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No seriously. Rust blued, Black Oxide.
I use steel BB's to wet tumble my brass for reloading. Long ago, I wore off the zinc coating on them. And I use Dawn & Lemi Shine. Lemi Shine is a mild acid (citric acid).
Some time back, I didn't dry out the BB's as well as I should have and found that all of them had a layer of red rust on them. Who cares? I threw in another batch of brass and it cleaned just as well as ever. I didn't care what it was doing to the BB's but the process "carded" the rust (burnished it down without fully removing it). After I'd run the brass, I knew that I didn't want my BB's to rust again so I made sure to drain the water and patted them down to damp and, while they were still wet, I put them on an aluminum pie plate into my toaster oven. The water prevented oxygen and the heat converted the red oxide to black oxide while drying out the BB's. Then next time I ran the tumbler, it carded the BB's again and left them with a semi-gloss black finish.
I had inadvertently followed all the steps to Gun Blue the BB's I use for wet tumbling my brass.
Peace favor your sword,
Kirk
I use steel BB's to wet tumble my brass for reloading. Long ago, I wore off the zinc coating on them. And I use Dawn & Lemi Shine. Lemi Shine is a mild acid (citric acid).
Some time back, I didn't dry out the BB's as well as I should have and found that all of them had a layer of red rust on them. Who cares? I threw in another batch of brass and it cleaned just as well as ever. I didn't care what it was doing to the BB's but the process "carded" the rust (burnished it down without fully removing it). After I'd run the brass, I knew that I didn't want my BB's to rust again so I made sure to drain the water and patted them down to damp and, while they were still wet, I put them on an aluminum pie plate into my toaster oven. The water prevented oxygen and the heat converted the red oxide to black oxide while drying out the BB's. Then next time I ran the tumbler, it carded the BB's again and left them with a semi-gloss black finish.
I had inadvertently followed all the steps to Gun Blue the BB's I use for wet tumbling my brass.
Peace favor your sword,
Kirk
