Picked this Inglis Browning Chinese contract High Power recently and it looks like its going to need some work.


Well to update and to answer some questions about the restoration of this piece about what I did heres it goes.

As you can see the gun showed signs of rust and scarring. These issues needed to be taken care of but I also didnt want to ruin the collectability of the item by bead blasting the gun.

I decided to use a simple cold blu solution from Brownells called Ox pho blu. Its probably the best cold blue on the market. I first used steel wool the prep the finish.

I basically scrubbed the gun down with the steel wool and tried to remove as much rust as I could.

Once that was complete I completely degreased the gun with a non oil or petroleum based degreaser.

Then I heated the metal parts I wanted to apply the bluing to. An oven works fine, or a heat gun, I actually used a pot full of hot water.

Once the gun was hot to the touch I submerged it it completely into my bluing solution and let it sit. I let it sit a bit longer than usual until it started to turn black. Once that was complete I rinsed off the excess solution, dried it then oiled it with motor oil.

Do not use oil with anti sieze agents like WD40 as these ingredients are used for freeing up rusted parts. This will dissolve your new finish after time. I made this mistake numeorus times.

So now the problem was the serial number. It was covered in the bluing solution and as we know the Inglis guns were parked first then the serial numbers were done afterwards. So the serial numbers were in the white as its said.

I ordered in some very fine jewelers needle files that had small enough tips to fit into the fine indentations of the stampings/serial numbers. I slowly after time bared the metal in the serial numbers to give it that freshly stamped look and it came out exactly like I wanted.

The serial numbers now look like the day they left Inglis, well at least in my opinion.

Then I had to work on the rear tangent sight as it had been parked in a previous refinishing job by the previous owner as you can see.

So I took a dremel and some polishing disks dipped in metal polish. The metal polish had solvents in it so it removed the old park as well as put a nice sheen to the unit once I was done.

The sticker is a reproduction and I must say a very good one aquired from a local collector.