Castle

JDsniper, wisdom, I can only apologise. Turns out that PhotoBucket, which I have hotlinked my photos from for a long time, has suddenly decided they want $399 dollars to allow me to continue. Without notice, they broke all the links I have ever posted. I have no right to anything for free and it is their business to run as they want, but I still think they have acted like ars*h*les. I recommend everyone steer clear of them. I will try to move the pictures and re-share the links because I want people to be able to use them for reference, like I was able to do with so many other people's posts.

Well there you go - plug your barrels!

Buze, Good stuff. Feltwad is in favour of plugging the barrels and I would never contradict him because if he does it, I am sure it is for good reason. However someone else told me not to do this because a) when boiling the barrels, the increased air pressure can cause the plugs to pop out, spraying boiling water everywhere and b) if you do get water behind the plug and it takes you a week to do it all then you have wet barrels for all that time. I chose to not plug mine. I only applied the blueing solution to the parts I wanted to rust and even over the bath the rust didn't really form inside the bores. I used a clean, de-greased bore brush before boiling to keep them shiny. I then pulled the barrels out of the water while they were still hot so they dried quickly. With these simple precautions I really didn't have any trouble with rust in the bores at all. My only concern was when sanding the outside of the barrels to remove the existing tarnish.rust etc. I tried to be as conservative as possible but I was still taking metal away from the most critical area of the gun so it was nerve wracking.

I bought the Pachmyer gunsmith screwdriver set from amazon. £19 I think. Cheap enough that you should probably only make your own set for enjoyment/satisfaction rather than as a money saving exercise. Professional 31 Piece Gunsmith Screwdriver Set https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B000JWH23W/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_Pwtjzb20GXXQY I had to remove the checkering from the butt because I needed a flat surface on which to mount the butt pad. As it was there were rounded edges that would have looked terrible. Sorry you can't see all the pictures. They are showing up fine for me so I don't know what I can do. Is anyone else having the same problem?

Hi Peejay, Is this gun still for sale?

Thanks everyone. I am really pleased with the way the metal turned out and I can tolerate the woodwork. I hope that this thread is of use to people in the future; I certainly spent a long time trawling through the depths of this forum to glean advice from other people that have done things before.

That is an amazing combination of deals. I can get a pair of the 4Ds for under a hundred pounds? Incredible; thanks for sharing.

PART 10 SHOOTING IT Once assembled I took it to a range, donned Kevlar gloves, eye protection and a thick jacket. Keeping my face away from the stock (in case it split) I fired off a dozen cartridges and then inspected it for any signs of cracking. Everything looked fine so I carried on. In total I fired 200 rounds that first day with no issues at all. That was two years ago and I have put thousands of rounds through it since then with everything looking ship shape. I love it more than any other gun I own (probably because of the time invested in it). It shoots PoA/PoI rather than the pattern sitting above the bead like my other guns. This makes it awkward swapping between them but apart from that it’s a blast. I cannot stress how little experience I have with this but having the gun for free encouraged me to give it a go and I am delighted with how it turned out. If anyone has any questions then please ask.

Gentlemen, I promised a write up of this. It only took me two years to get round to it. It is in the Craft & DIY section: https://forums.pigeonwatch.co.uk/forums/topic/356906-shotgun-refurb-blue-the-barrels-fix-the-action-repair-the-stock/page-2?do=findComment&comment=3260353 Hopefully this gives people enough confidence to give it a go themselves.

I was left with a slightly darker grey barrel that, initially, was not entirely uniform. I then started the process again. And again. And again. In total I did 7 treatments, 1 per day each day for a week. Most of that time was spent with the barrels hanging over the bath (my wife was not that pleased.) When it was dark enough, I cleaned it really thoroughly for a final time then painted it with engine oil. I have heard that people use old engine oil to get a blacker colour but that seemed like a lot of faff. I used new oil, liberally applied. I then left it dripping in oil for 48 hours. After that time I cleaned it up, oiled with gun oil and polished the bores which were looking grotty but not rusted. I attribute this to always taking the barrels out of the water when they were still hot enough to quickly dry themselves. As a finishing touch I wrapped the threads of the bead in masking tape and then gripped them in the chuck of an electric drill. I put some Brasso on a duster and then spun the bead on the duster until it was shiny and smooth.

