Birchwood Casey Perma Blue Liquid Gun Blue

I used this on my Glock 19 for some surface scuffs that I caused by putting on new sights. I used a Vism rear sight tool and I did not adjust it quite right and it slightly drug the rear chuck across the slide. It caused a few minor scuffs or dings about a half inch long. I was going to use the Birchwood Casey flat black touch up marker like others have said worked, but after I got it I decided heck no. It would have looked terrible.So I thought what the hey, I would try it with the perma blue and try one small spot. IT WORKS. I end up doing the rest of the marks and now you cannot even tell they were there. It was just deep enough that I could see metal and it was driving me crazy. I even tried Hoppes no 9 first, just to make sure it wasn't surface transferI did some searching on the best way to do this. I heated up the slide with a heat gun to get it warm. Apparently it works better if the metal is warm. If you get it too hot, it will stink when the perma blue hits the hot metal, but still worked, I just kept applying until it got dark enough and then rinsed it with water to stop the reaction. When done, I wiped it down with gun oil and buffed it with the cloth.I also did my dad's Vietnam bayonet and it turned out awesome. I was trying to sharpen it years ago and it just left a lot of scuffing. I heated the knife, added the perma blue until it started to get dark and then rinsed it. I did this 4 times and then I followed up with 0000 steel wool and some gun oil to smooth out the perma blue and BAM, it looks awesome again. Took care of all the little scratches using the 0000 steel wool too.I normally don't get real excited about items, but this one I did. I fix 2 issues with one product. And it did what I would expect it to do.

This is a cold bluing process. no matter how much you spend on any cold process it will NEVER be as good as a heat applied and treated bluing. But those can be super expensive which is why i suspect you are reading these reviews.This is a great kit IF:-The gun is not a massively valuable collectors piece, super sentimental, or one of a kind.-You have a good clean workspace to set up multiple stations, you can work quick and be patient.- You have the time to work through trial and error for application speed and even applicaction.This kit helped me to restore my grandfathers shotgun. It took two rounds of blue removal to get it consistent but once you figured out how fast, and how well it interacts with your gun you can gauge it better. I tried using it in only one area and it is obvious. This is a good bluing to fix rust spots, or do a full outer barrel restoration. Just make sure you test it and like it before you strip an entire project.

This is a review for Birchwood Casey PSP Gun Blue (3oz) bottle. First let me start by saying my purpose for using this product was not typical. I had some hitch rings that were steel with zinc plating that I wanted to make dark for a woodworking project I had. As this metal (although ferrous - as is required) was zinc plated, my hope was that scratching it with the 0000 steel wool  Red Devil 0320 8-Pack Steel Wool, 0000 Super Fine  would help open it up enough to reach the ferrous metal beneath.Please note the pictures included with this review for the process I used and the quality of the final product.Let me preface this by saying that disposable gloves and a clean work environment with paper towels or newspaper to catch any spills is advisable.First, I followed instructions:Prepping the metal:1) Cleaning the metal - They recommend their own brand of cleaner, of course - however I simply used some rubbing alcohol and cotton swabs, which worked well.2) With a small pad of steel wool, polish the metal lightly to remove old bluing and surface rust. Continue until metal is shiny. (I found that this was particularly important in the later stages when I found uneven darkening in my work. More on that later.)3) If the metal suffers from deep scratches and/or pitting, sand the affected areas with fine 280-grit paper followed by a steel wool polish. A file may be needed for deep pits. (This step wasn't necessary on my project as the metal was new and without any discernible blemishes.)4) Whatever you do, don’t try and rush metal preparation. Keep polishing until everything looks right. (This really is critical. Don't start applying the bluing until you have a good finished product that's blemish-free. Your finished work will thank you by looking great.)5) Re-apply the Cleaner & Degreaser, scrub with a sponge and rinse again with cold water. At this point, be careful not to touch the metal with your fingers as this can leave tell-tale marks after bluing caused by the natural oils from your hand. (Used rubbing alcohol for this process as well and the disposable gloves were on - saves your work from having an "oops". I can't stress this enough - you brush your arm, wrist, hand, finger, nose or whatever on the metal, you cannot see it. But the bluing will help you see it clearly later on.)Bluing:1) Apply Birchwood Casey Perma Blue Paste or Liquid Gun Blue with an applicator swab over the entire surface to be blued. Work as quickly as you can, but remember to be thorough. Rather than blueing the entire surface at one time, you may want to divide the work into 2 or 3 sections. (I found two things to be important with this step. One, be generous with your liquid. I don't mean pour the bottle over your project, but let your swab soak and don't squeeze it dry. Two, move quickly and smoothly over the metal - I was working on a 2" square surface plus a 2" ring - I did the whole piece in one shot, making sure to coat both sides of the ring plus the outer and inner ring with fresh dips into the bottle.)2) Allow the blueing to stand on the metal for 30-60 seconds. No longer. Then neutralize the chemical reaction by rinsing immediately and thoroughly with cold water and wipe dry. (30-60 seconds is plenty of time - seriously)3) After or during rinsing, polish very lightly with fine steel wool to blend the color if needed. If steel wool is used, you must use Cleaner & Degreaser again to remove any surface oils that may have been introduced. Appraise the blueing for coverage. If streaking exists or you desire a deeper/darker blue, simply repeat steps 1, 2, and 3 until the desired color is obtained. (After the rinsing - during the rinsing is kind of silly in my opinion as the water is going to distort what you see. The key here is VERY LIGHTLY. If you go heavy, you'll pull some of the bluing off. If you have spots that are darker than the rest, add a little pressure and they will even out. However, this is one a one step process, so don't worry too much about the color at this point.)4) Saturate all areas with Birchwood Casey Barricade Rust Protection and allow your new blueing to cure overnight. (Well, I used a very light coating of 3in1 oil and let it sit overnight, which gave it a fantastic finish and cleaned up quickly and easily. I should point out that for me, it took three coats to hit the level of darkness I wanted and to make it very even. On the last round, the metal never saw the steel wool. I rubbed it dry with a towel and lightly oiled it to let it sit overnight.)Overall I was pleased with the process and the outcome. It gave a fantastic browning to the metal which looked amazing on the wood project. Time will tell how well this will hold up, but if it fails, I'm going to assume it's due to the metal not being top grade ferrous metal and instead low grade metal with a zinc plating that needed to be bypassed.

