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With the cost of guns today, none of us can afford to have a gun ruined by rust. We buy oils, greases, preservatives, and rust blockers that promise to keep our guns safe from everything up to and including the great flood. For the most part those products do a pretty good job as long as the gun is kept out of harms way. Unfortunately guns are made to be used in environments that aren’t always gun friendly. That’s normally were trouble strikes. It may be rough handling, rain, snow, a dunking in water or all of the above but, sooner or later, Mother Nature will defeat our best efforts.
Recently, I found an old Remington Nylon 66 that had been found in a flooded basement. The entire gun was covered with dried crud, the barrel has some surface rust and the receiver cover was a total disaster. The owner had given it up for dead and I found it on an auction site being sold for parts. After a quick email exchange with the owner and being assured that the bore was in good shape I placed a $100 bid and soon the gun was on its way. The guys at my local FFL dealers knew immediately whom the gun was for when it arrived. It seems I have a reputation for buying derelicts. They had a good laugh at my expense as we filled out the paperwork. In a testament to the Remington engineers that designed it, I have to say that even rusty and covered with crud the gun functioned flawlessly. Before trying to disassemble the gun I soaked the screws overnight with Brownells Rust Preventative No. 2 (#083-019-016AD). RP2 is one of those old-line products that still performs better than many other penetrants and it finds a lot of uses in my shop.
The next day disassembly went flawlessly and I gave the metal parts a through scrub down with RP2 and 0000 steel wool. The surface rust melted off the barrel and the receiver cover but the deep pitting on the cover prompted me to use Rust and blue remover (#082-054-032AD) and a wire brush to be sure I removed it from the bottom of the pits. Normally I would use an abrasive or draw file to work the metal down until the pits were removed but these were deep enough that I would have little more than steel foil when I was done. The simple solution would have been to simply replace the part but I was unable to locate one from any of the parts suppliers. Now I had to figure out a way to fill the pits and get an even surface finish. There are a myriad of Spray or Spray and Bake finishes available and in this case I chose Brownells Aluma-Hyde II (#083-002-012AD) in Matt Black. This is a one-step epoxy based finish that cures harder than Woodpecker lips, is easy to apply, and is available in a wide range of colors. Three coats filled the pitting and left a nice surface finish. The damaged bluing on the barrel was degreased and touched up with Oxpho Blue Crème (#082-124-004AD) and then oiled. All that was left was to clean the crud off the stock and reassemble.
I have no idea what the crud on the stock was but it shed soap and water like a duck. Repeated scrubbing didn’t make a dent and I wasn’t about to take abrasive paper to a nylon stock. Then I remembered using Brownells Triple F compound (# 083-028-302AD) on some Remington and Browning factory stocks and turning their bright shiny surfaces into a classic low gloss luster. An abrasive that would literally cut the crud and not harm the stock was exactly what this project needed. A soft cloth and about a pint of elbow grease removed the offending gunk and the same Triple F on an M-16 brush cleaned out the checkering.
I’ll let the pictures show you the before and after. On my next trip to the range I think I’ll stop by my local FFL dealers and show them the gun they laughed at. After all, he who laughs last…
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