Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Stainless vs blue

What are advantages pro/con between a blue vs ss barrel? 80% rifle range 20% hunting use.

Moisture causes the same reaction to a blued gun whether it be form rain, snow, fog, or worse yet sweat. Sweat being the worse because it is mixed with salt (body salt).

Will you be sweating in your 80/20% situations?

For that reason I perfer stainless guns. They are not rust proof, but offer better rust resistance. They overall require less maintanence.

However, a polished Blue rifle with figured Walnut is nice to look at.

GB

Is either more accurate than the other?

AFAIK, no .. niether is more accurate by nature ... but the stainless bbl's do tend to last longer before they get "shot out" ... and for what it's worth, I've heard that people prefer, in optimal conditions, to have a chromoly action (because supposedly it does not gall as easily as stainless) ... So, if you're looking for the most "bullet proof" rifle config, might I suggest a CM action joined to a stainless bbl, ... have that cerakoted and microslicked ... drop it into a McMillan stock in 'swirly' (not painted) ... and your optic of choice.

My 2 cents...I really haven't hunted a lot of wet hunts, and on the ones I did go on I carried blued rifles with walnut stocks - never had a problem. But, a couple javelina seasons back I was walking up a hill that paralled another hill. The top of the other hill was maybe 500 yards away. I glanced over and a quick flash of light (of sorts) caught my eye. I threw up my binos and saw a hunter walking up the hill. The flash I saw was the sunlight bouncing off his high gloss blued barrel. The first thing that came to mind was the high gloss of a Ruger bolt rifle I used to own. It was so shiny I was thinking maybe this guy had one. The second thought that came to mind was if my terrible eyes could easily pick up that shine, what would a deer see. Maybe nothing...I don't know. And, maybe the chances of getting this guy's rifle, the sun and my eyes lined up was a fluke of sorts.?.? Again, I don't know. But it made me think twice about the high gloss stuff.

Now let me say I love Ruger rifles. Every high powered rifle I own is a Ruger (a few #1s, a stainless M77 and an old shiny M77R), but from that day on I told myself if I ever got another blued and walnut Ruger bolt, I would have the barrel treated to a matte or satin finish. My M77R was my first 'big' rifle. It has a shiny barrel, and for nostalgic purposes it will stay as is. If I ever take it out of semi-retirement to go hunting, the reason I'm carrying it will be more important that the actual game I'm after, so I wouldn't mind the shine.

So, if you're looking at a Ruger and hunt some wide-open sunny stuff, maybe think about budgeting for a metal refinish if you go blued, or just go stainless and call it good. (this would be a tough choice for me because I'm a sucker for nice walnut). Good luck deciding.

i have both blue and stainless rifles. i like them all, the only gun i've ever had a rust problem with was a pistol i carried close to my body. i hunt in the desert in northeastern cal and nw nevada. i have never spotted another hunter by his blued rifle however, i have seen several stainless barrels at a great distance. i try to cover mine whenever possible.

If you think the metal shines wait till you see a high gloss wooden stock! You could attract search and rescue airplanes!

I have also seen the bead blasted stainless barrels at long distances and they stand out due to their light color.

I like the bead blased blued look the best and have done that to almost all of them.

I suppose you could have a camo application done to the entire firearm. Bell and Carlson and other companies offer that as an option. Would love to see predator deception or ASAT camo patterns then I'd consider it.

I suppose it is more of an issue to the SW hunters as we never seem to get much cloud cover compared to other locales.

I don't think either is more accurate than the other.

I have read that the "bench rest" accuracy of stainless barrels last longer by as much as %10.

I like Stainless, mainly because of the "sweating" issue in South GA. We're 6 weeks into rifle season and not the first frost.

With the new Stainless Steel actions (416) blend, gauling is not the issue it was in the early ones, especially on the Remington's where you have chrom moly locking lugs on the stainless bolt body.

Either custom barrel (chrom moly or stainless) will be hand lapped and machined to the same standards.

GB