1941 SVT 40 just had to have one

[Cheese Noodles]

Great pictures of the Germans using Soviet Snipers. I got interested going to the range with a friend, he had a K98 and I was a WWII history buff. I never even got one, but 4 Soviet rifles acquired. I did get a 33/40 (Refinished) and a German Modified VZ 24 (posted pictures on this forum).

[Bruce_in_Oz]

That "red" colour of the metalwork is a function of the reaction of heat-treated, "high" alloy steels to "hot" bluing baths.

The metal just forms a "different" "oxide" skin that just happens to be reddish.

The solution, as I discovered some years ago whilst fooling around with the commercial "Du Lite" system, is to run the tank at a lower than normal temperature and have the metal parts pre-heated in a hot, but NOT boiling, water bath. Lower the parts in and check for colour change (the bath actually working).

It SHOULD start to develop a dark, blue-ish tinge. Return the parts to the tank and start raising the temperature to "normal". It should come out with a rich, dark, almost black finish.

However, some alloy-steel components that had been heat-treated for a specific hardness, required a quick "once-over" with a grit-blaster using fine garnet grit at fairly low pressure, to break up the super-hard skin of oxides of Chromium etc., and to "activate" the steel surface. Then, parts came out of the tank a nice "satin-black", not splotchy purple. This is not unlike the process of "blasting" before Phosphating, and for similar reasons.