Hand polishing a barrel for bluing

[gallen85]

I am in the process of hand polishing a barrel for bluing. I began by sanding lengthwise with 100 grit. I will then go to a shoeshine method with finer grit and continue this process until I have a high polish. I ran into a problem though. While sanding with the 100 grit some spots showed up that appear to be some shallow pitting. Can I go to a coarser grit to remove the pitting quicker and then progress to finer grits? Is there a better method to remove this pitting? Any help is appreciated.

[Bill DeShivs]

100 grit is mighty coarse for polishing a gun barrel!
Pits can be draw filed out, then sanded-if they are not too deep.

[zippy13]

Greetings gallen85, and welcome aboard.

Listen to Bill, he knows about what he's talking about.

[gallen85]

Well I guess polishing would not be the proper term for the 100 grit. I was mostly using it to get the old bluing off and remove any small imperfections. Could the sandpaper do this? I was thinking the file may allow me to move too fast and I could go slower with the sandpaper. Is this not the case? Youre help is greatly appreciated.

[bignasty]

i always start with 100 grits and polish to 320. iv heard any higher of a polish doesnt take the blue as well. also heating the barrel up alittle helps.

[Bill DeShivs]

Sanding pits dishes them out. They should be filed or stoned out, then sanded.

[gallen85]

Well to avoid that I am using a block as a backing for the sandpaper and I am not spot sanding the pits. I am sanding the whole barrel the same amount.

[Bill DeShivs]

Block sanding is good, but the paper itself is cushioned. Carefully filing the pits out, and then removing the file marks by block sanding is the way to go.

[tango1niner]

Are you cold bluing out of a bottle, tube, etc. or hot salt bluing? I have hot salt blued mirror finished guns and had no problem. The salts do not coat but penetrate the steel .0003-.0004 and do not change sizes. The salts are a nickel salt from Heatbath corp.
As far as the pits are concerned, if they are too deep to be easily removed you could have everything bead blasted for a matte finish. Early in my bluing education I found if I did not remove or blast pits prior to bluing when the items came out of the tank the pits would actually turn a nice bright orange (rust) color after awhile. It was terrible, my almost black gun with orange pit pox.

ps. The blasting media I used at the time was: Potters quality Ballatoni impact beads

[gallen85]

I will be using bluing salts. The pits themselves are not that deep, or do not appear deep. They are just small dots at the end of the barrel.