anyone here actually done nitric acid rust bluing???

alinwa

oft dis'd member
I finally managed to source 8-10 gallons of nitric acid.

When I learned to do it we actually used "horseshoe nails".....for real.

I don't have any horseshoe nails so was planning to use rebar but I'm currently sweeping up pounds of 12L14 chips making muzzle brakes.

Any thoughts?
 
Lookup Pilkington bluing. Brownells at one time sold pilkington bluing products , the instruction were free at that time.

Hal
 
Roy Dunlap's book Gunsmithing has a pretty good formula for rust bluing solution. Some guys have said it's finicky and don't like it but I have never had any problems with it after I found out keeping everything clean is absolutely a must.
 
........ keeping everything clean is absolutely a must.

So True!!

CLEAN

DEGREASED!

Like so friggin clean it rusts in ten minutes in the open air......

And HOT helps too ;)

HOT and CLEAN

I'm just a cheapskate and don't want to order "horseshoe nails" if 12l14 shavings will work. Cuz I'm throwing away pounds of the stuff. Like 20lb

Oh well, I ordered enough nitric to experiment and HCL is easy..... I have 5-gallon jugs on hand always for work.
 
It's called 'leaded steel' for a reason:

Iron, Fe 97.91 - 98.7
Manganese 0.85 - 1.15
Sulfur, S 0.260 - 0.35
Lead 0.15 - 0.35
Carbon 0.15
Phosphorous 0.040 - 0.090

Good shootin' -Al
 
THANK YOU FELLOWS!!! For informative replies..... PURE IRON it will be.......


And thank you Lee, it's getting harder and harder to find good salt bluing
 
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