Barrel blue vs brown historically

[Jerry V Lape]

I recall this being discussed before but I couldn't find the discussion in the archives.  So my question is what is period correct for an American Longrifle from the 1760 -1780 period - Blued barrel or Browned barrel or both?  Is this an issue which a builder/school might have differed from others?  I am working on Dickert,  would he have used a particular finish only? 

[Majorjoel]

Hi Jerry, I think you would find most American made longrifles were browned or left in the white. There are always a few exceptions but in that era most of the blueing shows up on European rifles.

[Don Getz]

Just a quick note along these same lines.    While looking at that display of Berks county longrifles, I paid particular note
of the barrels.   If I remember correctly, all of them were browned.   As for the bluing of barrels, I think some of the contempoary builders are cold bluing barrels, then rubbing them off fairly hard, to leave a somewhat grey look to them.
They are trying to reproduce a barrel that may have been left in the white when it was built, but over the years has slowly tarnished, or lightly rusted, to leave a somewhat grey look to it.  It is a quick way to fiinish a barrel, but I don't think it really represents what one would normally find on an old gun, occassionally maybe, but not often.   I recall looking
at a beautiful "Moll" rifle in the state museum that was left in the white.   The barrel was still bright but had some pitted,
rusted areas on it, but, it did not have a grey look to it...............Don

[Jerry V Lape]

Don's comment about contemporary builders bluing and then rubbing it grey helps a lot.  I like the idea of finishing in the white but  modern steel   is so bright and takes a long time to  "weather down" a bit especially those made of Chrome Moly.   So I will stick with browning the barrel.  I don't  care for the artificially aged stuff.   

[JTR]

Jerry,
I've only seen/handled one Dickert, a circa 1800ish rifle, and the barrel was browned. Although the barrel has some gunk on it now, in the clean areas, it looks like the browning was thin, a medium brown color and very smooth.
As seems to have been typical of the time, the visible flats are finished smooth, and the three bottom flats still have grinding marks on them.
Also, the bottom three flats don't look like they ever had any brown on them, and were just left in the white.
Admittedly, a sample of only one is insignificant, so hopefully those guys with more access will chime in as well.
John  

[John Archer]

Jerry,

"Many early longrifles were charcoal blued, while the browning of barrels appears to have come into common use during the 1790s and later."
Wallace Gusler in JHAT Vol 2.

John.

[Pete G.]

Most any gun is going to look brown after 150 years regardless of original finish. I used to hunt with an older man that had an A5 Browning built back between the wars. He called it his "Brown Browning".
I remember somewhere seeing reproduction of an anouncement from an early (around 1790 maybe) smith's  shop where he advertised blueing of barrels and browning of the latest fashion, or something to that effect. It seemed to imply that blueing predated a brown finish.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Quite a number of years ago, I had the occasion to restore an original Brown Bess that has provenance to England's war against Napoleon.  I removed the barrel which appeared at first to be super smooth polished brown finished.  But inside the channel, the barrel still showed the twisted grinding marks like very fine threads or twisted rope, of the barrel as it was turned and run against the stone.  It was very bright and had obviously had no finish of any kind originally.  So the metal exposed to handling and elements was polished by wear and browned by handling and weather.
It is my belief that most of the original longrifles I've been privileged to handle were finished bright, and have browned naturally over the years, particularly those from the flint era.
Don Stith commented that Hawken rifles were charcoal blued or left bright, IIRC, but they are sure brown now, and that Hawken pack hardened his furniture, and it too is now brown.
I have had two guns that I at first did not brown, going for the as new "armoury bright" look.  The first was my Bess, and I eventually browned it to reduce light reflection.  It was a waste of time.  Not that reflection was not reduced...I couldn't shoot it any more accurately than before browning!  The second was /is my Chambers' Mark Silver Voluptuous Virginia, and it shall remain bright as long as it does not rust, but I am making no attempt to keep it bright.  It is now several years old and at the breech and muzzle to a lesser degree, attaining a nice patina.

