Do you brown your lockplates?

[Prospector8083]

 Got another good question for you folks. How do you finish the surface of your locks, any special procedure or just brown or bare metal polishing?

[rich pierce]

What locks? What period? What style gun?

Most locks pre-1780, at least, were finished bright. They are brown now from 200 plus years of rusting during use. Later, locks on American guns were sometimes color case hardened and left that way (later Hawken rifles).

Your choices should depend on whether you are finishing your gun “as new” or well used.

[Scota4570]

I normally leave a burgundy Scotchbrite blended white finish if a appropriate.

[Bob McBride]

If you are browning the rest of the metal...

Be sure to oil the inside of the lock so it can be polished back up after browning.

If I do one bright it's usually browned with LMF browning and knocked back so it's bright but has some light pitting and then greyed a bit with Kibler's Brass Black or similar applied and knocked back to represent 20 years of solid but well maintained use. If you want it to represent as new, polish the lock up bright and do the rest of the metal to 220/320 or so. You can really do as you please.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

As Rich says, it depends on the gun.  I use four finishes depending on the firearm.  Case colours, bright, rust browned or rust blued.  Here's a pic of three of those four.

[Pete G.]

I use phosphoric acid for an antique gray finish that is somewhat rust resistant.

[Daryl]

Cased

[flehto]

Seeing all my builds are sold, I brown both  the  bbls and lockplates.....seeing browning requires the least maintenance. Still have my last build which has been handled by both me and numerous  other people 100s of times and have never applied any oil or rust preventative to both parts. Evidently browning doesn't rust because it already is neutralized rust.

When I was a tool maker  it  was evident that some of the tool makers had acidic hands.....on their die builds even the high chrome tool steels rusted  and I imagine that some gun owners are plagued w/ this also.

Have one LR that  has a rubbed out cold blued finish  and  it needs protection fairly often.......Fred

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

that's a good observation Fred.  A polished lock will rust less easily than a 'as cast' lock, but a browned on is almost impervious to rust.

[Darkhorse]

I agree that browning gives the best protection to your metal parts. My deer rifle was browned over 20 years ago and I didn't do that great of a job, I was too impatient. So now the browning is thin and a lot of spots are worn down to bare metal. I wax my metal parts and even though this rifle has endured a lot of rain and moisture, and a lot of handling, I have never seen any sign of rust beginning. I now try for a deep, dark color which seems to give me even better protection from rain and handling.
My rifles are all hunting guns and maybe browning is not PC but I will continue using it because of the protection it gives.