Blued vs Stainless (Howa)

[Lorgar]

Fair enough.

Still like my fluted Tikka

[Goshawk]

I have a heavy 24" blued fluted barrel Howa in 243 Win purely for hunting.

Coming from bow-hunting for past 25 years, carrying this through the bush for 20k hikes is easy. Never had any issues with blued barrel either.

A friends stainless-steel Savage has rusty finger prints if not cleaned after every handling.

[headspace]

Blued finish for me every time, never really took to the stainless "look".

I have a 223 Howa in heavy barrel and a sporter weight in 308 with a fluted barrel.

Love 'em both but the Hogue on the 223 will probably go away somewhere.

[yoshie]

The only reason we see stainless rifles is due to the cost of blueing.

30 years ago the man hour labour cost to blue a barrel was less than the expensive stainless steels of the day, now the cost of labour is higher and stainless is only marginally more expensive to make than blued.

The better weathering is a bit of a false truth. Stainless does corrode, it just corrodes defiantly than normal steel. The other thing worth mentioning is all steels are alloys and have different ratios of other metals. Steels ain't steels.

Stainless is a common term used to describe high zinc (and other metals) steels alloys. Just like cold or hot galv coatings use zinc to sacrificially protect the steel, stainless has the zinc in the steel it's self.

Stainless left to the elements will eventually corrode.

[Will]

A friends stainless-steel Savage has rusty finger prints if not cleaned after every handling.

He should stop eating the salted chips before handling his rifle every time

[Lorgar]

He should stop eating the salted chips before handling his rifle every time

I usually have a pack of salted licorice when out. I should actually be a little careful with that...

[Warrigul]

Blood is high in salt too.

At the end of a days hard work sweat often goes a little bit acidic unless salt has been consumed.

Both are hell on stainless.

[Skadoo]

Thankfully I'm past the inexperienced days of scoping myself and leaving eyebrow blood all over my rifle

[Hadoku]

Maybe just do it once more? For old times sake

[Skadoo]

We can take turns. You first.

Send pics and then I'll see what I can do

[Rippah]

I smell a trick...