Browning Vs Rusty Patina.

[Brazos John]

I've seen lots of great brown finishes on rifles here.
I have a CVA full-stock .45 cal that the barrel has been left in the white, but has been lightly rusting, and it's not bad looking.
Questions:
1. What is the purpose of browning?
2. What is the difference in browning versus leaving the barrel (not the bore!) to grow its own rusty patina? Wouldn't this be more historically correct than browning? It's not pitting, and it grows slowly, since I oil it when cleaning, but I don't try to remove any rust.
What do y'all think?

 

[new2bp]

Both browning and bluing are chemical treatments intended to handle the iron oxidizing in some other fashion than what rust is. In theory once all easy chemical work is done there is no more unreacted iron so no rust

Regular rust isnt a controlled reaction so you may end up with pitting etc unless you kinda keep on top of it

For a utility gun Im a big fan of industrial paint over parkerizing and chrome lined innards Too bad I cant get a ML like that

 

[Rock Home Isle]

Browning a barrel is a chemical reaction, essentially a controlled oxidation process that provides a durable protective coating to the metal. My preference is a hot brown finish, beautiful deep brown finish. Not easy to get a uniform temperature on long barrels, but the finished reaction is amazing, very eye catching.

Recently, I’ve gotten into the antique grey finish, which is a cold blueing method…very fast, quite durable, so fricken easy to do…and it looks great. The hard part is buffing out the oxidation so that you are left with an even uniform aged looking finish, with no streaking or runs.

Aged patina finish…I did this on my Brown Bess…it looks real good (In My Opinion), but it took 15 years to really take effect. Maybe I clean my gun tooo well, but yeah, took awhile. If I were to do another patina finish, I’d just do an antique grey finish, then buff it back so that it is very faint…done in about 15 minutes, as apposed to 15 years.

Any more I go for the antique grey finish. I’ve done enough barrels, that I’ve been able to get nice consistent results. And if I screw it up…buff it out, start over.

 

[Johnny Tremain]

Browned my barrel in 05, still looks like it did in 05.
Built a humidity (sweat) box with a light in it for heat.
Left it in for 12 hours. (over night)

Leaving in the white, is what the Brits did. Nice shiny barrels for the sun to glint off of.

Patina is a modern fad.

 

[user 34300]

I have been using commercially available slow rust brown lately. I am in a dry area. I wet the walls of my shower and hang the barrel in there for one day to rust. I then card and repeat. It usaully takes several days. The result is better looking than Birchwood Casey hot brown to my eye. I do use BC on small parts.

I do not understand faking patina. A gun that was made and used 200 years ago would look new when made. IT then takes 200 years to create a patina. Our ancestors bought their guns close to the time of their making. Their guns would not have looked 200 years old. So, why make a gun look like something it never was while in original use 200 years ago?

 

[Brazos John]

So, why make a gun look like something it never was while in original use 200 years ago?

This begs the question,
Was browning used as a metal preservation method back in Colonial or Civil War days?
Or is browning used to replicate the current finish of an old rifle, which may have been blued or left in the white back then?

 

[akroguy]

The historical authenticity of browning is a question I've pondered as well. I do know that for my rifles, I just LOVE the look of BC's Plum Brown. It's on my Kibler Colonial and it's going on the Lancaster project as well. End of the day, if I like what I see, it's HC enough for me!

I'm a poet, and don't know it.

 

[TDM]

Browning has been used since the mid 1700's, maybe earlier. Who knows what led to the procedure, but they would use a salt & water solution, even heard of them using urine. They would grease up the inside of the barrel, plug it, and apply their solution of choice until they got the desired results. Even with modern browning solutions temperature and humidity make a big difference in the time it takes. Blueing has been around a long time, since the invention of making steel. I've read that it was discovered with the use of steel cooking pots. The combination of heat and food oils creates the blue, protective patina. Now we use chemical solutions to rush the process up.

 

[Brazos John]

Browning has been used since the mid 1700's,

Excellent answer! Thanks for the details.
Among the details, Urine? Boy, that brings up some questions:
Is it better to drink water or tea or coffee or whiskey before obtaining your solution?
Does Scotch give a different pattern than Irish whisky?
What about beer - that would be the easiest way to generate quantities of solution.
I also read that Rum was the most popular drink in the Colonies, so maybe that was the source.

Sorry, I asked a serious question, got a serious answer, and then went down the gutter.
More serious comments are welcome.
But so are funny ones, if you just can't help it.