Once I had assembled all of this it was time to start work. After the abortive attempt described above, the process was to use cotton wool to thinly paint the solution over all of the surfaces I wanted blued. Which discoloured the metal. I then hung the barrels from the shower curtain rail over a bath half filled with hot water. I closed the bathroom door and left overnight. This warm, wet atmosphere covered the whole surface with fine, ‘velvety’ red rust ( I do not have any photos of this). I then boiled up a few litres of deionised water, and filled up my drainpipe with this. I dropped the barrels into the water for 5-10 minutes. Once it had cooled down a bit I poured the water out and then added another freshly boiled panful. When it came out it was matte black in colour but had a velvety texture. I then used fine wire wool to scrub off the rust. Its bloody messy and you need to wear gloves throughout. Once the metal is smooth I used acetone and kitchen roll to clean the barrels.

Feltwad, Roger that. Starting this project I didn't even know what I didn't know. I have learned a lot but this is still amateur hour at best. I would love to have the time and funds to really get my head into this.

PART 9 BLUEING THE BARRELS I went back and forth over what I was going to do with the barrels. First I was going to send them to a gunsmith for a ‘hot salt blue’ (too expensive), then ‘cold chemical blue’ them myself (not a permanent finish) before finally deciding to ‘slow rust blue’ them myself. I am no chemist, but from what I understand, slow rust blueing uses acid and salt to induce very fine rust on the metal which is then boiled to turn it black before it is polished to a weather resistant finish. It is a traditional English finish and looks great when done. It is slow (hence the name) but not hard to do. I encourage anyone to have a go. I read lots of advice online but could not find one exact method to follow. What follows is my method which seemed to work. Firstly I tried to find a vessel in which to boil the barrels. Clearly it had to be an unusual shape. It had to be long enough to fit the barrels but if it was too wide then I would be wasting the deionised water used. Several places sold metal troughs that would have worked but I was not willing to spend that much money. I tried to use a metal shelf which I heated up and then hammered a furrow into. This eventually had the right shape but when I put it on the hob it was an impossible thing to heat to boiling, not to mention the safety nightmare (and my wife was ******). This was not going to work so I scrapped it and went back to the drawing board. I took the risk that it only needed to capable of holding boiling water rather than boiling water. With that assumption made I took a length of plastic drain pipe and two end caps and made myself a tray. When it was hot the sides sagged out so I put a strip of duct tape round its circumference to hold it in the right shape (not shown below). I would then boil the water in two large (degreased) saucepans and pour it over the barrels in the drainpipe. I needed to be able to manoeuvre the barrels without touching the external surfaces so I ran a wire coat hanger through one side and bent it so it could not come out. I did not plug the barrels at all. I needed deionised water (apparently filtered water is not sufficient due to salt levels?). I bought 20L in 4 x 5L cartons from Robert Dyas and used the whole lot. I needed blueing solution. There were only a few options in the UK and I was delighted when I found Blackley & Son. https://www.blackleyandson.com/acatalog/Compounds_and_Solutions_for_Metals.html I was even more pleased when it turned out I knew the other son from my work – small world!

I then worked my way up, using each grade of paper wet until I was on 1000 grit paper. It took about an hour to do both barrels. With the next step to be blueing, I had to degrease the barrels first. I used Gunk Green to wash the barrels and then poured some acetone on them before blueing. The blueing completely failed to take and I wasted a week in a humid atmosphere with no improvement at all. It looked like this. The streaky rust showed that the solution was not inducing rust on the barrels. This was because I did not degrease thoroughly enough, so I went back a stage. The second time I degreased I wore latex gloves throughout, applied acetone liberally and SCRUBBED the metal with kitchen roll. I would then use fresh paper and scrub again with fresh acetone. I did this until absolutely no oil was coming off the metal. I should not have been lazy the first time because this step turned out to be so important.

PART 8 PREPARING THE BARRELS The barrels looked like this. Before improving the barrels I needed to get them back to bare metal. Blueing (as opposed to parkerisation) seems to just be shiny rust, hence can be removed by rust remover. I used the upturned lid of a plastic tub as a vessel and then filled it with water and Hammerite Rust Remover. I could not believe how easy this step was. I dunked the barrels in. Left them 10 minutes. Gave them a scrub with wire wool. Put them back in for another 10 minutes. Scrubbed again. Job done. Next I needed to polish them up. I started with 160 grit paper (I think) and removed the smallest amount of metal necessary to get rid of any rust or scratches.