I had my antique gun collection in storage for 3 years. Several of my Colt and Remington saa revolvers (circa 1860's) sustained moderate to heavy rusting damage. What is the best way to treat and remove the rust damage?
Hi, I would be glad to help you any way that I can by answering your question to the best of my ability.One of the best ways to remove light to moderate rusting is still to use 0000 steel wool with light oil frequently wiping the rust slurry off. What you don't want to do is continue to rub with the steel wool with rust/oil slurry in it. The rust is abrasive and will begin remove any blued finish. The steel wool by itself is not abrasive. The oil actually helps dissolve the rust. Even mixing light oil with WD-40 or kerosene will work good. There are many trains of thought on this process and many different opinions on the subject. Keeping the surface wiped clean of the rust slurry that starts to happen is one of the most important things to do. Keep plenty of fresh oil or kerosene or WD-40 on the part you are working on, and wiping frequently. When it comes to heavy rusting with pitting the first thing that needs to be done is remove the surface rust using the method I described to see exactly how bad the pitting is. If there is substantial pitting the damage is done and you should probably take it to a gunsmith who does a lot of restoring of firearms, and let him restore the finish as best as he can. A lot of times the rust looks really bad at first but as you remove it slowly with light rubbing with the 0000 steel wool and oil, it gradually disappears and doesn't "look" near as bad as it did at first. There are many ways to restore the finish, but letting a professional restore the finish when badly pitted is probably the best choice. So to summarize this I would recommend using 0000 steel wool with light oil to take off whatever rust you can (gently) and you might be surprised to find out it's not quite as bad as you thought. Remove the grips and let it soak in some rust-buster or WD-40 for a couple of days and it will help dissolve the adhesion of the rust particles. Take your time and keep it wet with fresh oil. The rusty slurry is what is abrasive and will damage a blued surface. When you find out it has some heavy pitting, then you can take it to a smith who specializes in restoration and let him do his magic...