I was checking on things in the closet and I found that my one rifle had several spots of really nasty rust. What is the best way(easiest?) to remove it wihout doing damages to the bluing finish? This was the ONLY one and the rifle was in the soft case..BUT, here in Arizona we use swamp cooler (evap coolers)to cool the place down and as a result, we get very high humidity !
4 ought steel wool with 3in1 oil will take the rust away. If there is rust, the bluing is already breached, but maybe not significantly since rust is a blossom type thing. If the bluing is not too badly damaged and you can live with it, keep a coating of oil on it. These cold blue solutions will NOT match the factory blue, but they do work for a while. More interesting is what does the bore look like?
a piece of cotton cloth soaked in brown apple cider vinegar left covering the place over night should deoxidize the rust and turn it back into clean iron
I use the steel wool and break free gun oil it has teflon in it and in my opinion works better than regular oil. As far as helping protect the spot after the rust is gone.
Truth of the matter is that the kind of oil is immaterial. The rust is soft relative to the blued surfaces, so the oil protects the blue while the wool cuts the rust. LIGHTLY rubbed, uv cuss. I've never used teflon oils for the purpose, but I have used rough paper and denim rags now and then, as well as kitchen scrubbies. I named 3in1 simply because that's handy on the bench.
