Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles REBLUE PROBLEM - CREEPING CRUD !!!

I recently had a remington 700 reblued by a company in Virginia.
It was a matte finish and actually turned out pretty nice for the price.However,i had the barreled action sitting in my gun vise for a few days before putting the stock back on ans notice something seeping out from around the barrel threads.It was sort of light brown and powdery when i found it,so I took a small pick and toothbrush and removed it.A week later,I check and more had appeared so I did it again.Here I am two weeks later and yesterday there was more there and now some arounf the front sight.Now i'm afraid to put it back together cause I have no idea what it is and if it will damage the gun.Any help ????

I would call the company and see what they did,maybe salt blued or somthine and they dident neutralize it...

Sounds like bluing salts. I found same on a Ruger and the factory guys told me they clean it up with Breakfree CLP. I tried that, and no more creeping crud.

jim

It is bluing salts creeping out. The normal procedure after hot bluing is to boil the blued parts in water, along with the barreled action, for several minutes, then soak the entire barreled action and all the parts in oil.

Bluing salts can creep into the smallest fissures, like barrel threads and under sights. The water is supposed to wash out the remaining salts, and the oil is supposed to neutralize the remaining salts, but obviously it didn't.

You could get a container and pour a couple of quarts of the thinnest motor oil you can find and submerge the rifle for a few days, or as someone above said, Breakfree might do the trick. I have never tried it, but it is thin, and it penetrates, so it should work.

Any outfit that would blue a barreled action without taking the barrel out of the action just does not know what they are doing are they are just flat out cheating the customer. That is a NO NO..every gunsmith knows that. It will keep leaking for quite awhile but keep oiling it as it can rust...I would send it back with a scathing letter.

My crud was emerging from under the front sight band, and also from under the front sight blade. The Breakfree appears to have cured the problem. I applied it around the sight band and all the potential trouble sites on the sight base, and let it do its "creep" thing. I wiped it off later, and haven't seen any sign of more crud yet. Just cleaning the crud off without the solvent produced another batch in a week.

jim

I ran into the same problem years back on a rifle that I had reblued. I just shot some WD-40 into the joint where the barrel meets the receiver and no more crud creeping out. probably penetrating oil or CLP would work just as well.
Paul B.

Atkinson:

No one takes the barrel off to blue a rifle. Not gunsmiths nor the factories. Factory rifles are blued with the receivers attached. Revolvers, anything with a screw in barrel is blued assembled. By assembled, I mean barrel and receiver still attached. The innards are removed.

For one thing, barrels can be a pain to remove, and very difficult to be able to get it back on without scratching the bluing. Done right, the problem with salts leeching out can be eliminated.

The above applies to hot blue, only. I don't have any experience with rust bluing.

On Mausers and 03 Springfields, I would remove the barrel, if it would come off easy, before drilling and tapping. If the barrel was extremely tight, I would drill and tap a blind hole (shudder).

Atkinson,
I have no idea where you get the notion that a barrel should come off to be refinished?
I have never heard of such a thing in my life and I graduated from gunsmithing school back in 1980.
I have seen people dissolve things made from aluminum in bluing tanks though.
The reason this bluing shop has reasonable prices is because they are not boiling out the gun afterwards. Anything to save a buck I guess?
The first shop I worked at the owner had a garden hose on the water heater and he expected me to hang onto the guns while I rinsed them off with the 140 degree water. I convinced him to let me boil them out in a tank. I don't like to drop a freshly reblued gun on a concrete floor for some reason.
whelennut