Paid less because the label/instructions were in Spanish. Fantastic, I took Spanish and French in school during the late 40s and early 50s, so, it was a no brainier there and I saved me some money.

This kit provides most of what you will need to do a fantastic blue job on your firearm. You'll need a bit more sand paper, but that's a given in this sort of thing. Anyone that has ever done a professional looking job will tell you that preparation early on is everything to getting the best results. If you want say a shotgun barrel to look like you paid serious dough to blue it, then sand, sand, sand, sand away. What you are looking for is a mirror finish in the metal before you put the blue on. Use various different grades of sand paper, steel wool and synthetic steel wool pads to get that metal as smooth and shiny as you can. Then degrease it and only then blue it. If you blue a barrel that you got so silvery and shiny that you could see you in the reflection, then you are going to be extremely happy with the results. I've blued over 50 of my firearms over the years. Doing the early on extra work prepping the metal is everything to getting the best you can possibly do. So do not rush this when you go for it. All the unhappy people rushed it. Start from finish it should take you days, not hours to do this properly. The rifles I own that people can't believe I blued myself all took 3 days to a week to do. Doing a couple of hours of work each day. So we're not talking hundreds of hours, but we are talking tens of hours to do it well. More hours beyond that to do it exceptionally well. Patience is a virtue. ;)

This blue does being your old gun metal back to life however it takes time. I wouldn’t recommend starting this some evening and planning to go on a hunt the next day, it won’t happen. I had a weekend to do it and it gave me time to do it right and end up with a nice finish. It took quite a bit of coats before I got an even finish. One thing I can recommend is make sure you do polish between coats with steel wool, as instructed. It helps the blue penetrate the areas that it previously just ran off the gun without any change in coloration. Overall if you take your time this can really make your gun metal shine like new.

okay...read the instructions and they are correct. With prep....do your prep...then when you think you are ready do prep three more times. Was not using on gun refinish rather on an old vice and some tools. The prep with this really made the old metal beautiful! Then remember when using the bluing it says to leave on a SHORT time....don't walk away....just follow the instruction and can be used to clean old tools, etc. used on vice, cutters, sledge hammer, and other old family tools and they look great now. Sorry if someone wants review for gun...can only tell you on those old metal tools.

Does at great job on steel BB and pellot pistols! Used it to remove some of the manufactuer's white markings. Easy to apply but may need a few applications to acheive your desired results.

My Father received this WWII German Submarine Commander’s knife from a school friend for his 12th birthday. It had taken a beating over the years and was quite neglected. I bought this blueing agent and was a little sceptical when I started to use it, yet within minutes and a couple of coats later it brought the knife back to almost original condition. Very pleased with the results.