[54ball]

 This is one of those subjects, like a lot of topics concerning the American long rifle, the more research you do the more confusing the topic is.  Even period accounts can not be taken at face value due to the fact the language and terminology has changed.  I have heard of sea service Besses being referred to as Japanned.
 Blacking was a term for what we consider today browning.  Browning was an old English term for rust bluing.  The process for both are basically the same except you boil the barrel after the rust process to get a deep black.  Both terms blacking and browning may have been used for both processes as both are so similar.  Most long rifle builders and researchers agree that rust blue is more than likely post 1800.
  The end result over time for cared for fire arms is the same whether browned "blacked" or rust blued " browned" both attain a dark brown patina. 
  Charcoal bluing which creates a transparent purplish blue is accepted for pre 1800.  A cared for arm with Charcoal blue will eventually turn grayish the finish tends to go away through the decades.
  Bright like muskets of the era tend to turn gray then eventually a light brown.
  All arms reguardless of finish if poorly kept or cared for will turn a dark pitted brown. 
  One thing that I think is missed in these discussions is the fact that the original barrels were wrought iron.  Wrought iron has totally different properties than modern steel.  Wrought iron is softer but does not rust like steel.  A fresh iron barrel may have been a pleasing gray needing no finish at all.
  You can see the grain in wrought iron barrles where they were pounded over a mandrell.  This grain looks like it can be reproduced by draw filing across the flats at a 45 angle with a corse file then finish up with a finer file.  Ive thought about doing that but so far I dont have the guts to do that to a fine barrel. 

[Stophel]

I have an old German gun that has a completely brown barrel.  One could easily assume it was always that way.  But, there is one tiny spot on the bottom, underneath the nosecap, where it's not brown, but bright shiny temper blue.

Don't forget "bright", which I believe was the most common "finish" of all.   

[Acer Saccharum]

...and over time everything turns brown, like a well ripened banana.   

Tom

[flintriflesmith]

This is one of those subjects
...
  Charcoal bluing which creates a transparent purplish blue is accepted for pre 1800.  A cared for arm with Charcoal blue will eventually turn grayish the finish tends to go away through the decades.
  ...  
  One thing that I think is missed in these discussions is the fact that the original barrels were wrought iron.  Wrought iron has totally different properties than modern steel.  Wrought iron is softer but does not rust like steel.  A fresh iron barrel may have been a pleasing gray needing no finish at all.
  You can see the grain in wrought iron barrles where they were pounded over a mandrell.  This grain looks like it can be reproduced by draw filing across the flats at a 45 angle with a corse file then finish up with a finer file.  Ive thought about doing that but so far I dont have the guts to do that to a fine barrel.  

54Ball,
I believe the transparent purplish blue you call charcoal bluing is generally called “temper blue” or simply “heat blue” and it is very different from the much thicker scale blue generated by charcoal bluing. Temper blue is created at about 600 degrees F. and is the same color found on clock springs, sword blades, etc. where a higher heat would have ruined the temper. On the other hand, charcoal blue results from packing the barrel in charcoal (to form a lower oxygen atmosphere, and heating it to about 900-1000 degrees for a period of time sufficient to build up a tough gray-blue scale on the surface.
Temper blue wears away from unprotected areas and either one will eventually revert to the more stable brown oxide, rust, over time. As a good friend of mine, with a lot of experience in metal conservation, says, “All iron, and steel, is turning back into iron ore. How long it will takes for this to happen simply depends on the conditions.”
I have worked a lot of wrought iron in both barrels & locks and there is very little difference in the surface color, or appearance, of good quality wrought iron and modern mild steel.  Look at some of the brightly polished locks on some European guns.
The lower grades of wrought iron do show a “grain” because of the silicon inclusions but that cheaper iron was more often used on wagon tires and ship’s anchors.  When you see grain, especially spiral grain, in a gun barrel it is usually intentional and decorative.  I don’t recall ever seeing a longrifle with a twist welded barrel unless the barrel was of a European gun.
When people talk about wrought iron being more rust resistant than modern steel they are usually referring to specifications related to structural use like bridges and steam boilers. The property they are often misunderstanding, in thinking this would apply to a gun barrel, is that wrought iron rusts about as quickly as mild steel but because of the silicate inclusions the rust doesn’t scale away as fast. Therefore the wrought iron forms a layer of rust that helps protect the underlying iron from further rusting. Years ago this property was duplicated in modern steel by adding some copper alloy and it was used for some buildings with external iron framing.
Gary

[B Shipman]

Basically the earliest documented use of a browned finish was in an advertisement in 1780. Or was it 1781. In any case,  the fact that they offered a brown finish was stated in a very offhand manner as if anyone would know of it.  So it's likely a bit earlier.
Vertually all rifles have a brown finish today except those the are absoutely pristine, so how common it was will probably never be known.
BUT, PC is about 1780 at the moment. Earlier,  bright or charcoal blue in America.

