The hard fact is, NO cold blue or standard "home bluing kit" will do a job you'll like.
Most of these products are made specifically for touching-up small scratches and worn spots.
Many of them SAY they can be used for complete refinishing, but the results are almost always poor, and very fragile.
The color is almost always a streaked, smoky gray color, and it wears right off immediately.
Even the very best of these will not come even close to matching a factory finish in either color or durability.
There are ways to re-blue a gun at home, but these are VERY labor intensive and are a major mess to work with.
On a valuable old Winchester, your best bet is to send it out for a professional hot salts re-blue just like the original factory finish was done.
This is rather expensive, but is as good as a factory finish, and the better re-finishers can make your rifle look factory-new.
Here's some re-finishers with excellent reputations:
http://www.fordsguns.com/ (HIGHLY recommended).
http://www.apwcogan.com/Greetings.htm
If you decide not to send it out, a much better option than a poor cold blue job is to apply one of the "spray-on, bake-on" type finishes.
These are usually an epoxy coating that hardens up VERY hard, and makes an extremely durable finish that's easy to apply, comes in many colors, can be removed and re-done, and can be done at home.
Probably the two best are the Brownell's Aluma-Hyde II and the bake-on Gun-Coat.
http://www.brownells.com/aspx/ns/store/catsearch.aspx?c=752&p=4798
These coatings make a surprisingly good looking finish, that stands up VERY well as long as you do a good job of degreasing and applying it.
