This is how bad the finish is on Remington 870s

Claven2 said:
Actually, the surface created by sandblasting and then either bluing or parkerizing it, is a micro-structure designed to absorb and retain... oil!

Sorry OP, but I would suggest your issue was that the surfaces were not adequately oiled. From what I see, buffing that with an old T-shirt and WD40 will probably take it all off with minimal impact to what looks like an already-worn finish. No biggie. If you ever tire of that finish, you can cheaply blast and re-blue again, or look at something like Cerakote.
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I concur. Looks like it was left outside mostly dry on a cool, clear night (condensation conditions). You can see where oil has migrated out from around the side saddle bolts as well as the action bars and bolt mostly had a light coat of oil. I get my bush guns wet many times a year and never have rust issues. The 590A1 has been drenched many times and spent days outside. No rust cause the parkerizing is oiled.
 
Claven2 said:
Actually, the surface created by sandblasting and then either bluing or parkerizing it, is a micro-structure designed to absorb and retain... oil!

Sorry OP, but I would suggest your issue was that the surfaces were not adequately oiled. From what I see, buffing that with an old T-shirt and WD40 will probably take it all off with minimal impact to what looks like an already-worn finish. No biggie. If you ever tire of that finish, you can cheaply blast and re-blue again, or look at something like Cerakote.
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This is pretty much a shotgun that has been very minimally shot, practically new. There is NO way that finish is "already-worn".

The point of my post it to show how bad the factory finish is, corroding overnight is not acceptable to me, nor having to oil my gun every other hour to prevent this. There were 2 x 590 mossies out there that did not do this, and they did not "oil" their guns.

If I have to oil the gun to prevent corrosion like this in a span of 6 hours, then pretty sure that qualifies the finish as "crappy".
 
I am paranoid about my wilderness wandering shotgun and possible corrosion. So I did some on-line research. Turns out the French during thier dust up in Vietnam had similar concerns.
They took thier parkerized submachine guns (this singular coating not sufficient in the jungle) then applied a kind of tar like coating as a second barrier to moisture.
Apparently this was a good idea.

So I bought a nearly new Ithaca Waterfowl M37 of recent manufacture. Has a special coating from the factory.
Then I had it completely arma-coated in flat black.

Yep was costly. But I don't mind.
 
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I've seen Remington 870's look like that right out of the box from Gravel Agency (right from Remington) back when I used to work at a gun shop.

Opened the boxes, checked which ones were rusted and right back for warranty (Gravel was ALWAYS awesome BTW, they ate that sh** sammich the same as the rest all did)

The 'finish' was a sandblasted/mediablasted finish with a cheap/thin bluing that wasn't neutralized properly. They rusted if there was even a hint of moisture in the air. This all happened when they moved to the new factory in Ilion, NY I believe???

What happened to Remington was criminal, they (Meaning Cerberus Management) laid off all the guys at the old plant, picked up shop and moved to NY and hired guys with no experience and wondered why everything went right into the trash. Same problem with Marlin. All those lever actions were high quality hand fitted guns, once they got to NY I couldn't believe how many wouldn't even cycle the lever.

I can only hope the new purchasers for these companies can remake them into something good. There will be a lot of damage to undo on their brands.
 
chanrobi said:
This is pretty much a shotgun that has been very minimally shot, practically new. There is NO way that finish is "already-worn".

The point of my post it to show how bad the factory finish is, corroding overnight is not acceptable to me, nor having to oil my gun every other hour to prevent this. There were 2 x 590 mossies out there that did not do this, and they did not "oil" their guns.

If I have to oil the gun to prevent corrosion like this in a span of 6 hours, then pretty sure that qualifies the finish as "crappy".
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That is your perspective. When I've used military rifles in the field (C7, C8 variants for testing and eval purposes), the exteriors have to be well oiled on a regular basis or they rust like your photos. For hard use guns, it's an expectation that you oil them a lot and the surface is designed to take and hold that oil to prevent rust. For a short trip like a duck hunt, a shiny wingmaster finish holds up well. For sustained use over a period of days, military and other hard use guns are universally matte finished to retain oil. It's proven and it works. I think you likely just need to accept that what you want to do with that gun will require you to pack around a little oil to maintain the firearm. Or get something nickel plated, or stainless or covered in a coating like cerakote or similar. There are other options that are great for the average shooter that are less practical for military and law enforcement uses.

