I've noticed for some time (since I bought the gun a few years ago actually) that the bluing at the last inch or so of the barrels on my 16g AyA 4/53 is fading. It appears to be fairly concentric.



Yesterday, I took the gun on a flooded timber duck hunt and it got a little wet with light rain. It went into the case for the atv ride out of the woods, and I wasn't as prompt as I should have been with getting it wiped down (had a cold, wet 7 year old to take care of first-- poor boy had holes in his waders and then tripped walking out.... and still says he had a great hunt! He's the one sitting on the log.).

When I got to the gun, there was a little surface rust but only on the ends of the barrels where the bluing was thin.

I polished it out with some ballistol and fine wool, and it seems fine except that I made the thinning of the bluing worse in that spot, especially on the top.


Here are my questions:
1. What causes the bluing to degrade at the muzzle? Is it just wear from casing, etc?
2. Is there something to do about this other than rebluing the entire barrel? (and being more careful about rust in the meantime)
3 When do you decide it's time to bite the bullet and do a reblue?

Remember that rust blue is a chemical process which can be activated, or de-activated at will. Abrassion is the usual cause of bluing loss at the muzzle. My 20's H&H has about 40% original barrel blue remaining and I have not re-blued it. That is just me, many others would have long ago. If your main concern is the localized blue loss but you do not want to polish and blue the whole barrel set you can blend out the area of loss only.

De-grease the entire barrel set but only apply your rusting solution to area of loss, boil and repeat 6-8 times or until the color is a close match. A few passes over everything will then blend things nicely usually. If not repeate as needed.

What style and brand of case are you using ?

I typically carry that gun in a trunk case from Jeff's. I dont know what kind of case it had for it's first 45 years or so.

I cannot offer anything regarding the bluing wear but I love the photo. Being an old ND/SD duck hunter myself I have dunked a few in my day. Had many more rained and snowed on too. For years my duck - goose gun kit was a 30" Stevens 311 12b F/F and a hairdryer. Good luck.

I love that photo too. I would never imagine hunting ducks in a place like that. Yet the same ducks that find up here and which avoid trees like they are the devil's hideout are in your swamps down there. There can't be a place more different than our prairie potholes up there.

What you can't see is that there is a more open area with some button willows and reeds in front of us. But the wood ducks will get down in the woods even where there's no open water.

Down here we mostly hunt marsh, rice fields and flooded timber. Flooded timber is my favorite.

I would like to try flooded timber someday, but around here, flooded timber is a very bad thing and no time to be out in a boat (or waders). When my timber floods, it's an issue, not an asset. Very different system.

When I lived in Georgia, I wanted to try it, but never had time to work out a good place on my own and didn't know anyone that was into duck hunting then. It was all deer, turkeys, and squirrels.

That looks like home, Jim.

Woodies can come in through the trees, and light, hotter than any other duck I know of. Mallards landing over decoys compared to woodies landing in a beaver pond is like comparing a 'copter landing on a helipad to a fighter jet landing on a carrier flight deck.

A few years ago Bill McGuire, who is a national champion sporting clays shooter, came down for a woodie hunt in some beaver ponds. He shot and shot that morning, and never cut a feather! He said "They do come in quick, don't they?".

If your gun is a regular use hunting gun just touch it up and don't worry about it. Your boys will know well where the wear came from, and appreciate it.

SRH

that's good advice on the gun and a great analogy on the ducks. My introduction to duck hunting was shooting at woodies on the sloughs off the Bogue Chitto River as a boy. Didn't get a chance to hunt 'big ducks' in the rice fields until college.

For me, a morning of woodies screaming in at dawn followed by mallards funneling down into the flooded timber is hard to beat.