Savage 99 scratches&discoloration on flat sides

Folks, my first post... :help:

I have owned quite a few '99's, and just acquired another, on it's way. It's a 1950 EG in .300, and it' a project, a bit rough.

I know there are a lot of light marks and scratches,possibly light pitting, on the flat sides of the receiver. I have never bothered to clean up those marks on current or former 99's, but want to do so on this one. What is the best method? I will remove the wood first, of course. Any polishing or buffing attachments, or compounds, that will work. I will re-blue when finished.

Ideas?

Thanks for the help.

Jim,
Las Vegas

I just got one back from re-bluing. It, too, had lots of light marks, and moderately deep pitting on one side of the receiver. I wet sanded to white metal with Kroil and progressively finer carborundum paper, starting with 220 and ending with 600. This did nothing to the pitting. I don’t think it looks that awful bad, and I’m accepting it as character.

I believe the accepted method to repair pitting is to gouge to sound metal, TIG weld, grind and finish. There is a risk of losing temper in the base metal, of weld imperfections that need a second pass, and mismatch of bluing.

Good on ya, to bring an EG back from the grave! My personal favorite is a 300 Savage EG in a state of arrested decay.

If the pits are not deep, bead blasting will blend them so they are less noticeable after a re-blue. Other than that, draw filing and polish or, I put a #1 rolling block on a surface grinder and cleaned up the flat sides. That way there is even removal of metal and adjustable to 1000th of an inch. But that would require a machine shop.

Squaring on a surface grinder would be a bit challenging. The sides of the receiver aren’t parallel.