Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats can you leave a CM barrel uncoated?

I had bought two Shilen CM barrels to build a 7RM/338RUM switchbarrel. I was going to build on a WBY Mark V so I bought CM barrels so I could have them blued to match the blued action. Now, I have a very nice polished SS Defiance action I want to build on instead. Can I polish the CM barrels and leave them uncoated to match the polished SS action? Or will they rust or otherwise start to look terrible?
A can of Krylon would probably do the job, but look like [bleep]. Any other options?
Thanks.

Coat them, because you would really have to stay on top of things to keep them from rusting!

I used an uncoated CM barrel on one of my high-power silhouette rifles, I gave it a good spray of clear Krylon and it worked just fine, rust was not a problem and it was shot in the rain and snow more than a few times. The downside was that it would chip if bumped against a hard object but another spray touchup would fix it.

It will all come down to how well you want them to match the SS action, they will be close but they will not quite match. Give it a try and if you are unhappy with the match you are only out the price of a can of Krylon.

drover

I think there is a "stainless" color cerakote.

Thought about this myself. A lot of bolts are simply chrome moly not blued. Doesn't seem to be an issue.

Some varmint hunters buy chrome moly barrels because they're cheaper and leave them un-blued because they shoot them out so quickly. My chrome moly rifles pretty much stay in the safe nowadays because I can't even keep the blued ones from rusting. If I were going to put a chrome moly barrel on a stainless action then I'd cerakote the whole thing.

Shilen doesn't put much effort into their chrome moly barrels, they don't even lap them unless you pay them extra to do it. I kind of question the wisdom of spending all the money to put an unlapped barrel on a nice custom action like the defiance. I'd find another use for the CM barrels and buy a good stainless barrel for the defiance.

Thats what I'm pondering. I can send them back to midway, but a quality stainless barrel is double the price. This won't be a hunting rifle, so it shouldn't see much harsh weather. This will be more of a range toy/target rifle/tactical setup.

slm9s, I have an XP100 that I had rebarreled with a CM Douglas and needed it for a shoot before it was blued. I kept it that way for almost a year before bluing it. I had to keep after it but never had a rust problem.

In Tacoma I would sure be concerned. I was in Colorado with very low humidity.

Well, I thought I had found the answer in "clear" duracoat, but then read that it probably won't stick to polished chromemoly steel. Anyone know anything about this -

"what you need is a self etch clear, it has an acid in it that makes it sticks to the polished finish"

I have probably 12 barrels or more that are chrome moly..

I use clear duracote on them and then put car wax over that...

most are on varmint rifles, but several are on hunting rifles..which are out in all sorts of wet weather... and I have yet to have an issue...

The rifle I found in the snow was an old 722 Remington. Get this, the guy had painted the wood stock flat green and polished off the bluing to make it look like a stainless/synthetic rifle. I found it under a few inches of snow. It had no rust, etc. on it.
Don't know how long it had been like that, but some of the paint was chipped off the stock.
I routinely paint my barrels and recievers to cut down on the barrel flash one gets off of nicely finished rifles. Those so painted, even duck guns with continuous days out on the marsh, don't seem to rust like blued guns. E

Put ultra gun shield, now called dyna gun shield on it.
http://www.extremeguncare.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=1
I did my bead blasted Savage 99 receiver with it, and it looks great. If you want it tougher, apply the recommended number of coats + 1, then bake it at 350 for about 45min.

Blueing is rust . And cm steel is not going to be ok with out some type of finish be it wax ,clear coat , or some type of finish my money is on a bake on finish even my stainless barrel get rust in wa if not oiled and maintenced regularly .

clear Cerakote would be much tougher than duracoat.

Okay, I couldn't take not answering this any more, and my in-laws have me irritated.

Can you leave a CM barrel uncoated? Yes! You just...don't blue or coat it.