k, gonna see if any good ideas pop up.

I bought an early Contender with some problems. It had a bunch of parts missing which I have replaced. Now I am working on the finish. There was rust on several places on the gun and 22LR barrel. I have been able to clean most of it with Kroil. But, there are several places on each side and on the barrel which has an accumulation. Sorta scales which form a bump on the surface. I have worked with the Kroil and clean some areas partially, but still several large areas remain. When I say large , there are 2 areas on the barrel about 1/2 the size of a dime. The places on the sides of the frames are not that large.

Any ideas on what would be a good way to remove these.

If you want to make the finish like new, sand the spots down to bare metal. if the rust pits the metal badly enough fill the spots with 2 part epoxy and sand smooth.
Disassemble as much as practical. Then with 240 grit rough the surface of all the parts to be coated. I like KG GunKote. They have a color called gunmetal Blue that if applied well looks so much like bluing its almost impossible to tell it's not blued.
you will need to bake all the parts after coating. There is more to it than I can describe in a short blurb, but there are other similar products such as Cerakote and Durakote.
The process is a lot like painting a car, prep is the key to a good looking job.
I had a similar problem with my grandads Savage 99. Lots of rust pitting. It took time, but I refinished the entire gun and it looks as good as new. The added benefit is if done correctly it should never rust again.

Here is a shotgun I did a refinish on the color is Cerakote dark bronze.

0000 steel wool with the Kroil won’t get it done? The steel wool has always knocked out any I’ve had to deal with.

If you haven’t tried this and want to note the 4 zeros in that 0000 steel wool.

That’s what I do, except I use ATF because I always have some around. ATF and 0000 (yep four zero’s) steel wool. Do not use a green scratch pad unless you want to screw up all the bluing all around the pitting. The 0000 steel wool is the key.

I have bought most of my guns from pawn shops with some rust. They normally clean up like new. I break them down, clean all metal parts with brake cleaner, then I get aggressive with ATF or CLP and 0000 steel wool. It also helps to liberal wipe down with CLP or ATF and let it sit a few days.

A little elbow grease and 0000 steel wool almost anything cleans up “nearly perfect”. I also keep some birch wood Casey permablue, and use it to touch up the pitted areas requiring the most work. You can tell if you look closely but overall it looks good.

Thamks. I will try the 0000 steel wool.

Use copper wool as suggested in the post I made in the recent topic linked above. Also add some acetone to the ATF.