Barrel color deformation

[tnaka]

Hey,

I cleaned my barrel with gun oil and my wife complained about it's smell, so i had to do outside. It was minus degrees outside so the barrel got cold quickly. So i cleaned it from outside to prevent rusting and left it outside for less than half hours to wear the smell of oil out. When i took it inside i noticed it had some spota that were lighter in colour than the orginal black finish. I tryed to clean the spots away with gun oil but cant get rid of them. It's like the cold surface burned the oil in to the finish. Propably a mistake to clean it outside. Any ideas what caused it and how to fix it. I can add photos if needed. Thanks!

[Synchronizor]

Your 870 is an Express, right? and what type of oil were you using? Could any other chemicals have gotten on the metal while it was outside?

Pictures would probably help.

[tnaka]

That's right it's an express. The oil is normal cheap sprayable gun oil and has been working fine until this problem. It should withstand -50 degrees celsius temperatures according the label. No other chemicals were in contact with the barrel. I'll add some photos soon.

[tnaka]

Here's some photos, hope the problem is seeable. It's more visible to naked eye than to cameras eye.



Flash probaply just masks them.

[Synchronizor]

I'm really not sure what that is. My guess would be that some combination of the temperature, the finish, and whatever was in that oil reacted. Apart from the color, do those spots still look and feel like the other parts of the gun where the finish wasn't affected? Hopefully this is just a cosmetic thing.

In the future though, you should definitely keep your gun out of the elements when you're taking it apart and cleaning it. Perhaps you and your wife could go find a more tolerable gun oil.

A year or two ago, I was visiting my parents, and my dad, one of my brothers, and I had just gotten back from the shotgun range, so the 6-person dining room table was covered with shotgun parts (from my Remington 870 and my dad's Ithaca 37) and cleaning paraphernalia (all on top of several layers of newspaper, of course). The entire floor of the house smelled like Hoppe's cleaning solvent and RemOil, but all my mom had to say when she got home was a favorable "Mmm, smells like gun oil in here."

[JohnnyGuns]

Try some degreaser or brake cleaner on it when it gets warm and then re-oil. The brake cleaner or degreaser will not harm the finish.