Anyone have experiance restoring the finish of old firearms. I have a 28 year old Remington Wingmaster Model 870 passed down to me from my father that has most of the blueing wore off and now rust very easily.
Will Blue Off and the other products produced by Birchwood Casey do a sufficient job, or is this best left to a professional? Thanks for any help!
like any other job that takes skills leave it to someone who knows how.
It will. You can put it in a vat of tidy bowl as well, and it will strip it.
Chemical stripper is the way to go with the wood and sand as little as possible. That gun will undoubtedly have a polyurethane finish.
Are you familiar with Brownell's? It is the biggest gunsmith supplier and has a catalog and a website.
A Wingmaster of that era is a good gun, and better than what Remington sells today as an 870.
If you've never done it, and are willing to spend a few bucks because of the sentimental value, you should probably send it off. I'd recommend that you speak with gunsmith Michael Orlen in Amherst, MA, (413)-256-1630. Even if he does not want to do it (he deals with a lot of high end guns), he can tell you who the right person is for a Remington pump.
My advice would be to keep it oiled and dont touch it. It looses alot of value when you reblue or refinish. If you still want to do it for whatever reason. The Birchwood Casey blueing kit works well. I have done several and learned the value loss the hard way. All you have to do if you still want to proceed is use the remover as directed, then polish with ultra fine emory cloth and steel wool, wipe with alcohol and apply the new bluing.
Thanks,I may just get a new barrel then (that is where most of the rust problem is), and keep the action well lubed. It is not a show piece by any means, I duck hunt and small game hunt with it all season long for the past 10 years, and can't handle any down time with teal season already upon us.
I took my older Remington 700 to my local Gander Mountain store. They reblued it for around $100. They had it for about 3 weeks, but it came back looking brand new
For what it's worth, I did a couple of T-53 Mosin-Nagant rifles with the Birchwood Casey stuff. It did ok and I had no idea what I was doing. Just follow the instructions and you should do better. These M/N rifles were in BAD shape and I mean BAD. Here they are right out of the box after being in a storage unit for 20 years in the Arizona desert.
And after someone who had no idea at all what he was doing worked on them.
If I do them again, which I'm thinking I might over the winter, I'll know more about what I'm doing and should do better.
I think in your case, I'd have your 870 professionally done. Cold blue does ok for a touch up, or for something like these where you don't really give a hoot how they look. Your Wingmaster is a nice gun. You want it to look nice.
Remington still makes the 870 Wingmaster. It's an upgrade from what people think of today as a "870" which is the more basic 870 express. The Wingmaster is still a very nice gun. It's not seen often because the express is a lot less expensive, and shoots just as well, but the Wingmaster is still the top of the pile.
http://www.remington.com/produ...r.asp
I've restored both of my rifles when I was 16. Stock on one and stock and barrel on the other. The blue-ing process is fairly simple and I was very pleased with the results. It's all in how much prep work you do.
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