Barrel Rust Repair
 

I just acquired a Stephan Grant 28 gauge that has a few problems that need to be solved. One of the major problems confronting me is an area of rust on the left barrel that is too deep to totally remove without compromising the integrity of the barrels. My question is can this area be TIG welded and then worked down and then blacked? Has anyone done this or had it done? Are there any other solutions? Here is a picture of the area in questions:

https://i.imgur.com/E768ZtE.jpg

Have you scrubbed it with a Frontier pad to remove the scale?
Have you actually measured the depth of those pits?
They don’t look to be more than about three thousandths.





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Dean, I took the barrels to Jim Eyster at Heritage Gunsmiths and he examined them. Said he could work down most of the pitting but not all of it without getting too thin in that area. Jim's specialty is barrel work and I trust what he says.

I would not deem welding as a viable option for those barrels. I would think that micro laser welding would be the only way to go, and everything would have to be blasted clean to get rid of active rust in the pitting. It even may be considered to take the surface down some and then build it back up with weld. Either way, it would have to be a bit of a process of chasing your tail between welding and dressing down until everything is eliminated.
THEN, the repairs will likely show under the bluing. Rust blue does hide welds pretty well, but never completely. In the proper lighting it will most likely still be visible.

Careful measuring of the area snd the pits will give you an idea of what can be removed and what may not be.

I can promise you that it looks like an awful lot of work and the possible juice may not be worth the squeeze.

Thank you Brian, that is exactly what I needed to know. Looks like my only other options are to live with whatever can be worked down or to have a small beavertail made that would cover the area after working it down. Neither are great options in my eyes.

One more question for all of you. Does anyone know anyone in the states that does a really good job of Sleeving? Kirk Merrington was my first thought and I called him and he is not taking on any new work. He also said it is impossible to find 28GA tubes.

Aaron little is really the only other option in the States.

Briley doesn't do sleeving?





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To my knowledge, not anymore. Not for maybe 5 years at least. Unless they got back into it.

They had one guy there who did it. Near the end the quality of work really started to drop and he became unreliable in more ways than one and they let him go.

Ive always wondered where the tubesets come from. Available or not thats not a brownells type order.