[dannybb55]

Fifteen years ago I was slowly building a Robert Hughes rifle No 25 Bivins LRNC, while performing all of my other duties as a blacksmith at the Poplar Grove Plantation in Scott's Hill, NC. After I Draw filed the Barrel and Oiled the bore, I set her in a dry corner and worked on other projects. Every day I spent a moment wiping her down with fine steel wool to knock the fuzz off. After a few months she had a nice brown finish, very even so I gave her a final scrub with the wool with oil and installed the sights and lugs. My shop was a coal fired, unlit, unheated shop, very 18th century. Maybe the same conditions applied to the old smiths.

[TPH]

 This is one of those subjects, like a lot of topics concerning the American long rifle, the more research you do the more confusing the topic is.  Even period accounts can not be taken at face value due to the fact the language and terminology has changed.  I have heard of sea service Besses being referred to as Japanned.
 
 

Japaning was/is an asphaltum  based finish applied to iron and other metal items as a very effective preservative and it was used on British sea service muskets. Rather than my describing it I refer you to this link for the still available product:

http://www.libertyonthehudson.com/pontypool.html

We find it on all sorts of items like tools (Stanley planes come to mind), harness buckles that are often referred to as painted black and at one time it was even used as an undercoating for automobiles. It looks like a thick paint and has a glossy finish that can be chipped if struck hard. I have used it to coat bright steel buckles to duplicate the finish used on Civil War era Confederate belt buckles.

[smart dog]

In 1631 the British government specified the following gunsmith rates:

"For making clean a square fyled musket white .....1 s 8 d"
"For making clean and new russetting of a musket ...4 d"
"For yearly dressing and keeping clean a musket that needs not new russetting, with the furniture and rest....10d" 

Russetting was probably some sort of painted-on coating of brown and the cheaper price of cleaning a russetted barrel compared to a "white" barrel may imply the coating was used on cheaper grade military guns and may have hidden poorer overall finish of the metal.

dave

[doug]

     Why would you not think that russetting is just an early form of the word rusting?  Browning a barrel is just rusting it.  That is the way that I would interpret it.

cheers Doug

[Stophel]

Perhaps totally irrelevant, perhaps not.  In the Frazier museum there is a very attractive 17th century English carbine with an ash stock and it is painted brown (the metal is bright, though).

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

I have always thought of the old English word "russeting", to mean what we now call "browning".  I'll have to check R.H. Angier on that.  I think that's where I first read it.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

In R. H. Angier's book -"Firearm Bluing and Browning", in chapter 1, he says, in the context of producing a brown rust preventative finish by oxidation, "A report of 1637 in the London Record Office explicitly mentions the "russetting" of barrels under the heading of "Repairs to the Arms of the Trained Bands" (London Militia)".  Later in Chapter 1 he talks about browning be3ing applied to American longrifles by the middle of the 18th century.

Whether or not this can be taken as truth, I don't know, but it is interesting.  Perhaps others more scholarly than I can better illuminate this interesting conundrum.  Personally, if I feel like browning a longrifle barrel, or that of any muzzleloading firearm, I brown it.

[Joe S]

A dictionary definition of russet is “a brown color with a reddish tinge.”  I see a lot of that color under the bonnet of my old truck.

[James Rogers]

Nigel George, in his research seemed to conclude that russetting was "more closely akin to the ancient method of preserving bills and other hafted weapons by coating them with a dark pigment than to the modern system of "browning" gun barrels by a process of artificial oxidation in an acid bath" which he says was "introduced in England at the beginning of the eighteenth century."
It seems there was a bit of time between browning's introduction in England and it's acceptance into popular use

[rich pierce]

I don't want to completely derail the intent of this thread but will ask, is there any chance that the blacl thick flaky stuff we sometimes see on old barrels IS japanning?

[Acer Saccharum]

black flakey.... sounds like lacquer, which miht be japanning. Old pitch might get flakey, but it would be very thick, as opposed to a thin film as in japanning.

from Wiki:

Japanned is most often a heavy black lacquer, almost like enamel paint. The European technique uses varnishes that have a resin base, similar to shellac, applied in heat-dried layers which are then polished, to give a smooth glossy finish. It can also come in reds, greens and blues.

Originating in India, China and Japan as a decorative coating for pottery, it made its way into Europe by the 1600s. In the late 17th century, high European demand and rumors that higher quality pieces were not exported led to production starting in Italy. Its traditional form can be found using gold designs and pictorials, contrasting with the black base color.