Refinishing a shotgun?

[natebuddy]

Has anyone ever refinished a shotgun with the Matte Black finish? I have a 10 year old Benelli M1 that is getting a bit rusted. I would like to refinish the Black Matte. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

[chucker34]

Natebuddy, you could go a couple of routes. You could try to clean up the rust/any pitting yourself and reblue it with some cold blueing products. Do a web search for Birchwood Casey. They make some great metal cleaning and finishing products sold in most of the sporting good stores. Following their instructions, you could probably do a pretty good job.

However, if you had a few extra bucks in your pocket, I'd let a quality gunsmith reblue it for you. I just had a nice reblueing job done on my badly pitting grandfather's Stevens shotgun done. The gunsmith restored it beautifully to a nice black matte finish and charged me $75 - well worth the trouble and time it would have required for me to do it. And I wouldn't have done half as nice a job.

[harvey lee]

I would agree with chuckar34. I have done a shotgun and a pistol. The shotgun turned out fairly well and the pistol ok. If I were to do it again it would go to a gun smith.

[natebuddy]

Thanks guys,

I wasn't sure if many Gunsmiths did the flat black reblueing. Why do they call it reblueing when its black?

I'm going to call a gunsmith and have them do it.

Appreciate your help.

Nate

[DrKen]

The new Guns and Ammo has a nice article on refinishing guns, blueing, parkerizing and similar. Well worth the read and may answer your questions.

[JEV]

You might also want to check out Norrell's Moly Resin. I just refinished a handgun this weekend and it turned out really nice. They have a pretty good selection of colors and it wasn't that hard to do.

JEV

[chucker34]

I'm not sure of all the reblueing terms, etc., but I would bet a gunsmith could do it. I'm all for do it yourself but in this case was nervous about doing it right since I was entrusted with the family heirloom. I can't wait to try it now.

P.S. The gunsmith showed me where the original case coloring had been on the receiver plate. I asked him if they could do that. He told me it would cost about two to three times what the gun was worth! So I just polished that up real nice instead.

[Bassboy1645]

you could take the routs prefered by my buds......they love camo...Every gun they own they end u refinishing after it gets a bit rusted....They sand it all down jsu tto rough up the metal a bit and then they doa solid primer color either borwn or black or green and from there they take leaves and spray over and over and over until all u have is a molted leaf pattern. Some of them look quite nice!

[royalwolf]

Not to attack anybody in particular here -- but guns don't normally "get rusted" over time. Guns rust due to neglect and improper storage. If you clean and oil your firearms and don't keep them in a case or in a damp basement they will never rust, no matter what kind of weather conditions you hunt in.

Normal finish wear does occur, of course, and I'll agree with the above posters that the best route is to have the gun professionally reblued. Home-done cold bluing affords no rust prevention whatsoever and is only good for looks. If you want it done right, have a gunsmith do a matte black bluing job. He'll take the gun apart, beadblast or sandblast it, then refinish it in either a black bluing finish or even a matte black enamel finish (like Duracoat or similar). It will be very durable and make the gun look new, unless the rust pitting is deep.

My .02,

Tom

[chucker34]

royalwolf, I agree the key is upkeep. In my case, I inherited a piece that had sit in my grandma's basement untouched for decades.

I will say that rust can set in quickly if you don't get to the weapon after hunting in damp conditions. I usually get out the air compressor immediately when I get home from hunting in the rain and then oil the heck out of the gun.

I found a nifty contraption at the local gunsmith that is basically a car chammy sort of cloth that you keep in a jar with an "oil disk" that always keeps the rag oily. It is very nice to just pull out and oil all your guns. One question though, when most of you oil, do you just leave as is or do you wipe the excess oil off. I wipe it off and make sure there are no fingerprints before putting away.

[GunDr]

You could have a more durable finish by going with a teflon coated finish. It can only be applied to a glass-beaded surface. It can also be had in many colors.