 

[NorthFork]

This begs the question,
Was browning used as a metal preservation method back in Colonial or Civil War days?
Or is browning used to replicate the current finish of an old rifle, which may have been blued or left in the white back then?

Bingo! That's been the question for sometime now. And I don't have a good answer myself.

 

[Trapper Scott]

From what I remember about gunsmithing school. Browning of metal occurred in the early 1700s as a way to camouflage the shiny metal. Gun makers figured out that they could allow the rust layers to build up on the metal causing the brown color and expedite the process by using salt water mixtures. Also, many of the gun makers used charcoal bluing as a way to get a desired bluish color. Slow rust bluing was also used before the hot caustic bluing chemicals came into play later on. I would suggest that most of the poor boy's long guns were sold in the white and used the first method. Jack Brooks dives into some of this discussion in part of his research and development of techniques to replicate the older gun-making art forms.

 

[tenngun]

Excellent answer! Thanks for the details.
Among the details, Urine? Boy, that brings up some questions:
Is it better to drink water or tea or coffee or whiskey before obtaining your solution?
Does Scotch give a different pattern than Irish whisky?
What about beer - that would be the easiest way to generate quantities of solution.
I also read that Rum was the most popular drink in the Colonies, so maybe that was the source.

Sorry, I asked a serious question, got a serious answer, and then went down the gutter.
More serious comments are welcome.
But so are funny ones, if you just can't help it.

Those questions are cute, but it seems women’s urine was the best

 

[azmntman]

And they drank wine

 

[Stantheman86]

"Patina" works on some guns and not so much on others, or even depending on if your gun has it's own "backstory" whether in your head or if you do Living History, Reenacting, etc.

For example, a Brown Bess that's supposed to be in active service with the British Army would not be allowed to patina, it would be kept to the required standards of cleanliness by the soldier for inspections.

However, that same musket as used by a Confederate militiaman would likely have patina, as it was just a functional weapon and likely not subject to any inspections by NCO's, etc. and by that point would be an older weapon.

My Pedersoli 1816 Springfield percussion conversion is developing a nice patina because I have no reason to shine it up, and for the brief time I did Living History I used that musket with my persona as a local Union Militiaman or irregular, so I likely wouldn't have had a brand new looking converted 1816 Springfield in 1862. It would definitely have patina.

On an unrelated note, the "browning" used by Pedersoli on the Hawkens and Kentucky rifles is a Cerakote. It looks good so I don't worry about it, both my Pedersoli Hawkens have it. I believe the Mississippi has it too.

I'll tell ya what, I'll admit that I'm weird but one time I was done shooting the 1816 repro and I forgot most of my cleaning stuff, and I was alone on the range way down in a pit by myself, so I put a leaf under the hammer to plug the nipple and pee'd down the pipe, and let it sit while I cleaned my targets up. I dumped it out, and it did a good job of getting the fouling out. I had read this was a historically correct method and I mean, it's readily available. I guess it helped with the patina too. None of my other gun buddies can claim that they have emptied their bladder into one of their guns so I feel like it was a win-win.

 

[The Crisco Kid]

Rusty Patina. Now wouldn't that be a good handle for a forum member?
I think it's all in the eye of the beholder. I have a rifle that I browned using Birchwood Casey many years ago and it still looks great. I've also used Laurel Mtn Forge, cold blue and bleach, and lately Dangler's brown. They all look fine, to me at least, on the rifle I happen to be holding at the moment.

 

[Omahkapi'si]

Mine are browned from the factory. Looks good and all I do is wipe the whole rifle wood and all with Ballistol after every clean. They’ll age however they age, scuff marks and all.

 

[ronaldrothb49]

I have browned every gun I have made. I use Laural Mountain Forge cold brown. With it you can get a smooth satin brown, an antique brown or even a rust blue depending on how you use it. Why, because it is natural for steel to rust and the last thing I want is a shiny barrel flashing in the sun when I am hunting. I am not going to spend endless time polishing a barrel to keep it from rusting and I don't believe the people on the frontier had time to do that.

 

[DuncNZ]

Patina is an age produced color change caused by oxidization of various metals . Bluing , greying and browning are protective coatings deliberately used to coat various metals and help prevent further oxidization .

 

[Dartwick]

Some people here are overstating the significance of the browning process - it just plain old rust, Fe2O3. The browning process is just applying it in an even manner then removing scale(repeating these 2 steps till you have full coverage) and then treating with oil.

Patina is just another name for thin chemical reactions covering on metal. You can have a natural patina(rust on steel) or various chemically induced ones.

Be wary of leaving scale on - that can lead to pitting eventually.