...
Was the barrel removed from the action and blued separately?

Was thinking the same thing.......
- Mike

quote:

Originally posted by dpcd:
I find many customers are wrong on at least half the things they say and want, and I tell them so. I simply can't let "wrong" go; and I won't tolerate it, get their business or not. This technique works for me and most of them can learn. The ones who can't, or won't, take my advice, go some other way. I suppose.

"The customer is always right" was popularized by the retailer Selfridge. He went bankrupt and died broke.

Though the bore is not coated with the rust blue soln during the process ,the bore is still exposed to the humidity and higher temps needed to generate the rust in Slow Rust Bluing.

Damp Box cabinets and tents, high temp & humid days, even hanging the parts in a steamed up bathroom after running the shower for a time and then closing the door letting the parts rust.

There's no oil or preservative on the bore surface as any lube anywhere near the metal parts is a sure way to defeat the process and give you a less than perfect job.

A few people do coat the bore with things like shellac (which works very well and does stand up to the boiling water afterwards). Some plug the bore with rubber stoppers or wooden plugs, but not everyone.

Quite often the bore is simply forgotten during the process, perhaps a dry patch run through it a time or two betw the cycles and if it still looks shiny,, all seems to be well.

But I have seen some bores get pitted from the process and inattention.

Many slow rust blue solns are Ferric Chloride today. They do a good job of rusting.
You put the parts in the boiling water tank to turn them blue/black. Some residue of that chemical transfers to the water in the tank I imagine.

Most don't run a clean tank of water with each cycle, so the water can build up a soln of the Ferric Chloride in it and then at 212F, it can very nicely etch clean unprotected steel (like the bore of a bbl) if you are not careful.

One way to get a nice French Grey finish on steel parts is to clean & degrease them and simply place them in the Rust Blue water tank and go about doing an Express (Quick) Rust bluing job on the bbl or what ever else you intended to blue.
This will work with some Express Blue solns, some not, some better than others. It all depends on their chemical make up.


During the Rust Bluing, the 'to be Grayed parts' will start etching ever so slightly. Pick those parts out occasionally and lightly card them to keep the grey color even and place them right back in the water.
No coating of bluing chemical is needed
The residue of the bluing chemical transfered to the water from the parts being blued is very lightly etching the clean steel parts causing the Grey look.

It can do the same to the unattended bore of the bbl.

One other thought when the mention of spin polishing a bbl was brought up.
I knew one 'gunsmith' that spin polished bbls but didn't use a fixture. He simply placed a steel rod thru the bore for the bbl to spin on. The rod ends were the handles and he adj the speed of the spin with his thumb(s) on the bbl while the bbl was pressed against a belt grinder.

It did a nice polish job, but the wear put on the rifling in the bore just inside the crown was noticable in many instances with a simple eyeball inspection. It couldn't have done the throat nor the rest of the bore any favors either.

Just some thoughts...

In Modern Gunsmithing, written in the 1920's Clyde Baker has some good comments about these sorts of customers. Take offending gun into the backroom, pick up latest good magazine and sit a read it for a good have an hour, but occasionally suck your teeth and tap a hammer on the anvil. Take it back out to the waiting customer and tell him its all fixed!

There is a view that Stainless Barrels can be more accurate and long lasting that normal steel barrels that are then blued. This is probably a result of a Stainless barrels being more resilient to poor care.

And as for rust bluing causing rust inside the barrel, well the barrel should be well plugged, acids are not applied to the bore and in any case the bore should be wiped out between rustings. If you are letting the barrel rust long enough to pit you are letting it rust far too long.

The rifles dont shoot ? talk about opening a can of worms

Ok I'll bite as I may have been one of those Gunsmiths he talked to about this subject at an SCI convention. But my answer to such a question has always been prefaced the same way. Problems can occur rust bluing anything and are all operator induced.

I have rust blued a boxcar load of gun parts beginning in 1978. I used that method exclusively for the 1st two decades of my career. I rust blued one of my rifles last month.

However early on I did not own a Bore-Scope. Access to one ? sometimes. I even used a $40,000 fiber optic unit at our local Hospital more than once to look down my rifle barrels and barrels rust blued by may other makers.

I got news for you doubting Thomas's What you do to your barrel in your humidity cabinet can prematurely wreck your barrel and it all depends on your procedure or lack there of. Now think about it, you have swabbed your parts with ACID for shits sake then placed them in a jungle environment to RUST for days at a time.

HELLO

Before bluing did you clean the barrel of any and all copper or carbon and then really look at it ?

Did you plug the chamber and muzzle end with a lab stopper, a piece of tapered wooden dowel or tapered nylon, or perhaps even a small adult toy ? Be honest now. Or did you leave the bore un-plugged thinking it really wouldn't matter as the acid is on the outside of the barrel and then just suspended it by a wire in the cabinet ?

Did you coat the inside of the bore with lacquer or some similar wood finish to be removed later and leave it unplugged ? when you coated the inside did you get coverage on all the lands and groves?

Now how well does that application of wood finish stand up to repeated boilings as determined by the manufacture before it degrades allowing moisture to migrate under that coating ? without any optical aid you don't really know all you can do is guess and hope.

When you pulled the barrel out of the boil out tank do you just shake the barrel in an arc thinking that motion would expel all the water in the barrel and any left over moisture would evaporate inside the barrel ? Or did you run a couple tight clean dry patches down the bore with a sterilized cleaning rod to remove any water or moisture residue left inside the bore ? did you notice are red streaks on the patches ? Well did you ?????

