Blued vs Stainless

[Borngeechee]

Are stainless barrels that much better than blued and are they really needed? Stainless can rust albeit slower than blued but is rusting that big of a concern when hunting?

[dbHunterNY]

rusting is a big deal.  you don't want pitting from rust inside your barrel.  outside looks bad and once it starts you really have to get it completely off or it'll continue to work into your barrel over the years.  if you take care of it you're fine.  I like stainless barrels better and seems I've had better accuracy with them.  take care of it and it won't matter what you've got.

[Mr VJP]

Depends on the type of hunting.  In cold wet weather, where you may be out in the woods for a week, stainless has a lot less to worry about.  It is also harder than most regular steel and tends to hold up better in the bore after lots of rounds are put through it.  I like it myself and find it to be much lower maintenance than blued steel.  I also prefer a Kevlar composite stock to wood or laminates.

[dbHunterNY]

Depends on the type of hunting.  In cold wet weather, where you may be out in the woods for a week, stainless has a lot less to worry about.  It is also harder than most regular steel and tends to hold up better in the bore after lots of rounds are put through it.  I like it myself and find it to be much lower maintenance than blued steel.  I also prefer a Kevlar composite stock to wood or laminates.

 

yea any wood and even laminates will swell from being out in the weather too long too wet.  also changes in temperature make them change.  might effect your zero in some cases by more than enough to matter.

[wildcat junkie]

Are stainless barrels that much better than blued and are they really needed? Stainless can rust albeit slower than blued but is rusting that big of a concern when hunting?

No, no & no.

 

Unless you are in Alaska or other high humidly environment S/S isn't all that much of an advantage.

 

I only clean & lube my barrels after hunting season. After I do my zero check I never "scrub" the bore until after season as a clean bore will usually shoot to a different POI. If I get caught in rain, I just run a dry patch through the bore to dry it. I never have issues W/rust.

 

For me blued steel is much more pleasing to the eye than S/S & S/S can be a bit more eye catching to game.

 

Bottom line; IMO (unless you plan on an extended trip to Coastal Alaska) Get what pleases you, there's not any significant difference.

[Pygmy]

I readily agree that stainless/synthetic has advantages in wet weather. I have been on several extended wilderness hunting trips when my blued/wood stock rifle was soaked daily with no good way to clean it up or dry it, and yes, the wood did swell and I had some surface rust to deal with. I never noticed any shifting of zero, but perhaps I was just lucky.

All that said, asthetics are important to me regarding my firearms and I really prefer the look and feel of wood stocks and blued steel over stainless/synthetic. In day to day hunting when I have the means to clean up and dry my firearms every day after use, it is much less of an issue. I don't care for the looks and feel of stainless steel and sythetic stocks. I'll continue to enjoy my walnut and bright blue steel, thanks you !

Some guys like blondes, some prefer brunettes, and some have no preference, as long as they FUNCTION properly.. I lean toward the brunettes, myself..<<grin>>...

Edited March 2, 2015 by Pygmy

[wildcat junkie]

Depends on the type of hunting.  In cold wet weather, where you may be out in the woods for a week, stainless has a lot less to worry about.  It is also harder than most regular steel and tends to hold up better in the bore after lots of rounds are put through it.  I like it myself and find it to be much lower maintenance than blued steel.  I also prefer a Kevlar composite stock to wood or laminates.

While stainless may be tougher, chrome-moly is harder.

 

Stainless being tougher, will resist throat corrosion better than CM but that's only an issue if many many high intensity rounds are sent through the barrel.

Edited March 2, 2015 by wildcat junkie

[Borngeechee]

I was thinking u should have at least one in stainless. Reason being, I'd hate for it to be a rainy weekend opening season and I'm out there worrying if my rifle is getting too wet. If you have that one stainless, you can grab and go and put ur focus on staying warm and the hunt itself. Personally wood and blued steel is sexy to me but these are tools at the same time.

[wildcat junkie]

GOOD DISCUSSION ON S/S vs CM

[d-bone20917]

I'd always go stainless if you have the choice.  One less thing to worry about on extended trips.  If you plan to be back in a nice warm camp or at home every night then it doesn't matter as much.

[wildcat junkie]

I was thinking u should have at least one in stainless. Reason being, I'd hate for it to be a rainy weekend opening season and I'm out there worrying if my rifle is getting too wet. If you have that one stainless, you can grab and go and put ur focus on staying warm and the hunt itself. Personally wood and blued steel is sexy to me but these are tools at the same time.

With your original pairing of a 270 & 30-06, either would be a good seamless sub for the other.

 

Get the '06 in S/S/synthetic  & the 270 in Blued steel/walnut.

[Skillet]

Stainless all the way. I'll never buy another blued gun.

[G-Man]

Blued or browned is fine, like any barrel you need to wipe them down. Stainless really sticks out and is very visable. As for.performance I HAve 100 year old guns with browned barrels and they are tack drivers. Like most camo you buy what looks pretty to you, not what games sees it as. Get what you like.stainless blued camo or browned.

[wildcat junkie]

As far as accuracy? That has more to do with the machine work on the barrel. Chamber, throat, rifling & crown, as well as the load rather than what kind of steel the barrel is made of.

 

Blued steel military surplus barrel. This is the typical 3 shot group W/200gr bullets @ 100yds..

