best thing for removing surface rust on barrel

My son has rust on his pellet gun and I'm constantly wiping rust off his shotgun..What is the best thing to use for this..In one of the a kits I have, there's something called nitro..What is this for? We clean our gun's every time there shot ,but not every time we go in the woods. I do try to wipe them with oil every couple weeks though. he just uses his pellet gun daily and I noticed tonight some pretty bad surface rust (I like my stuff nice) so its bad to me.. And can I use steel wool without messing up the finish...Thanks
David

WD40 has always worked for me....DON'T use steel wool on it!!!

000 steel wool will remove light rust, and if it is real light so will a pencil eraser. Keep a couple of silicon guncloths on hand, and give your son one. Show him how to wipe his gun down after each hunt. It will teach him that gun care is the responsibility of the owner.

Nicodemus said:

000 steel wool will remove light rust, and if it is real light so will a pencil eraser. Keep a couple of silicon guncloths on hand, and give your son one. Show him how to wipe his gun down after each hunt. It will teach him that gun care is the responsibility of the owner.

Click to expand...

X2 ..... go in small circles with the 000 steel wool and it should come rite off !!

Find yourself a stainless steel pad made by Chore Boy and a little gun oil will remove the surface rust without damage to the bluing. Just make sure it's a stainless steel pad, good luck!

I'd suggest 0000 steel wool over the 3.. that any pretty much any light weight oil will work just fine for light rust.


then use Eezox to keep it from rusting

0000 steel wool saturated with a quality oil. NOT WD-40! I would recommend Break-Free CLP. Rub gently till you find out what pressure is required to work off the amount of rust.

Never dull works wonders

OOOO steel wool and any good light oil. My daddy used 3 n 1, I use 3 n 1, 3 n 1 seems to do the job.

I've also used the 3M pot scrubbers, which are the same thing as the 3M sanding pads sold in home supply stores.

I'd try to identify the environmental issues that are causing you so many problems with rust. You should be able to wipe either gun off and store it in the house without it accumulating rust.

Get a little nervous about using any type of steel wool on modern bluing. It is not as tough as the stuff from a few years ago.

The trick is to use something harder then the rust and softer then the bluing. These days the only thing I found to consistently work is a wood stick. Popsicle sticks are the best. You can sand a dip into it to fit around a barrel if needed. This will scrape off the rust with no problem and leave any bluing untouched. You can do it any time. If in the woods and notice a spot, there is usually is usually a twig near by - go at it.

I don't use gun oil on metal any longer to keep rust away. Before too many eyes roll to the ceiling please hear me out. One component common in them is penetrating oil. That stuff sneaks into all kinds of places, often where I don't want it. It can evaporate in amazingly short time. The thicker components of the oil stay behind. What stays behind is often splotchy. This can cause tiny gaps in protection. Modern oils might have improved this some....still, I stick to what I learned a long time and works. My method is to wipe down the outside metal and bore with RIG or some other grease. You can wipe it on so thin it will seem to disappear. The down side -fingerprints are easier to notice. Fingerprints in the grease I figure is then rust. Just wipe them out with a soft cloth. This stuff won't move, evaporate, pull together into globs etc. Protects for long periods of time. 3-in1 and other similar general machine oil works too, but not as long. They are missing the penetrating oil components.

One thing I would be interested to find out more about is synthetic motor oils. Since it likes metal, would it spread itself into cracks/crevices by itself and even out areas that are thin? Since it doesn't evaporate or oxidize, it might work pretty well. Still will have to stay away from wood stocks though - same problem as silicone.

Because I am a stock maker, all my stocks are wood. Silicone and wood should be kept as far apart as possible of course, so silicone wipe down cloths are not going to be found here! To be honest, I don't even know how well it works.

Hope this helps,
Chris

As long as you keep #0000 steel wool 'staturated' with WD40 it won't effect the bluing.....you can rub till the cows come home.

Use steel wool dry and it will take the bluing off.

jglenn said:

I'd suggest 0000 steel wool over the 3.. that any pretty much any light weight oil will work just fine for light rust.


then use Eezox to keep it from rusting

Click to expand...

Yep. Use OOOO Steel wool. It also makes great tinder for starting a fire.

Once you get it off have that boy wipe it down every evening with a rag with break free or other quality CLP or gun oil. The sweat and salts from hands are probably the culprit. One of my pet peeves is when someone asks to look at one of my toys and immediately grabs it by the metal. Big breech of proper firearm handling etiquette. My pop would snatch one away from you as fast as if you had pointed it at someone if you didn't handle it by the wood, unless hunting with it, Then they always got cleaned immediately..
BHJ

I've used a PENNY for years then gun oil works real good and cheap

how does a lubricant like WD-40 protect bluing from steel wool?

I seem to recall removing a lot of it that way. The oil made the effort easier and helped wash away the accumualtion of junk.

Chris

I'll definately try a couple of the suggestions and see what works best and let you all know..I'm gonna stay on him with his pellet gun and make sure he starts wiping it each time he takes it out. I know I have some guns 10 or 15 years old that look like they were purchased yesterday and I plan on keeping them that way.. I see other people guns that look a 100 years old that are fairly new and I'm not letting that happen to my stuff. I want to instill in him that taking care of the gun is almost as important as handling them correctly. I'll keep you updated..Thanks

Cknerr said:

how does a lubricant like WD-40 protect bluing from steel wool?

Click to expand...

This secret was told to me by a very respected Gunsmith.

It will only work with #0000 steel wool saturated with a lubricate of some sort such as WD 40.

It will only remove 'fine surface rust' once metal is pitted by rust nothing with remove a pit short of removing metal.

Flitz will protect from rust. It will also remove rust chemically. Wont effect factory blue but will remove cold blue.