ok guys...im seriously thinking about my next purchase.....though itll be a year and a half give or take till i am ready to start doing anything i want to make sure i can handle the job BEFORE i order it and find out i have raw metal that i cant do anything with....so i wanted to know if anyone browned their own metal?? i tried searching....came up with about nothing useful....found a few products that are supposed to brown metal...and one recipe..just dont know how the products or recipe would work or anything...just doing a little research...as soon as i hear from my school loan company i will know for sure weather or not i can place my order or not....just trying to get things in order so when i know i can order i can order and get on the waiting list...so how hard is it? something i can handle? what did you use?? i want to take my time on this gun and do it right and have it look good for what it will be and will be used for..im not after anything reaaaaaaally fancy as in curly maple or the like...or highly polished brass and metal or anything.....i rather keep the gun low profile.....its going to take alot of use...more then any other gun i own im sure...but i still want to finish it myself and have it look good...i just rather ding up a plain piece of maple opposed to a beautiful expensive piece of grade a curly maple on a gun with all the bells and whistles.....any help?? thanx guys.....just want to get things in line and make sure i can handle the job before i commit to it all....

Doing research on browning/bluing? Go to your local library and see if they can get an interlibrary loan (if they don't have it), of Angier's book, FIREARMS BROWNING AND BLUING. It will tell you everything you need to know on this subject!

thanx eldeguello....never thought of that....and seeing how i PAY for it all through college i might as well make it work FOR me...i dont know if i can access it now..but ill give it a shot.....we got sooooo much crap through the library it isnt funny....i have a feeling sooner or later im going to have to use it to write a paper or some danged thing! lol...but till then....i pay for it so i can use it for whatever i want! and theres a bazillion books in this one building.....i dont know what they call it..maybe its that library thing you spoke of? i always thought it was a fine place to take a nap?? but theres like THREE whole floors fulllll of books...i bet i can find the book there....or on the 100s of online things we pay for....man i cant WAIT for the fall semester lol.......

I browned a rifle I build almost 30 yards ago. It was a solution that came in a bottle. You had to steel wool the barrel, wipe it off with denatured alcohol, then smear this stuff on. Wait a while and it starts to rust the barrel brown. I had to do a lot of coats to get the color I wanted. I was looking at the rifle the other day and it needs to be re-done as the barrel is almost back to the White. Too many times cleaning I guess.

Birchwood Casey makes a Browning solution and I think Brownells makes one as well... you could look there also.

That Birchwood-Casey PLUM BROWN makes a very pretty brown color, but it is NOT an authentic rusting solution. It is more of an "instant brown", in that after polishing your steel up nice and shiny, and completely de-greasing the bare metal, you have to heat it up to a sizzling hot temperature then wipe the solution on in one pass before the partscool. The brown appears instantly, no carding or steel-wooling required. You then oil it (after it cools down), and it looks great on the barrels I've used it on. It seems to give a smoother, less porous appearing finish.

Dixie Gun Works (of course!!) sells their own browning solution, and it is a rusting solution. You use it like Cayugad described. There are a number of other brands of true "browne" that work similarly, including th Laurel Mountain Forge stuff that works WITHOUT having to degrease the barrel before applying it. I have used the Laurel Mountain product, and DGW's. Both produce a good, "Olde Tyme"brown finish if used exactly according to the directions.

The Angier book I mentioned previously contains MANY formulas for bluing and browning solutions, some that were the favorites of a number of old-time gunsmiths whose products have not been equalled in the past 100 years or so, except by one or two custom smiths!(Guys like A.O Niedner, Harry Pope, etc.)

When using a rusting solution, the only real difference in using it to produce a brown color or a blue/black color is that for the black color, the barrel/parts have to be boiled in pure, distilled water after each "pass" of the browning solution, after the loose rust is carded off. The boiling process changes the red oxide to black.

Good luck! This subject is a whole field of study by itself!!

thanx guys...maybe i will just use a bottled formula and redo it when it needs redone? the PLUM brown sounds kinda nice...ive actually NEVER seen a REAL browned barrel in person so i dont know what to expect...but heard its basically a controlled rust...i found a few formulas online and they call for small parts of stuff that i probably cant get a hold of...and only small parts of the stuff...so id have a bunch of chemicals laying around when i was done...a bottle sounds like the way to go....hows the PLUM brown last?? 30yrs sure is a longgggggg time lol....even if i had to redo it every couple years that aint all bad....just want to have it finished and looking good...but like my Brass Black...it wears kinda quickly and i am done using it.....looks DANG good when its first done but after using the rilfe it wears off...i dont want my browning to wear or anything...

anyone ever see a barrel coated in bronze it looks like?? my buddy has a 45cal tc and i think its bronze..its almost a gold color? it sat in a wet flooded basement for a while but it still shoots! the barrel has almost a gold coating?? whats that or was that someone just trying to fix it or something??just curious...

Mauser: get a bottle of LMF browning chemical,read the instruction you can't screw it up: this gun is about 3 years old and looks great ,need extra give me a call
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a380/lonewolf5347/P1040008.jpg

I have tried the plum brown from birchwood casey and it works. I used it on a renegade kit i bought from my friend. I did a small portion of the barrel and decided i liked the look of the in the white metal instead, so I stripped it back off. It was hard to get the process to stop but It finally did after sanding, polishing, and oiling it twice. It seems to work better than most cold blues I have seen. I know it sounds gross, but I have also heard someone say that using your own urine will put a good brown finish on your barrel. I guess the acid in it puts a rust brown on it. This is one of the weirdest I have heard of but it wouldnt cost you anything.

i was told they used horse pee back in the day sounds stupid enough to work.

thanx guys.....lone wolf...nice lookin rifle.....i dont think ill be urinating on my barrel lol....though im sure itll have some effect on it...lol.horse urine does have a very strong smell compared to ours...sure that would work too.....but i rather not play with urine lol...just a personal prefrence...