Removing surface rust

[Rock Head]

My parents house was recently flooded and several guns were damaged in the flood. My father asked me if I could restore the guns and I said yes without really knowing what I was getting into. Most of the damage is water staining on the wood stock and surface rust on and in the barrels. I am mostly concerned about removing the rust and rebluing the barrels. Any advice or a source to some reliable literature would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Bigshooter42]

Ive used WD40 and 0000 steel wool to clean mine before. I've seen mixed reviews on this combination but I've had good luck with it working. This works pretty good for light surface rust. Not sure the extent of what you are looking at or if you are planning to cold blue or have it professionally done, but if you need to take it down to metal then Birchwood Casey makes some blue/rust remover.

Good luck.

 

[Rob.308]

You can use a product called Evapo-Rust. It works very well. You can get it from Auto-Zone for about $25.00 for a gallon. I used a 3" piece of PVC with an end cap to make a "Tub" so I could soak the barrel and action for a few days. The stuff works great and will also clean the bore out if there is any rust in there. The products come out of the stuff with a black colored film on them. It wipes off easy and the stuff really works well. I removed the trigger and bottom metal from the rife I did.

If you have an spray painting skills at all you could easily dip the guns and then cerakote them. That was the route I took and it all came out excellent. Mine was a hunting rifle so the added protection the cerakote provides was a vast improvement over the blue finish the rifle came with. I used the air-dry stuff and it has held up great on a gun that use when I am using my tree climber.

Another great benefit of the Evapo-Rust is it wont hurt the metal finish in anyway and it can be reused lots of times. I took a funnel and just poured the stuff right back into the container it came out of.

I hope that helps in your situation. We all hate rust and fight that battle often.

 

[Loki's Placebo]

Hi,

If your goal is to just clean the rust off then Bigshooter42's suggestion is the cheapest and easiest means to get it done. Just lube the rust up with WD40 or some CLP, let it soak for a bit and then hit the rust with steel wool or a scratch pad. it will come off with minor damage to the un-rusted finish.

On the other hand if your worried about damaging the firearms at all then you might want to go all out. Meaning break them down as best you can and sandblasting them. Using a low psi and medium grit media, allows for better control over removal area of affect. This option of course is more time consuming as well as costly.

In the end though you'll have to refinish them and I would have to agree with Rob.308 about the Cerakote finish. The stuff is as tough as nails. They have an oven cured option as well as a air dry option, in case you don't have a curing oven.

Hope the information is helpful.

Regards
Jeremy

 

[Rock Head]

Thanks for the advice, I think I'll try the WD40 route and the Cerakote finish on one of the rifles with less family history and see how it comes out. I'll post some pictures once I get the first rifle completed.
Thanks!

 

[Cvarney]

My house burnt my sophomore year of college. Luckily the guns we had fell through the floor and landed in the basement and junk fell on them so most survived but they all had water damage from the fire department. On most I used triple ought or 4 ought, I can't recall, and CLP with pretty good results. Some other I had to get deeper into and used the birchwood casey blue/rust remover. It works really well, but take the advice not to get it on spring seriously. Dad had an old Peacemaker replica in .22lr that the hammer spring ended up breaking. I guess it makes them brittle.

 

[HAZORD]

Since bluing is a rust process, using Evaporust will remove bluing. If you take a brass cartridge case and flatten the mouth, you can use it as a scraper. Put some WD-40 on the rusty areas, and scrape with the brass. It will scrape off the rust, but won't hurt the bluing.

 

[marduk185]

You can use a product called Evapo-Rust. It works very well. You can get it from Auto-Zone for about $25.00 for a gallon. I used a 3" piece of PVC with an end cap to make a "Tub" so I could soak the barrel and action for a few days. The stuff works great and will also clean the bore out if there is any rust in there. The products come out of the stuff with a black colored film on them. It wipes off easy and the stuff really works well. I removed the trigger and bottom metal from the rife I did.

If you have an spray painting skills at all you could easily dip the guns and then cerakote them. That was the route I took and it all came out excellent. Mine was a hunting rifle so the added protection the cerakote provides was a vast improvement over the blue finish the rifle came with. I used the air-dry stuff and it has held up great on a gun that use when I am using my tree climber.

Another great benefit of the Evapo-Rust is it wont hurt the metal finish in anyway and it can be reused lots of times. I took a funnel and just poured the stuff right back into the container it came out of.

I hope that helps in your situation. We all hate rust and fight that battle often.

ive been told that 3" pvc method werks well on rusty balloon knots as well.

 

[PlinkIt]

If they are rusted throughout the internals I'd second the evaporust followed by a refinishing.. If only small amounts I have had good results with 3000 grit sanding pads covered with some mother's metal polish..