Removing rust

[Niner]

I acquired a rifle recently that had been badly stored in a place not climate controlled. Humidity and lack of maintenance produced rust. Looking at solutions for rust removal one finds a couple of favorite solutions. One requires 0000 steel wool and various oil products. The idea of the 0000 is that it is gentle on the remaining finish under the rust. The other notion is that, although relatively gentle on the finish, steel wool of even the fine sort actually removes some finish and that there is a better choice. The better choice is various oil products and small brass bristle brushes. The brass, being less hard than steel is proclaimed better at leaving original bluing and better at removing rust in pitting at the same time. I ordered some brass brushes and I already have the 0000. I'll do an experiment on the two methods and report my judgement.

[DuncaninFrance]

Removing rust WITHOUT damaging the metal or bluing is best done by the Electrolysis process.
I have made a bathe and a pipe bath for rifle barrels / swords etc and so far have been very happy with the results.

[Niner]

Now that's the professional way. It involves more materials and construction effort than I am willing to take on. With what I'm working with I am having to stick to the non professional way.

[Niner]

So I got the brass brushes today. You can get one from Home Depot for about what I got a collection of brushes off of Amazon which came from China. And since Trump is talking a little more intelligently about China trade last time I looked, maybe we will continue to get stuff from China relatively cheap.

Meanwhile I used the gun oil and 0000 and it worked pretty good. Not perfectly good....but pretty good.

I posted a link on the Milsurp Facebook page that Duncan started showing how to remove rust with Coca Cola. Maybe that is an alternative to electrolysis.

[DuncaninFrance]

Probably the best use of Coke

[Niner]

Try it with Kentucky sour mash whiskey.