I have tried hot dip black oxide in the past on guns and bayonets, worked ok but was very temperamental and dangerous. I have also seen recent black oxide methods that seem to give a brownish purple finish, no where near a black finish of black oxide, have they changed the formula. My favourite finishing is parkerizing and it would be great if I could produce this in black, the manganese is not black enough. I was reading an old milsurps post where it showed a wartime note from one one of the small arms factories stating that the parkerizing finish was not dark enough and they recommend using a black dye for a black finish. Anyone know what this process was and the type of dye used. Somebody mentioned that they used boot polish but I am sure this would not be durable if solvents were used to degrease the gun at a later stage. I also saw that Brownels and Midway use a pre black park dip, has anyone used this and could I get this in the UKicon. It's a shame the chemical formula for parkerizing couldn't be changed to produce a black.
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