Cerama-Coat

[DocHolladay]

I have a Ruger 96/44 that I have had for a while. Well, back in November, I went to the lease and hunted in the rain all day. The rifle had a little rust on it by the time I got home, so I broke it down and cleaned thoroughly and oiled it more than usual. I put it up and pulled it out a week later to hunt with it and the rust was back, only worse. I took 0000 steel wool with oil on it and scrubbed it again, wiped it off and re-oiled. Well, the rust keeps coming back. I will say that there hasn't been any pitting, only surface rust, but it makes me mad. I have never had a rifle rust like this and I have had my fair share of them.

My boss gave me a gift card to use at will, for Christmas. I went to Midway wanting to buy some bedding compound and I ran across Wheeler Engineering's Cerama-Coat. I read the reviews and decided to try it. I did it today in my free time and I think it turned out great. Now all I need to do is get it in the field to see if it stands up to the brutality that I put on my hunting rifles. I will let you all know what I see and how it does. I only treated the barrel and once it was finished, I wish I would have treated the action too.

Here is a 'before' pic. I will get an 'after' tomorrow during the day. Since I have already decreased the value of it by putting the cerama-coat on the barrel, I also plan on refinishing the stock. It has a gloss finish on it and I am going to strip it and will probably re-stain it and use linseed oil for a matte finish. I just havent decided if I want to just strip the finish off or strip it completely and re-stain it too.

[bigblue]

Doc,
Glad to hear that your happy with the results. I've never used Cerama-coat, but I've heard good things about it. Since you didn't do the receiver, I'm guessing that it never rusted. Is the receiver an alloy? As for the stock, I'd use Citri-strip(available at Home Depot) and strip it to bare wood. Oil finishes work best when they can penetrate into the wood. After stripping it, just wash it all down with paint thinner and let it dry good before applying the finish. Many of the wood stocks I've refinished never needed stain, the oil finish was enough to darken it. It really depends on the wood so you might want to try a small area under the butt stock to see how the finish will look.
Don

[DocHolladay]