Scope Bracket Phosphating or Coating help?

[Scout Sniper]

Hello friend's!

I would like to refinish my scope bracket, i have one of those reproduction mounts and wanted to remove the ugly angle from the rear leg and rough it up to match the rest of the rifle.

The bracket just screams out and looks silly. What is the best finish to do on it, factor in cost and easiest way to do it.

My scope and rifle look great but i need the mount to match.

Many thanks

Attachment 119178

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[smle addict]

Not sure about the composition of your mount in question, but what I have done in the past to other smaller parts (upper/lower bands, trigger guards, mag bodies) is I heat them for approximately 5-10 minutes in my bar-b-que, then dunk them in a container of really dirty/black/sludgy oil. My "dunk tank" is gallon bucket filled with old 90 weight gear oil, 10-30w motor oil, and whatever other oily sludge I can drop in. Smells real bad. I think this is called oil-blacking, but I dont heat the parts to where they become glowing red. I'm always worried about affecting heat treating of a component.

[Scout Sniper]

Ah yes, i had considered oil blacking but wasn't sure how accurate the finish will look. Have you got any examples?

[Roger Payne]

I sympathetically refinish original brackets, as well as finishing my repro's by either bead blasting/parkerising/suncoriting, or by oil blacking. If I oil black them I still bead blast & parkerise first, as the carbonaceous finish from burning off the oil seems to adhere better.

But before you apply the finish you need to get rid of that tell-tale 'ledge' just in front of & above the rear thumb screw, & perhaps at the same time strike up the rest of the far too pretty casting to make it more closely resemble a roughly fettled sand casting. Then you bead blast, parkerise, & either oil black or paint.

The parkerising recipe I use is one given to me by a British Areospace employee many years ago; 1/3 conc phosphoric acid, 1/3 meths, 1/3 water. I'm really not sure what the meths does, but the recipe gives a very effective finish, the depth of the grey depending on for how long the item is dunked.

If you oil black you will need to get the bracket hot for the oil to combust, but you shouldn't need to get it to red heat.

Another variant finish that doesn't look bad is to blast, parkerise, & then just brush dab on a very dilute 'slurry' of suncorite. Rub it, push it about with your finger (gloved of course) & the resulting finish looks nicely 'vintage' unlike a sprayed on coat of pure S259 which makes the bracket look like brand new.

And if you decide on oil blacking don't forget to use old well used oil - new stuff is useless.

Hope something here might help.

[Scout Sniper]

Thanks Roger, yes that was my plan and the whole reason for the refinish. Remove the ledge and rough up the casting.

I am rather nervous about doing it, even tho it is just a cheap mount i cannot afford to ruin it as it is custom machined to fit the larger tube diameter of the scope.

Will have a play on some scrap metal with finishes and see what i come up with. Im leaning towards the oil black finish to start.

[Roger Payne]

I think the oil blacked finish would look more appropriate with your scope than a 'perfect' sprayed on coat of suncorite. However, you could always try dabbing on the well diluted suncorite.......with a little experimentation you can get the finish to look quite good. You apply it over the parkerised surface & it darkens it a little further without looking too obviously painted on.

[Scout Sniper]

I agree, it needs the weathered look. The 2 thumbscrews on the bracket are not the originals it came with. They were junk and the knurling was pathetic so i replaced them.

They were in the white when i got them and i just cold blued them. They look good and weathered, but with the mount i think the oil with suncorite after may be just the ticket.

[Roger Payne]

To better illustrate what I am trying to say, the bracket in the two photo's is a genuine Rose Brothers that had suffered greatly whilst in India. It was covered in several layers of paint with rust showing through in various places. But worst of all both cradle caps were missing, so I had to scratch build them, & was then left with the problem of cosmetically matching the mild steel caps to the malleable iron bracket body. (They definitely rust blue differently). It's not perfect, but I suspect that you wouldn't generally suspect it had received major reconstructive surgery...................unless you knew it had received major reconstructive surgery!

The surface finish was blasted, parkerised, then a little suncorite slurry. And, I artificially lightly corroded the caps before blasting & parking so as to get a slightly better match of the cradle uppers to the bracket body. (This was a labour of love for a restoration I am doing for myself).

I suppose, to get a little wear on the high spots, I should pop it into a jacket pocket along with a bunch of keys or some small change, & just forget about it for a month!

[Surpmil]

Impressive work on the caps Roger. What is the Long Branch number on the bracket; it surely isn't a 1 or 4L number as it appears to be?

As for the most appropriate finish for the bracket Scout Sniper, IMO what would match the scope best is a blue similar to what Long Branch/SAL used originally, with suitable aging to reflect the condition of the scope.

Study the photos of SAL/REL brackets online and you'll see how to reshape for the closest resemblance.

[Roger Payne]

I think the number on the bracket is actually that of a 43 BSA rifle......I think it starts 'AL........' but the A is poorly struck.

Good point re the finish on the bracket belonging to the OP. I suppose I would also take into account the scope & rifle finish. If both the rifle & scope are blued, you could look into getting the bracket blued for a cosmetic match (though not necessarily historically accurate - unless the rifle is a LB), but of the methods mentioned above, the oil blacking would probably look pretty good too.