Touch-Up Bluing

[Herbert1517]

I was given a new 700 30-06 by my wife as a gift and the rifle had issue out of the box. The bolt wouldn't close over ammo and the bolt handle had two stripes on either side that I'm guessing were improperly blued? Sent the rifle back to Remington and they "finished reaming the chamber" (Yeah I know, why didn't they catch this when it was built) but they did not fix the bluing on the bolt handle. 2 different CSRs said to re-send the entire rifle. I'm not crazy about shipping it back to them (even on their dime) for the head-ache of drop off/ pick at the UPS hub, wait time, etc.

I am wondering if it would be less headache to touch up the bluing myself?
Any tips? Small photo attached. It's the brown stripe with a smaller similar area on the other side.

 

[the rifleer]

You can certainly touch it up using cold blue. It usually blends right it and looks great, the problem is it wears off if you keep touching it. Because of the nature of a bolt rifle, it will wear off after just a few hundred rounds.

That is really annoying. If they are paying for the shipping, I'd just ship it and have it taken care of. Then you will be happy and hopefully its all well and good.

 

[Herbert1517]

Thanks Rifleer, a return would likely be the best course of action. Just aggravating, but better that than perpetual touch-ups.

 

[whitearrow]

i've had good luck with brownells oxpho-blue i believe its called. but i would probably just send it back and let remington handle it.
good luck,
whitearrow

 

[Joe Chicago]

I would send it back to the factory. I had a similar experience with a model seven that had head space problems. Remington fixed the problem and returned the rifle in a timely manner.

 

[Herbert1517]

Thanks for the feedback

Thanks White arrow and Joe. I have taken the consensus of advice and the rifle is now on the way back to Remington. They turned the chamber reaming repair around within a week so I'll will hope they do the same with this. Thanks for all the input.