Sidearms & Scatterguns Ruger Mark I sadness

[Maddyn]

Talk about how not to treat a gun... so my cousin got a Ruger Mark I when our Grandma passed away, in good condition, accurate as all get out. When he went off to the mission field he gave it to an uncle to hold on to, (who I thought would have taken better care of it) But seems it got left in the leather holster and set somewhere a dog could piss on it. So Cousin comes back and wants to go shooting and the gun is pretty heavily pitted on one end of the gun. He started working on refinishing it, stripped the bluing and got most of the rust off.

I have the gun now and am going to try and clean it up better, but I'm wondering if there's anything that can help with the pitting? It's purely cosmetic, gun still functions and fires, but it does look like crap. I was planning on going over it with some sandpaper and work up to buffing compound before re-bluing. Any suggestions?

 

[19Scout77]

Re: Ruger Mark I sadness

Do not bother reblueing it. It will look like dog shit....instead of piss

Strip it down and sand/media blast it. I would then duracoat it my self. It won't look original, but it goes on thick and should go a long way towards filling in the pitting. Also, I have never tried, but you may be able to put a coat of duracoat on, let it dry, then sand it and coat again thereby filling the pits.

 

[cal50]

Re: Ruger Mark I sadness

Blast it bare,apply and smooth out JB weld, sand smooth then use a paint type finish on it. Duracoat, moly resin or the sort.

Once metal is gone you either have to weld it up or machine down to clean up to replace.

 

[ArcticLight]

Re: Ruger Mark I sadness

Depends how much you want to put into it.

My smith would weld-fill it in and re-blue it and it would look new again without any jbweld or bondo falling off in the future...

Do it right....for sentimental reasons obviously, new 22/45 is only $300 but that pistol is probably worth $300,000 to you.

 

[Downzero]

Re: Ruger Mark I sadness

Blast it and park it, then moly resin over that.

 

[Hellbender]

Re: Ruger Mark I sadness

Might send it in to Ruger, I sent in an old Blackhawk that got lost in the river for a year, and it came back like new for $75, that was about 10 years ago, but it's worth a shot.

 

[Maddyn]

Re: Ruger Mark I sadness

It's looking like I'm going to go the duracoat route, just blast it, park it, fill and duracoat color of choice... do a little polish work on the bolt and call it good. Thanks for the ideas and pointers, I'll have to get some pics up when I get it done