[dbHunterNY]

I will say that I still have to imagine stainless catches the eye of game but my experiences say otherwise.  I've had game so close I couldn't breathe and the stainless barrel didn't bother them.  non polished SS I think is not much worse if any than a glossy blued barrel.  the polished side of the bolt on my Browning a-bolt however bothers me every time the sun comes up.  hasn't busted me yet but there's some glare coming off that thing for sure.

[Lawdwaz]

Anybody in the counties that have recently gone to legalizing center-fire rifles ever have a stainless barreled shotgun?

 

How about synthetic stocks?  I'm sure there are a handful out there but I doubt many people used them.......

 

My Ithaca DS 87 II (or whatever that darned thing is called!) with its blued (GASP) barrel and wood (EGADS) stock & fore end still look pretty good after 28 years.  I haven't used it much the last 10 years, the ML got 98% of the face time but that shotgun saw some seriously horrid days in the field.  I'm sure every avid deer hunter (the guys that hunt hard AFTER opening day) has had their guns completely soaked for hours and hours.  Then how long does it sit in the back seat of the car on the ride home or in the gun rack at camp??  Sure you wipe it down eventually or even break it down and give it a once over but it can be tough getting them all dried out completely.  Then of course you wipe it down with scent-free, right? 

 

Blued/wood stocked guns can be kept just fine with a little care, heck my friend and I spent 11 nights in a 4 man tent while bear hunting Yakutat Alaska in 1997.  During those 10 days and 11 nights we had (officially) 11" of rain.  My wood stocked & blue barrel Sako 375H&H got as much love as I could give it under those conditions and I promise you will not find a spec of rust anywhere today.  The stock is perfect as are the Sako rings and Leupold 1.5-5 scope.  One thing though, my buddy and I never fired a shot during that hunt so I can't say if the stock curved left, right or stayed on the money, that we'll never know!    The last time I shot it it was right on the money.

 

All that said...........I love my synthetic stocked guns more than the wood ones.  I only have three stainless barrels, one on my NULA 300WSM and the other two on custom guns I had built.  7 of my guns have synthetic stocks and I really like them.

 

One thing I do know is that Melvin Forbes has always preferred chrome moly actions and barrels for the guns he builds, but they are available with stainless barrels.  Your stuck with the CM actions..............

 

 

[BizCT]

We have weatherbys that are 40-50 years old and been out in all kinds of weather over the years, none of them have rust on them. You wipe them down each night after a hunt.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Mr VJP]

A stainless steel barrel with a bead blasted matte finish is far less noticeable in the field than a highly polished blued steel barrel.  It looks more like a grey branch and doesn't reflect the light.

[Lawdwaz]

I wouldn't fret the game seeing those bead blasted stainless barrels to much, they might spot your blaze orange first................

 

Highly polished blued barrels could spook game though.

 

Don't forget they can smell really good.

[Lawdwaz]

A stainless steel barrel with a bead blasted matte finish is far less noticeable in the field than a highly polished blued steel barrel.  It looks more like a grey branch and doesn't reflect the light.

 

I have to type faster I see...............

[Lawdwaz]

We have weatherbys that are 40-50 years old and been out in all kinds of weather over the years, none of them have rust on them. You wipe them down each night after a hunt.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Spend a week in a tent under adverse conditions, it'll test you!  You can't do a terrific job and your sure as heck aren't pulling the barreled action out of the high luster stock but with some care they'll be A-OK.

 

[greensider]

love my stainless

[Pygmy]

On a couple of my wilderness hunts, there was no room for the rifles in the tent during nasty weather..We could put them under a tarp, but they still were wet.. On a two week hunt in Alaska, the only things that I had that were dry were my sleeping bag and ONE pair of socks, which I kept in the tent as my greatest creature comfort..

 

Prior to that hunt, I had prepared all of the metal surfaces on my rifle with several coats of automotive wax (Turtle Wax) , but I still had some rust after two weeks of being soaked every day.  Still today the bluing looks fine,,What light rust that occurred cleaned off very easily...To see the rifle right now you would  not suspect that it has led as hard of a life as it really has.

[BizCT]

Spend a week in a tent under adverse conditions, it'll test you! You can't do a terrific job and your sure as heck aren't pulling the barreled action out of the high luster stock but with some care they'll be A-OK.

They've been through some rough conditions. -40 temps uncovered on snowmobiles for miles upon miles, rain, extreme heat, snow, etc. of course, they can't always be fully cleaned but you can always take an extra rag and wipe them down and hope for the rest. My dad used to make me hold the gun over my head as a kid walking through the brush so I wouldn't nick the wood lol

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Pygmy]

They've been through some rough conditions. -40 temps uncovered on snowmobiles for miles upon miles, rain, extreme heat, snow, etc. of course, they can't always be fully cleaned but you can always take an extra rag and wipe them down and hope for the rest. My dad used to make me hold the gun over my head as a kid walking through the brush so I wouldn't nick the wood lol

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Biz...I am sure that the quality bluing job on your Weatherbys helped a lot also...

 

I have had a few  cheap firearms over the years, and cheap polishing/bluing jobs rust MUCH more easily than quality firearms... I hunted rabbits quite a bit over the years with a New England Arms single shot .410. It killed bunny rabbits just fine, but the damn thing rusted if I SNEEZED on it..