doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Browning BSS question

How were the barrels blued on the BSS(Miroku)? I have read that they were hot salts blued, but wonder about that since they were reportedly assembled with lead-tin solder.

OB

They are indeed lead-tin soldered. I suspect they were simply rust blued on a high polish and not allowed to etch during the rusting process. I've not tried this, but some of the advanced rust blueing techniques are used by some here.

I had a friend that had a BSS hot salt blued. It started coming apart within a year.

Thanks, Chuck. My info came from another board where the poster (a retired gunsmith) claimed that the secret was drilling holes(soldered-up, afterwards) in the muzzle spacers to allowing full length and vigorous flushing of the rib cavities after bluing along with using Brownells bleed-out neutralizer in the flush water. He alledges that he used the technique many times in his long career and never had a failure of the joints on a well made double due to solder corrosion. I supposed it is possible, but I have no experience with it.

OB

OB,
You've, no doubt, been around here long enough to have read some of the threads regarding the mechanism that causes the lead/tin solder to deteriorate. I don't fully recall it, but I do recall that it was implied that the mechanism does continue long after any salts are removed from the surface. What a gunsmith "got away with" or didn't hear back on, may sometimes be misleading to him.