Then when you were done did you look at the bore with a Bore Scope ? How does it look now compared to when you cleaned it before that 1st trip into the RUST box.

They say the proof is defined down range and it is, but come on now how accurate does it really have to be ? this is "Art" who's ever going to shoot it anyway ?

I got news for you, Not all rust bluing procedures are healthy for your brand new $400 barrel. Will they shoot, more often than not yes, good enough to shoot a buck in the ribs. But for what I charged for a rifle that SOB had better shoot damn a lot better than average.

In closing if the barrel seems to foul excessively ? and the patch going through the barrel feels like you're pushing piglet down a rat hole you just might have screwed the pooch. All depends on the application and procedure you used to RUST that barrel.

If you don't have a Bore scope and a range near by you are "guessing at best" as to any conclusions on this subject.

I have nothing, zero, nada against Rust bluing anything but some care needs to be taken

This is not rocket science or I couldn't do it.

quote:

Originally posted by Duane Wiebe (CG&R):

quote:

Originally posted by TREE 'EM:
Interesting speculation and I believe in some cases it may be correct.

I have a 270 that was a sub MOA shooter which I sent out to be rust blued and new custom scope bases installed.
It’s now a 3 MOA rifle with the same loads that had previously been sub MOA

I contacted the gunsmith it was sent to regarding the issue and he replied that he didn’t have a clue why the accuracy would decline.

I'd bet a Big Mac that something happened to the crown or an issue with the custom mounts

It's at another shop waiting to have the crown re-cut. Fingers crossed that's the problem.

quote:

Originally posted by xausa:

quote:

Originally posted by TREE 'EM:
Interesting speculation and I believe in some cases it may be correct.

I have a 270 that was a sub MOA shooter which I sent out to be rust blued and new custom scope bases installed.
It’s now a 3 MOA rifle with the same loads that had previously been sub MOA

I contacted the gunsmith it was sent to regarding the issue and he replied that he didn’t have a clue why the accuracy would decline.

Is it possible that the "new custom scope bases" might be the root of the problem? Why on earth would you change the scope set up on a sub-MOA rifle when it is performing so well?

Presumably the rifle came out of the stock when it was getting blued. Is it not possible that bedding has something to do with it?

Was the barrel removed from the action and blued separately?

Too many variables to assign blame to the rust bluing.

From what I was told and what I can see, the barrel was left on the action when it was rust blued.

Bedding issues were checked, none found.

Scope bases were replaced due to a broken screw.

It's out having the crown re-cut as we speak.

But sub one inch to Three? It takes something major to make a barrel do that.

quote:

Originally posted by TREE 'EM:

quote:

Originally posted by xausa:

quote:

Originally posted by TREE 'EM:
Interesting speculation and I believe in some cases it may be correct.

I have a 270 that was a sub MOA shooter which I sent out to be rust blued and new custom scope bases installed.
It’s now a 3 MOA rifle with the same loads that had previously been sub MOA

I contacted the gunsmith it was sent to regarding the issue and he replied that he didn’t have a clue why the accuracy would decline.

Is it possible that the "new custom scope bases" might be the root of the problem? Why on earth would you change the scope set up on a sub-MOA rifle when it is performing so well?

Presumably the rifle came out of the stock when it was getting blued. Is it not possible that bedding has something to do with it?

Was the barrel removed from the action and blued separately?

Too many variables to assign blame to the rust bluing.

From what I was told and what I can see, the barrel was left on the action when it was rust blued.

Bedding issues were checked, none found.

Scope bases were replaced due to a broken screw.

It's out having the crown re-cut as we speak.

What the heck does that have to do with it? The barrel removal?

Jim, you always told me “maybe it’s the shooter.”
And you probably were correct

The stopper thing is not smart, traps moisture between the stopper (esp WOOD) and the barrel in the worst place (last 1/2" of barrel), and prevents moisture from escaping barrel (anyone who has done this knows how quickly a hunk of steel at 200 plus F dries, particularly when vertical). Better to coat bore with polyurethane and then scrub it out when done.

The acid is neutralized by reaction with the steel during the rusting cycle. There should be very little drop in pH of the tank, which is also steel.

As distinct from damascus work, rust blueing steel should take 2 1/2 days max.

Crown should not be swabbed with acid, it should be polished bright when done. Between the polish and frequent oilings, it will not rust.

As it was already posted I'll just repeat it . When we blued , rust , we painted inside the barrel and chamber , usually 2 coats , then rust , then always removed the paint , that I know of !

If so then Im in a world of hurt with most of my guns..and have been for ions..

Ah yes, lumping all rust blued barrels into one category is essentially judging a book by its' cover. Frankly I'm surprised at how many pro's gave a "blanket" opinion like that. Glad to see many here see beyond that finely carded rust blued surface. The bore scope views before and after tell all if it was well done or something in between. Anyone have a picture of an untouched/unprotected bore from a rust blued barrel? Great thread BTW.

Action screws properly tightened?

quote:

Originally posted by jimatcat:
what about the QPQ procedure??…. will it affect the bore??… QPQ is a nitride finish/heat treatment..

I have a sample of one (300 Wby) and my experience is no. As far as I know it is still pretty popular for AR barrels among others for extended life. But then that "electro-polishing" bore thingy was popular back in the day but faded out eventually.