So as I know some of you guys are familiar with Marlin some muzzle loaders although they don't seem to have been produced very long. The MLS50 and MLS54 are the two I'm aware of. One in a .50 caliber and one in a .54 caliber. I'm not sure if they made anymore or not. Now my question is when it comes to those two listed above are the barrels nickle plated or stainless steel? How can you tell the difference? I thought they were stainless from the pictures of them I've seen but when at Wal-Mart today I saw some newer muzzle loaders that said they were nickle plated and they looked like the Marlins seem to.

Is nickle plating good or bad? Does it rust or is it like stainless where it doesn't? Which one is better to have? How about compared to blued? Which one out of those two are the best to have?