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Makarov Hot Blue Project

9K views 34 replies 16 participants last post by  LantanaTX 
#1 ·
I have started the process to re-blue my Bulgarian Makarov which I bought a couple of weeks ago and loved the way it shot.

1. The first step was to completely strip the gun which has to be about the easiest gun in the world to strip. I watched a youtube video and had the gun completely stripped in less than ten minutes. I couldn't believe there is only one pin to remove which the trigger guard pivots on.

2. Next, I did an initial degrease with simple green. I let the parts soak in Simple green and then scrubbed each piece with a tooth brush and rinsed them. I then separated the parts to be blued from those that wouldn't get blued. the parts that are not getting blued were sprayed with a little oil and sealed in a zip lock baggie.

3. the parts that are to be blued were soaked in distilled white vinegar or at least I think that was what it was. I went to Wal-Mart and they had "cleaning vinegar" and they told me that it was the same as distilled white vinegar. I thought it would take a few hours to remove the blue but most of was gone in a few minutes. I let the parts soak for about two hours while I was gone shopping for a few more supplies.

4. I then removed the parts from the vinegar and dropped them into a glass dish containing Acetone.

5. I took the parts out of the Acetone one piece at a time to sand them. I found 400 wet or dry gave me a finish closest to the original finish. I wrapped the paper around a wood paint stirring stick for flat areas and used mineral spirits to lube the sand paper. for the rounded areas of the slide I had to used course emery cloth to remove some light pitting and then went to medium, fine and finally back to 400 wet or dry. I also did this to the right side of the slide to remove the C.A.I. Import marking crap.


6. while I was sanding the parts I saw some light rust developing so after sanding, the parts went back into the vinegar until the rust was gone again and then quickly back into the acetone.

The parts are now ready to blue. Stay tuned for more....

Parts to be blued:



Parts are now fully prepped for bluing. You can see the right side of the slide here that used to have import markings:

 
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