I agree the express finish is likely about cost, but it works fine if you treat it like you would treat parkerizing. Personally I oil it regularly and have not had an issue on any 870 or the steel parts on a 590.
 
F22_RaptoR said:
I've seen Remington 870's look like that right out of the box from Gravel Agency (right from Remington) back when I used to work at a gun shop.

Opened the boxes, checked which ones were rusted and right back for warranty (Gravel was ALWAYS awesome BTW, they ate that sh** sammich the same as the rest all did)

The 'finish' was a sandblasted/media blasted finish with a cheap/thin bluing that wasn't neutralized properly. They rusted if there was even a hint of moisture in the air. This all happened when they moved to the new factory in Ilion, NY I believe???

What happened to Remington was criminal, they (Meaning Cerberus Management) laid off all the guys at the old plant, picked up shop and moved to NY and hired guys with no experience and wondered why everything went right into the trash. Same problem with Marlin. All those lever actions were high quality hand fitted guns, once they got to NY I couldn't believe how many wouldn't even cycle the lever.

I can only hope the new purchasers for these companies can remake them into something good. There will be a lot of damage to undo on their brands.
Click to expand...

I keep hearing about "thin blueing" on internet sites like this one. As someone who has done commercial blueing, I can't say I understand these remarks. There is no such thing as hot caustic "thin" blueing, though I would argue it might apply to cold bluing processes in the colloquial sense. Commercially, a gun is either hot caustic blued or it's not. The process at Illion (like everywhere else) is done to a repeatable ISO 9001 process and "thin" doesn't enter into it.

First the gun is de-greased to clean the metal. There are various ways to do this, but usually a chemical degreasing bath is the last step when this is done in a factory. Remington chemically degreases, as do most manufacturers working at high volumes. The parts are dipped in this bath for around 15 minutes and agitated to remove swarf, oil or grease that could get in the way of the bluing process. Baths can be sodium triphosphate, acetone, etc. Then there is a water rinse and the parts go to the next bath containing the bluing solution.
At a factory, hot bluing is a caustic salt mixture of potassium nitrate and sodium hydroxide. The bath is warmed warmed to a temperature typically from 275 to 310F. the pieces remain in the bluing solution from 15 to 30 minutes, depending on the age of the bath chemicals (they lose effectiveness over time and are tested between batches to set the bluing time for the subsequent batch). After the requisite bath time, they are cold water rinsed and air dripped for a few mintues. The parts are then boiled in water to leech any bluing solution from corners, seams, pores, etc. and to heat the metal to accept oil. This can take up to 45 minutes depending on the mass of the metal parts, as larger parts take longer to come up to temperature.

Lastly, the parts are dunked in water-soluble oil so that even if there is water reside left over, it mixes with the oil into an emulsion and won't rust the guns in storage or transit. This is the typically greasy texture you find on a new gun when you remove it from the box. They don't remove it because it's a good preservative.

Really there is no way for this to be "thin". If the gun turns black, the process was successful. "Thin bluing" is merely the rallying cry of the end user that needs to improve their firearm maintenance regime.
 
F22_RaptoR said:
I've seen Remington 870's look like that right out of the box from Gravel Agency (right from Remington) back when I used to work at a gun shop.

Opened the boxes, checked which ones were rusted and right back for warranty (Gravel was ALWAYS awesome BTW, they ate that sh** sammich the same as the rest all did)

The 'finish' was a sandblasted/mediablasted finish with a cheap/thin bluing that wasn't neutralized properly. They rusted if there was even a hint of moisture in the air. This all happened when they moved to the new factory in Ilion, NY I believe???

What happened to Remington was criminal, they (Meaning Cerberus Management) laid off all the guys at the old plant, picked up shop and moved to NY and hired guys with no experience and wondered why everything went right into the trash. Same problem with Marlin. All those lever actions were high quality hand fitted guns, once they got to NY I couldn't believe how many wouldn't even cycle the lever.

I can only hope the new purchasers for these companies can remake them into something good. There will be a lot of damage to undo on their brands.
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YES! I have one of these I was using for a quad gun....drive around on a clear day take in inside for the night and it would be rusty in the morning...I'm considering tremclad flat black...
 
