Looking to re-blue or touch-up your firearm’s finish at home? Here we check out the Shooter’s Choice Gun Blue Kit.
Sometimes a bit of wear isn’t a problem: It shows you actually use your firearm. Other times, you want to undo the loss of finish—like the sights I just put onto a 1911 slide. I had to file the sight dovetail flat to make it fit, and the edges show white. To pull the sight out, send it to the bluer (along with a bunch of other parts), wait and then reinstall is just too much. (This is my own pistol of course; a customer’s gun would get the full treatment.)
Shooter’s Choice has a solution. Actually, several of them.
The Gun Blue Kit has a cleaner, two-part blueing agent, curing agent and the needed applicators, swabs and even a bench cloth to have handy, so you don’t put the parts down onto a surface that might interfere with the process.
There’s enough of the solutions to completely re-blue three firearms, or to do dozens of touch-ups like the one facing me after I finish typing this. And if you still have solutions left after using all the swabs and steel wool and scouring pads, you can order up a resupply bundle of just the tools you need.
The task is easy. But like all tasks, the real work is in the prep.
Wipe the surface clean of debris, powder residue and the like. Use the included cleaner to clean and degrease the surface. Once clean and dry, apply the gun blue. When you have a smooth and even application, use the curing agent. And once that has done its work, you’re ready to use the included lubricant and wipe the surface clean and smooth with the included microfiber cloth.
The hardest part is getting the surface clean. Do not skimp on cleaning, scrubbing, degreasing or making the surface dry. And then, do not touch it.
Back when I was doing this regularly, using a hair dryer or heat gun to make sure the surface was truly dry wasn’t uncommon. In that, it wasn’t unlike soldering, where an errant fingertip could deposit enough skin oil to spoil a soldering job. No kidding.
So, do you have a few firearms in the rack or gun safe that need a bit of touching up? Shooter’s Choice has just the thing for you.
Oh, and an extra tip: If you really want a “more-than-touch-up” blueing to look good and proper, disassemble those parts as needed.
At the gun shop we could spot touched-up firearms that were being brought in for sale by the lack of blueing in the places that couldn’t be reached short of disassembly. The little nooks and crannies—gaps like between the barrel and magazine tube on a lever-action rifle—that the solution couldn’t quite get into, or got into more so than the rest, and the blueing looked different as a result.
As I was reminding myself when I was setting up to paint the kitchen ceiling recently: “All the hard work is in the prep.” Shooter’s Choice makes the blueing part easy. The prep is up to you.
Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the August 2024 issue of Gun Digest the Magazine.
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