If you are easily offended don't look!

[Bedazzled]

Looks good for a first attempt, what chemical is it I've always wanted to try doing it myself so will be following all your progress

[rovercoupe]

Thanks, its the blindhog method. Google it and you will find the info but it's basically a caustic soda and potassium nitrate mix which seems pretty easy to make up but can be quite dangerous if you have not worked with nasty chemicals before!
I have another recipe to try now so will get some chemicals ordered this week and try those next weekend as long as its not chucking it down.

Its a expensive setup but if like me you have quite a few guns that really need doing then it works out quite cheap overall.
Cannot wait to get the heavy oil off and see how its come out.

[Shed tuner]

yeah, not bad at all...

[RichardH]

Looks good, all the magic is in the polishing and prep.

Have at least 3 boiling tanks of degreasing solution, to clean, then deep clean, then final clean

Cleanliness is godliness, 1 tank on its own will become too contaminated for best results with the first gun, you need to degrease and rinse leaving the crap in tank 1, repeat with tank 2 leaving less residual crap in there so when it goes into tank 3 it’s almost totally clean and there is next to no contamination when the piece comes out for its final rinse

Then have at least 2 ideally 3 blacking tanks with a hot rinse tank in between so you can black at the minimum temp for the first pass, then mid temp and finally at your top temp that will give you the professional depth of colour

All the pits or scratches visible after polishing are ten times as obvious after blacking so don’t shortcut the polish and always the more you degrease the better the results. Also the cleaner parts are when they go into the blacking solution the longer it will last.

Cleanliness is godliness....

And wear PPE, hospital is horrible.

[Hsing-ee]

I would leave blueing to the professionals. Homebrew blueing jobs always seem time consuming and disappointing, which is not the case with finishing stocks or basic tuning, never mind the safety issues involved.

Unless it is a treasured heirloom, a neglected Original 50 like that could just have a going over with oil & wire wool and an overhaul internally - maybe trim the muzzle if absolutely necessary. Older rifles like that make good plinkers and occasional nostalgia pieces, and a worn and pitted finish (provided the corrosion has been removed and stopped) gives them character, like an old Mauser that went through the Spanish Civil War.

RichardH's blueing is the best I have seen (now I have an example of a certain Manchester-based finisher for comparison) and for this best standard it is really excellent value. The 'glass black' finish is amazing.