Claven2 said:
That is your perspective. When I've used military rifles in the field (C7, C8 variants for testing and eval purposes), the exteriors have to be well oiled on a regular basis or they rust like your photos. For hard use guns, it's an expectation that you oil them a lot and the surface is designed to take and hold that oil to prevent rust. For a short trip like a duck hunt, a shiny wingmaster finish holds up well. For sustained use over a period of days, military and other hard use guns are universally matte finished to retain oil. It's proven and it works. I think you likely just need to accept that what you want to do with that gun will require you to pack around a little oil to maintain the firearm. Or get something nickel plated, or stainless or covered in a coating like cerakote or similar. There are other options that are great for the average shooter that are less practical for military and law enforcement uses.

I agree the express finish is likely about cost, but it works fine if you treat it like you would treat parkerizing. Personally I oil it regularly and have not had an issue on any 870 or the steel parts on a 590.
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That aluminium C7 or C8 rusts pretty bad eh?

As side from the barrel and FSB (trigger and safter selector too) nothing on the C7 or C8 rusts.
 
Daver_II said:
That aluminium C7 or C8 rusts pretty bad eh?

As side from the barrel and FSB (trigger and safter selector too) nothing on the C7 or C8 rusts.
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Yes, the parkerized steel parts - sm@rt Ass. The barrel exterior is prone to rust if not oiled. So are the bolt carrier, sights, flash hider, trigger, mag release, etc.
 
Claven2 said:
I keep hearing about "thin blueing" on internet sites like this one. As someone who has done commercial blueing, I can't say I understand these remarks. There is no such thing as hot caustic "thin" blueing, though I would argue it might apply to cold bluing processes in the colloquial sense. Commercially, a gun is either hot caustic blued or it's not. The process at Illion (like everywhere else) is done to a repeatable ISO 9001 process and "thin" doesn't enter into it.

First the gun is de-greased to clean the metal. There are various ways to do this, but usually a chemical degreasing bath is the last step when this is done in a factory. Remington chemically degreases, as do most manufacturers working at high volumes. The parts are dipped in this bath for around 15 minutes and agitated to remove swarf, oil or grease that could get in the way of the bluing process. Baths can be sodium triphosphate, acetone, etc. Then there is a water rinse and the parts go to the next bath containing the bluing solution.
At a factory, hot bluing is a caustic salt mixture of potassium nitrate and sodium hydroxide. The bath is warmed warmed to a temperature typically from 275 to 310F. the pieces remain in the bluing solution from 15 to 30 minutes, depending on the age of the bath chemicals (they lose effectiveness over time and are tested between batches to set the bluing time for the subsequent batch). After the requisite bath time, they are cold water rinsed and air dripped for a few mintues. The parts are then boiled in water to leech any bluing solution from corners, seams, pores, etc. and to heat the metal to accept oil. This can take up to 45 minutes depending on the mass of the metal parts, as larger parts take longer to come up to temperature.

Lastly, the parts are dunked in water-soluble oil so that even if there is water reside left over, it mixes with the oil into an emulsion and won't rust the guns in storage or transit. This is the typically greasy texture you find on a new gun when you remove it from the box. They don't remove it because it's a good preservative.

Really there is no way for this to be "thin". If the gun turns black, the process was successful. "Thin bluing" is merely the rallying cry of the end user that needs to improve their firearm maintenance regime.
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I mean, you literally just said in your post that the bluing takes a certain amount of time to properly complete. "Thin" isn't really the best description but most people will understand it. It chemically hardens and oxidizes the outermost layer of steel to make it "inert" to corrosion, so if that isn't done for long enough (Remington cheaping out as it takes more production time) or if they don't neutralize it properly; there will be issues. It's as simple as that. Every process has to be done correctly to get correct results, and VERY obviously remington is NOT doing things to ISO9001 specifications, which is partly why they went right into the toilet and died.
 
Use Ship2Shore oil and rust and carbon buildup stops. There are many great lubricant's/oils but S2S has been working great for me with many guns that see pretty schitty use. :)
 
Bartok5 said:
S&J Hardware are holding their annual "870 CeraKote Special" again. Definitely worth looking into. I had Simon do a S&W 3000 pump gun (870 clone) in Cobalt a few years ago with fantastic results for the money....

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Beautiful guns I have one as well. The action is buttery smooth and it feeds everything. Mine is ex OPP marked is yours? Also where did you get the mag tube extention? Looks ###y

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MRCLARK said:
Beautiful guns I have one as well. The action is buttery smooth and it feeds everything. Mine is ex OPP marked is yours? Also where did you get the mag tube extention? Looks ###y

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Extensions were made by Choate and I read somewhere recently that they still may be making them. Both of yours are in much nicer condition than mine. Wish I had a wood stock. Mine has a Choate folder and plastic forend.
 
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