I shudder every time someone mentions putting Naval Jelly on a rifle barrel, as I saw way too many nightmares happen back in the 1980's when people used it to strip bluing off UnCivil War period repro's - trying to get them to an Armory Bright finish. When Naval Jelly is left even a tiny bit too long, the resulting surface of the metal looks nothing like the barrels looked like in the period. I realize some folks successfully use it before browning, but there are better ways to get a period finish to the metal prior to browning.
Just my opinion....
Gus
I removed the bluing from my first longrifle, a Traditions Pennsylvania Longrifle, and was surprised at how easy it was to do. I used Birchwood & Casey "Blue and Rust Remover", and it removed it in a snap! Use some rubber or vinyl cloves for the process. I did have to de-grease it first with some alcohol, but I honestly had the bluing totally removed within about 10-minutes start to finish. This is on a new barrel and any barrel with gouges in it may take longer.
You just de-grease it; daub on the Bluing & Rust Remover with a liquid shoe polish dauber; and let it sit for 2-minutes. Then put some remover on a steel wool pad and rub the barrel. Bluing will disappear in a snap. Rinse off any excess and wipe the barrel dry. This stuff just wipes it right off, or at least it did on mine.
After I did that to my barrel, I took it over to a gunbuilder friend's house and we pickled the barrel to make it look old. You have to be very careful when you do this. If you get the pickling solution in the barrel, it will ruin the barrel. He had all the equipment to do this and basically what he did was construct a tray to submerse the barrel in and a burner with holes all along it to go the length of the tray so the Pickling solution would boil evenly.
Then he poured in 50% water and 50% chlorine pickling solution. This solution has to boil evenly from end to end or you get big marks on your barrel. Did this in a barn with an open roof so he didn't get a cross breeze to mess with the burner but also didn't die from the poisonous fumes.
We had put a teflon-tape wrapped bolt in the touch hole and used a wood plug in the barrel tight enough to fill the rifling grooves. Wrapped a length of wire around the touch-hole bolt and also a length of wire around the barrel plug. Once the mixture was bubbling with lots of tiny bubbles, we submersed the barrel in the mixture. Immediately the mixture turned red...was somewhat disconcerting.
After about 7 or 8 minutes, we pulled the barrel up out of the mixture and turned it around to submerse if for another 7 or 8-minutes with the muzzle pointing in the other direction. Mmight have been longer total submersion, but half way through you swap ends...was a long time ago. This made sure that the pickled finish was the same on both the front and back ends of the barrel. Ideally, you are looking for lots of little tiny red rust balls covering the barrel.
When we were done, we pulled it out of the tray and it looked like the barrel was totally ruined. He took it over to the wire wheel on his bench grinder and knocked off almost all of the rust. Then we oiled it and it was done. The barrel had lots of tiny little pits in it and looked like it had gone through a lot of hard use for 20-years or more. It really had that "Old Barrel" look to it. Friend said he'd learned how to do this from Hershel House. It looked GREAT!
My second longrifle, an Early Lancaster made by "tg" who used to be on this forum, had just an "in the white" barrel - no bluing or browning. Since I was doing reenactments a lot and firing about 80 blanks a weekend during the reenactments and I cleaned the rifle at the end of the day each time I used it, the barrel developed a nice patina fairly quickly. I just keep oiling the barrel every time I clean it to keep any further darkening from taking place. I like the look of the naturally worn in patina on the "in the white" barrel the best.
Twisted_1in66
Dan
