Oil bluing help.

Riven

Riven

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I have a Cooey 22 that i want to try oil bluing. My concern is will the spring in the bolt survive the temperature that i have to heat it to?
I dont know what temp it takes to turn the steel blue/purple but im sure its getting close to affecting the temper in the spring.
 
Riven said:
I have a Cooey 22 that i want to try oil bluing. My concern is will the spring in the bolt survive the temperature that i have to heat it to?
I dont know what temp it takes to turn the steel blue/purple but im sure its getting close to affecting the temper in the spring.
Click to expand...

How do you intend to heat it all up at the same time and keep the heat even? If you don't do this properly, can you spell warp?? The same goes for quenching. If you are going to do it, you will need to dip quench from one end and sink it tip first into the oil until the butt is covered. If you lay it into the oil on its side it will warp again from the two different temp extremes.
 
There is also a reason why bolts are not blued other than in some special cases. The bolts found on Cooey rifles rub the inside surface of the receiver. So any sort of bluing is going to quickly get scratched and scuffed away and the bolt will look like hell.
 
bearhunter said:
How do you intend to heat it all up at the same time and keep the heat even? If you don't do this properly, can you spell warp?? The same goes for quenching. If you are going to do it, you will need to dip quench from one end and sink it tip first into the oil until the butt is covered. If you lay it into the oil on its side it will warp again from the two different temp extremes.
Click to expand...


Depending on the temp required i was going to use the oven assuming that i can fit the barrel in. Its going to be tight!!!
I did not think about warping. I just built a tank but it is a trough not a tall cylinder.

I never had any luck with cold blue. Sure i can get it to look nice it just wont take any wear. It rubs off easily.
 
Bluing surfaces that rub together as a bolt in an action are very 'sticky' - a lot of friction. The Cooey bolt bad enough as it is, it will be much worse blued.
 
Do a web search on browning. Dip the parts in boiling water after each session in the sweat box and you have blueing. I don't recall if you dip before or after carding. It is pretty low tech and can produce great results.
 
Ok so some lessons learned tonight.
An hour at 500 in the oven gives medium brown with some minor blue splotches.
Switched to acetylene torch for 20 min. Dark brown with some deep blues.
Finish is not bad but i need more heat!!!!

Looks ok but i still might try for a darker blue once i find a way to get it hotter. And it did not warp one bit at these temps!
 
You couldn't heat oil hot enough to take the temper out of a spring without said oil erupting in flames. No red hot or even close to that for any part. You really should not be thinking of doing any of this kind of stuff with any of the springs still in anyway.
Temperatures mentioned in on-line how-to's are in the area of 300C. That'll take out temper. Paler yellow steel is at roughly 211C. Red, visible in the dark, is around 400C. All parts will be ruined at these temperatures.
 
I don't know who it was that suggested this is a simple or good idea but they were simply wrong. It's a bad idea for all the reasons related to warping and ruining the heat treatment in the parts that have been given so far.
 
O.....M......F......G
Does th OP know a GD thing about metalurgy?!
Buddy you have just F*d your gun beyond use!
FYI if you heat any ferous alloy (iron, steel, stainless) until its colour changes you have just changed its crystaline structure. If you then submerse said hot steel into oil you have just quenched the steel and dependig on the alloy and the degree of heat you applied to it it is either anneled (dead soft) or tempered (glass hard)...gun barrels are pressure vessels and they don't like being made from dead soft OR glass hard steel....nor do they like stress fractures from uneven heating and cooling procedures.
Bubba don't fire that gun. It might only be a 22LR but its your face friend.....who ever sugested to you to do this as your first project is either dumb, doesn't like you very much or both.
 
Let's not get carried away here.
Cooey .22 rifles use very unsophisticated steel alloys, and little heat treatment.
The barrels are soft steel, probably leaded screwmachine steel, for ease of machining. The bolts are soft. To fit a new bolt, the rear of the bolt handle/locking lug is filed. Files really easily. The bottom of the hammer, where the sear engages? Soft. Try filing on it. The sear is case hardened. If you inspect the engagement notches on the bottom of the hammer from an old, well used Cooey, you will notice that the hardened sear has worn a groove in it.
The springs and extractor are heat treated, of course.
 
The bolt handle is also the bolt lug....which is silver soldered into place.

Let's assume for a moment that the barrel in question is NOT leaded low carbon steel and in fact does NOT respond well to being oil quenched, the barrel gets stressed, distorted and or hardened. The sear is also suseptible stresses from inproper heat treatment which could lead to a failure resaulting in unexpected firing of the rifle...you going to take the liability of firing it tiriaq?
 
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