Paul,
While I agree with pretty much 95% of your insightful post (nice to see you posting again btw!), dont you think with all the fairly modern guns out there sporting hot blacked barrels (Im talking probably in upwards of a million, ie. Citori, SKBs, Beretta, Rizzini, Zoli, Ruger, Remington, Winchester, Chapuis, Verney-C, etc) that there would be more incidents that just a few popped here and there or reports of catastrophic rusting of all these millions of sets of barrels out there that have been hot blacked?
I think manufacturers pretty much have it down to a science. Dont you? Terrible looking hot blue jobs are caused by all sorts of different factors...the reasons are myriad! Bad salts. Cheap salts. Poor prep. Too high of a temp. Too low of a temp. Metal composition. Hobbyist.
Theres been test done that show how durable hot blacking is compared to other finishes like rust black and nitre. One local rifle maker took coupons of the same steel barrel and finished them in all sorts of finishes...rust, hot, nitre, hi tech coatings, etc. and then tumbled them in media. The hot black came out on top...so thats what goes on his very expensive custom rifles.
I dont know what the manufacturers method is for neutralizing the salts after the bath to prevent further rusting/oxidation from occurring, but whatever theyre doing must work somewhat well or all of us who own a fairly modern gun would be handling a rusty pipe with no ribs.
The Purdey and Powell barrels you mention...that is damn near criminal. My goodness, what a disaster.
