Cleaning up a Riverside Arms Double Barrel

 A neighbor asked me to take a look at his father's shotgun. It was an old Riverside Arms double barrel, which is a trade name used by Savage/Stevens on their economy brand firearms. This shotgun was made between 1920 and 1930 and is the economy version of the Stevens model 311, see my post on this gun here.

It had been a mantel piece for quite a while and developed some velvet rust. He asked me if there was anything I could do short of rebluing the gun.

For those that don't know, care must be taken before bluing any old double barrel as the early ones had barrels that were silver soldered together, the bluing salts could loosen the silver solder and thus require major surgery. This one is new enough that the barrels are most likely welded.

At any rate, I agreed to see what could be done. Here is what the gun looked like when I received it.

The white flakes all over the gun, turned out to be white latex paint, someone didn't put the gun far enough away when repainting the wall.

I removed the barrels and broke out the 0000 steel wool and gun oil, I gently rubbed for an hour or so, removing the velvety oxidation.

The latex paint came off with my fingernail

On the bottom of the barrels it appeared that someone had painted the gun with black paint 

The receiver cleaned up nicely showing some of the original case hardened colors

Before and after comparison