Why many old pistols have "white" muzzle?
 

I can remember Nagant 1895, C96, Parabellums, ..... the list goes on, all of them have "white" muzzle. Obviously designed this way.

Pretty? not really. Functional?

Any thoughts?

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Related with corrosive ammo??

HI Alvin,

They actually were originally blued on the muzzle as well, but the Military versions of these pistols and were issued and carried in a holster, the friction and rubbing of which polished the muzzle white over time, since that is were the weight of pistol rested. One does see commercial models from time to time with intact bluing on the muzzle.

That's my understanding anyway.

Vince

Vince,

Not really. The original rust blue Lugers had an unblued muzzle end.
Personally I think it had to do with the blueing method. The barrels were suspended in a fixture and the barrel ends plugged. This probably made reaching the muzzle end difficult or impossible, hence, no blue there.

It's interesting to notice even those salt blued guns, e.g. "Black Widows", Modell 1930s, Schnellfeuers, etc, also have unblued muzzle (Vince, sorry, but it's definitely not by holster rubbing -- rubbing could not do the job so clean and so uniform... and on so many guns).

Mauser Parabellum imported by Interarms in 1970s has blued muzzle. I have never seen a postwar HK Luger..... don't know that one.

I like the fixture idea, but it would have resulted in at least some splatter on the crown of the barrel.

You can buy crowning tools in various shapes, the idea is to true up the end of the barrel and rifling by removing a small amount of metal. The bluing around the barrel ends is way to perfect, so I suspect it is a function of the crowning process in conjunction with the ends being plugged during bluing.

Just a guess, I have nothing to back that idea up

Vern

I went through "Mauser Pistolen" (Weaver, Speed & Schmid, 2008) again...... step 10 in 1938 factory assembling instruction of 6,35/7,65 was "After bluing, the barrel is emeried [smoothed with emery cloth] at the cartridge feed ramp, chamber and muzzle" (page 201).

I looked up the meaning of "emery cloth" on the web ..... being a type of "sand paper".

Probably similar step was applied to other type of Mauser pistolen.

I would opine that the smoothing of the muzzle or crown by the use of emery cloth (a method I also used myself in my early days as a gunsmith apprentice)... probably had more use than just cosmetics...

Before WW2, smokeless powder cartridges usually had corrosive priming, and a polished muzzle would be much less likely to "capture" poweder/primer debris from the muzzle blast and the smooth metal would lessen the chance of a corroded crown... The same would hold true for a polished and blued muzzle, but the crown would eventually be white from the blast effects of shooting... a smooth white muzzle would always look good after cleaning, but a blued muzzle that was in the process of being removed by shooting blast would eventually look terrible... hence the smooth white muzzle on firearms.

I can remember polishing the muzzle end of my blued 1911A1 barrel so that the size of the bore would be contrasted against the blue of the bushing and slide... so that if it were pointed at someone who was a threat, that they could ponder the size hole it would make in them. :D