God help me! I just ruined my new Uberti 1851 Navy

Case hardening on Italian guns is true color case hardening. They use cyanide salts as a carburizing agent rather than bone charcoal pack and they use a rolling quench rather than an aerated one although they are getting better at it it's still not as good as the pack method aerated quench colors. Either method the colors are fragile and is the reason they are usually protected by a coat of laquer. Vinegar will erase them in short order.
 
Any acid or rust remover will take off bluing or case hardening and leave bare metal behind. Please note Coke or molasses will also remove bluing or rust.

Please note old engine restorers use molasses solution to remove rust from
old engines. The solution will not remove any paint or etch the base metal.
 
Just exactly where did you get that "formula" for cleaning blued black powder guns ?

Vinegar is a rust remover and a splash isn't a precise measurement .

Buy a commercial BP cleaner.

I bet his formula involved some U-Tube expert .

A brown finish looks good as will just shooting it and letting it develop it's own patina "finish".

I don't like using water around my BP guns ...just seems like putting water with steel is encouraging rust to develop somewhere you can't see it .

Gary
 
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I don't like using water around my BP guns ...just seems like putting water with steel is encouraging rust to develop somewhere you can't see it .

Water is the best cleaner for bp fouling there is. Somebody once asked me if I had a high end Sharps would I put it in water. I said yeah I would but since I didn't have a high end Sharps I proved it with my USA made Weatherby MK V Deluxe. :D:D:D

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Buy a commercial BP cleaner. . . .
I don't like using water around my BP guns ....
Aaaaaahh.... and what is that "commercial BP cleaner" ? (hint... water, a squirt of dishsoap, and maybe a dash of cutting oil)

Bottom Line for muzzleloaders:
- Scrub the gun inside and out like you would a dirty dish -- hot soapy water -- to dissolve & wash the fouling salts away.
- Oil & protect it like you would any clean piece of metal
Takes less time than a smokeless cleanup.

Bottom line for three high-priced Sharps, two Rolling blocks, and a handful of `73s... .
- Scrub the bore out with soapy patches/witch's milk* ... our just plain spit patches
- Oil & protect it like you would any clean piece of metal



*
 
I don't know about a revolver, but period rifles are designed right.
A friend routinely cleans his Shiloh Sharps' bore and occasionally the breechblock.
He finally got around to taking off the lock to see what had crept in under the lockplate.
Nothing, it was as clean as new.
 
Me too!

When I first purchased a black powder gun I too was not at all comfortable using water to clean a firearm.
Like all the rest of ya'll I learned that nothing works better than good old H20 and soap.
I do a final rinse with boiling water to get the metal good and hot, evaporation takes care of that last little bit of water that is hiding. A wee bit of oil and I am done.
 
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