BROWNELLS - ZINC PHOSPHATE PARKERIZING

Easy to use and works great!

Understand the process and the key parts of the instructions - for what you are doing, and it's simple. Results will vary depending on steel properties. Mho on musts: Blast w/ aluminum oxide #100 Degrease thoroughly before & after blasting - I used acetone. Age the solution properly - Iron filings - like 12 bucks delivered from the big A. Distilled water for pre-dip and solution dip. Watch the process & temps carefully - this solution doesn't take long. Pics can be deceiving - I got a beautiful, dark grey with a slight greenish hue, with the frame slightly darker than the slide. There WILL be variations in the color of components. Again, it's the steel. You won't know final colors until it's aged some with your choice of post park oil soak. Tisas 1911 a1 frame, slide & msh. (This frame & slide are some of the toughest steel I've worked with) Everything else EGW, Harrison, Kart.

I've piled up a few project guns over the past few years that I wanted to parkerize, and I finally decided to get around to it, and I'm super happy that I did! The included instructions are easy to follow, but detailed enough to make sure you have the necessary information, and following those directions I was able to use a soup pan and a hot plate to create a finish that is indistinguishable from factory parts! I'm EXTREMELY happy with my purchase, I would HIGHLY recommend this for anyone looking to get into parkerizing (especially considering the cost), and I will definitely get more in the future when mine runs out.

I was hesitant to use a product for the first time on a firearm I spent so much time building but the results came out great. I started with a sample piece And did everything contrary to instruction just to see how much lee way there was. To my surprise the piece came out perfect. For the actual gun a paid a lot more attention to the instruction which were very detailed. The video was also very helpful. The end results was was a very even color. On the small test piece I had done I tried maring the surface and it took a pretty good effert to put a scrach in it.

I bought this small bottle probably 10 years ago from Brownell's after having good results with the AGI zinc park. If you keep the parts clean you get an even job. The color results are all over the place however. I did a "rust patina" Remington 1100 with the AGI kit and it turned out gray with just a hint of green after it sat a bit. I ordered this product to do a Colt 1903/8 and an Essex 1911 receiver. The Colt came out greener than the 1100, and the Essex piece was a dark gray. I tried The Manganese based stuff and had a bad experience, so I decided to not use it on this round. The Zinc sat all this time and I pulled it out this wknd to do a RemRand slide that I got at a showa coupla years ago, that a GI armorer had started a post-war NM pistol with. It has the early Bomar adjustable and "whale-tail" sights. The slide grooves were already peened. I finally bought an Auto-ordnance frame and built an erstatz NM gun. It shoots, so I thought I'd try the zinc, and hope for the greenies. Both the frame and the RR slide came out a med gray, but it already is greening a hint. The small parts are a little lighter gray, but it looks ok. They were all GI. At the same time I did an old Essex slide and a mix of modern parts by Smith and Alexander, Wilson, EGW and Spring.. That stuff all came out oxide black. That's good 'cause the frame is black. I prepped it all the same and the parts were mixed at the same time in the solution. So it's gotta be the alloys giving the different colors. I also "aged" the solution by doing a bunch of small parts first, no "iron" filings or steel wool or whatever. I had a bad session with the Manganese solution a coupla years ago, Black dip, aging and all. Very uneven results in coverage. But I did the same prep for everything so It must have been something in the steel wool or black dip. Anyway, I use the small parts to age the solution and it seems to work. So beware if you're mixing old school and "modern" alloys if you want all the same "color". The black dip may help this but I haven't used it in a successful way. So the Zinc seems to be more forgiving than the Manganese in uniform coverage. YMMV of course.