My park'd 30-06. It's not a coating, it's a chemical etching of the metal. My barrel is Douglas stainless steel, it took the park' but not quite as dark as the CM receiver.

I built a bad weather/ mountain rifle in .308 on a 98 Mauser action, 19-inch barrel with HK G3 flash hider to protect the muzzle, parkerized, sturdy iron aperture sight, synthetic stock, 6 lbs. It has held up well to use in a canoe and kayak, rain, snow for over 20 years.

Thanks Shane. The smith said it wouldn't touch SS. But I take his info with a grain of salt.... Why I only trust him with simple task's and send out serious stuff.
I had assumed it was an etching but on 24hr unless I am 100% sure I don't comment....

Dave

BTW- Dang I like your stuff.........

I'm no expert on different steels, could be than some grades of stainless wouldn't take the parkerizing.

Iron Brigade Armory did mine. Norm put a magnet on the barrel, it stuck, and he said "yep, it'll take parkerizing".

Good point. Most all rifle barrels are made from 400 series Stainless Steel, like 416, which is magnetic.
Didn't realize that many people who think Stainless, automatically think non-magnetic. The only Stainless that I'm aware of that is non-magnetic is 303, and no barrels are made from it. It can't be heat treated.

Don

[quote=MontanaMarine]My park'd 30-06. It's not a coating, it's a chemical etching of the metal. My barrel is Douglas stainless steel, it took the park' but not quite as dark as the CM receiver.

Parkerizing does slightly etch the steel, but it also coats it by depositing manganese and zinc phosphates on the surface that bond to the steel. That’s why it is not used where tight tolerances are required such as triggers, sears, safeties etc.

Rick,

You are correct w/comments on parkerizing (phosphating).

I've done both manganese and zinc commercially and depending on the substrate material, the cleaning methods used, the bath chemistry and surface finish of the bare part, phosphate crystals can range from fine & nice to rough & ugly.

Typically, phosphating is not done on stainless since that's what the tanks used to hold the phosphate (or bluing salts)solution are typically made of.

Never did phosphating on rifle barrels, but on CM, I don't think I'd want it on the bore of my gun.....for reasons cited above, and because there is very little effect of stainless, probably wouldn't affect it much, but I'd still rather not have it there.

Sometimes on metals that don't fully convert enough to "grow" crystals, the surface is still etched.......not a good thing for a rifle bore in my opinion.

MM

Parkerizing steel is somewhat analogous to Anodizing amuminum. Parkerizing will work on most stainless steels used in firearms because they have a lower nickel percentage than the stainless used in other applications like bluing tanks. But, since stainless doesn’t need the same kind of rust protection that regular steel does, most guys wanting the Parkerized look on stainless usually go with Black Oxide or one of the “paint and bake” finishes.

Parkerizing doesn’t adhere well to smooth polished steel, but it will still etch it to a certain degree. Parkerizing is done at a much lower temperature, and takes less time in the tank than hot bluing, and unless I’m misinformed the bores are plugged with wooden plugs when being Parkerized to protect the bore from the solution.

The plugging of the barrels when parkerizing would make sense. All the parts I've ever done were other than barrels; slides, frames, etc.

As for time in the tanks, parkerizing is normally around 7 - 10 minutes; blueing around 10 -15.

There are blueing salt compositions that will blue stainless but if looks more black than blue, but still looks OK.

MM