Heating a barrel

[JKVirginia]

How hot a temperature can a ml barrel be exposed to without damaging the heat treatment to a dangerous degree?

The reason I ask is that I have thought about lightly oiling the now-white barrel and heating it above my gas stove flame a bit to darken the metal as one cures an iron skillet, but I don't want to risk trashing my barrel in the process. If I'm playing with fire here (pardon the pun) please let me know!

Jon

 

I've aged white barrels by browning and then using blue and rust remover on them. If you have some Plum Brown lying around give it a try if no other method ends up appealing to you. I heated the barrel for browning with a little propane torch but just hot enough that it would sizzle the Plum Brown liguid.

 

By the way, what kind of "heat treatment" does a muzzleloading barrel have?

 

[Birddog6]

Much eassier to just buy a bottle of "Brass Black" or clean the barrel well & rub the barrel down with fouling laden patches.. It will patina nicely & then rub it down well with a piece of cloth & oil or a oiled piece of burlap, etc.

Heat treating of a barrel, they have none. Some are heated to stress relieve them but most of the barrels are made of fairly sott materials, with the Green Mtn. being one of the hardest of the custom barrels.

 

[Zonie]

The heat needed to use BC Plum Brown is about 280 degrees F. Much hotter and it sizzles off leaving a uneven brown that is hard to blend in. Much colder than 230 degrees F and the solution won't "take". It then often deposits a layer of copper which has to be totally removed before doing any more browning.
As you can see, this is a relativly cool process.

Heating the barrel up to get a dark color like blue takes a temperature of about 570 degrees F.
Although this is not hot enough to damage the steel, if the heating or cooling was uneven, you could warp the barrel.
Sounds risky to me.