I've always been skeptical of cold blue, but having heard a lot of good things about Brownell's Oxpho Blue, I thought I'd give it a try on the 1300. The barrel on this thing was pretty heavily rusted, so it took a bit of elbow grease to get it cleaned up and ready for blue. I chucked it up in the lathe and filed it down as much as I could without removing the stamped lettering, and once the larger pits were cleaned up I switched to some emery cloth to blend all the file marks. Most of them cleaned up pretty well and all the lettering is still all present. Then I polished it all with some ScotchBright to give it a satin finish. Next came a bath in some phosphoric acid to get the the rust out of any remaining pits, followed by a hot water rinse. The Oxpho Blue was applied with a cotton patch, kept wet for a minute or two and wiped dry. Then it was burnished with some fine steel wool. I repeated the application and burnishing two more times and was pleasantly surprised with the result. Compare the pic below with the one I took earlier in the thread to see the difference. I showed it to my son and he thought it was a new barrel. I still need to do the magazine tube, but that, being attached to the receiver will be a bigger job. The new walnut forend and buttstock stock showed up, so I stuck them on as well.

I'm not sure what to do about the receiver. It has a few pretty good nicks in it and the aluminum really makes them stand out. I can'r re-anodize it because the mag tube is permanently attached. Maybe I'll try hammering the nicks down and see if they close up any.


Tom