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Blued, or in the white?

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  • Blued, or in the white?

    • White is historically right

      Votes: 10 90.9%
    • Keep it blue you fool

      Votes: 0 0.0%
    • Neeerd!

      Votes: 2 18.2%

    • Total voters
      11

    Maverick44

    Youngest old man on TGT.
    Rating - 100%
    1   0   0
    So, I have been debating doing this for awhile now. Historically, the cylinders were left in the white on Colt Walker and Dragoon revolvers. They did this for a number of reasons. Mainly, it made the guns cheaper and got them out the door faster, which made the Army happy. The Italian repros all come blued because most buyers wouldn't understand why the cylinders on these guns are in the white.

    I'm tempted to just crack open a bottle of Evaporust and make the gun historically accurate. What do you guys think?

    BTW, I'm not talking about making the cylinder shiny like chrome like a lot of people seem to have done. It want it to end up more of a dull/semi dull grey.

    Here's an original (I think) Dragoon.

    46033-65AB7066-4401-4098-9523-C50AAEAB4F6E.jpeg


    Lonesome Dove got it right on the Walker!

    600px-LDColtWalker-9.jpg
     

    Eastexasrick

    Isn't it pretty to think so.
    Lifetime Member
    Rating - 100%
    2   0   0
    Jul 2, 2022
    3,500
    96
    Naples TX.
    I picked up an old ASM repro Walker, I stripped the cylinder to white. It looked great. against the blue barrel and color case frame.
    I put a conversion cylinder on it. Shot it for the first time at this years Memorial Shoot and BBQ. The new cylinder and gate have modern blue/black. I cannot decide on that one.
     

    Maverick44

    Youngest old man on TGT.
    Rating - 100%
    1   0   0
    She's done. Oddly enough, the evaporust didn't touch whatever kind of bluing was on the cylinder. It's supposed to be able to completely remove it within 30 minutes. I left it for over an hour, and it was still very deeply blued. So, I guess good job Uberti?

    Distilled white vinegar stripped it in about 30 minutes though, other than the one strip of the cylinder that was touching the bottom of the container. I had to turn it and soak it another 30 min. There was still a faint trace of the old bluing there, but I was able to get rid of it by bluffing with some very fine steel wool.

    That's probably more than you want to soak it in vinegar. It ended up forming some light surface rust inside the chambers. It was almost like it just tinted the metal a yellowish color. If I was to do it again, I would hang the cylinder from something so that all of it could be stripped in one pass. I wouldn't soak it for more than 30 minutes. It didn't seem to damage it though. A longer soak most certainly could.

    After all the bluing was gone, I soaked it in some baking soda and hot water to neutralize the vinegar and cleaned the crap out of it. After that, I did another soak in the evaporust to remove that surface rust. 30 min was enough to remove all traces of it. I finished it off with a good cleaning and oiling.

    It came out as a semi dull grey, which is what I wanted. It looks like it has a bit of age and use to it, and just looks right on that gun.

    Mistakes were made, but at the end of the day, it came out looking like I wanted it to look. I'm happy with the end result.

    019f2949ba9297df2d83558eaf7245f8.jpg


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