Traditions .50 cal Trapper Pistol

B

Borf

New member
So there I was, smudging the glass at Bass Pro Shop yet again, when my will finally broke. I've been lusting after the Traditions Trapper .50 cal kit for a while now. Seems my Hawken needs a companion.

There are no directions with the kit (ok by me for the most part). A good bit of wood needs to be shaped, and some screw holes drilled to put everything together. The wood is not figured as well as I would like, but is a reasonable looking hunk of walnut none the less. The barrel is in the white, lock is hardened, and brass is fine enough for a production gun.

Brings me to a couple of questions. First, I wanted to brown the barrel. Out comes the Roy Dunlop book, and he lists plain old salt water as being a fine way to do it. I degrease as best I can, then wrap it up in an old sock soaked roughly 10% in salt water. Hoping to rust it and card maybe a dozen times over the next week or two. I'm on day 2 of browning now, and all I'm getting are little patches of bluish brown gunk. Twice now I've used 0000 steel wool to smooth out most of the rust before re-salt watering. It's not rusting quite as well as I had hoped. I've never done this before, so let me know if I'm on the right track here. Should it be rusting quicker? I can get twice as much on a blued gun in summer from my sweat alone:) Any tricks that anyone can suggest for a better browned finish?

Second question - any load suggestions? I do intend to try to aquire whatever manual I can. Does anyone with this particular suggestions on load max/min (yeah, I know. I'm trying to find a manual)?

Thanks
 
Browning

You want to get some Iodine.
Not the 7% solution, but the 11% solution.
Coat the barrel in the iodine and let it set for one week.
Wipe off the rust and re-coat.
Let set for one week and she should be finished.
You can get the 11% at a good Pharmacy. Tell the fella behind the counter what you will need it for. They don't recomend it for cuts and so forth.
It works great on all types of iron and steel.
If you want a beed blasted effect do it for three weeks.
I do about 3 barrels a year this way and umpteen hundred knife blades. A large bottle will last a long time.
If you want a pitted finish. Cover the barrel in rags and wet them down with bleach then dry them with a hair dryer. You can do this several times. You will get some nice pits and dents. Use some cold blue to black in the pits and add some color to the barrel.
I've never done a gun barrel this way, but I've done a bunch of knives that way.
 
Or you can break down and buy one of the numerous cold browning solutions on the market. They vary in price from $5 to $6 a bottle and will do about 3 rifle barrels.
 
Wildwilley - thanks! Plain ol' rusting is coming along so far... but it's a little coarse grained and splotchy. I think I'll get some iodine today.

4V50 Gary - Yeah, I was thinking about breaking down. But I figured it'll be another 10 days before I've got the rest of the thing fit, stained, and finished. And I kind of like doing things the "homegrown" way :)

Edit - Almost forgot, Traditions customer service is excellent. Manual was in the mail the next day.
 
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