Brownish-colored spots on stainless slide

[BlenderWizard]

I have a SA stainless 1911 which is about 3 years old that has had these brownish spots (looks like steak sauce or something) on it for a while. I've ruled out rust, because, while I know stainless can rust, it is difficult, and they've been there quite a while and not gotten any bigger. The only areas effected are the top of the slide and the underside of the frame, which are both bead blasted. I've used every kind of solvent I can find to try to get rid of them with no avail. Any ideas what this is and how to get it off?

[swill269]

:o
is the metal etching at the spots? (scratch em. :D sorry) it may be rust or a chemical stain. if it is not pitted/etched try some very, very fine stainless steel wool. if it is pitted/etched, bead blast it again. ;)

good luck! :beer:
:cool:

[BlenderWizard]

I'm thinking it must be a chemical stain; upon further inspection, it has sort of a splatter pattern to it. What kind of chemical could do this? After working in the chem lab for a few years, I found that most any chemical that contained Nitrogen would turn your skin funny colors (Nitric acid makes the skin yellow, Silver Nitrate makes it a very dark purple). I wonder if I brought something like that home with me?

[swill269]

:o
could be blood. raw potato will turn your fingers black/purple, so will pomegranate. taste it. :beer:
:cool:

[dvdstdg]

could also be stain from a solvent that has amonia as an ingredient. Used anything like that to clean the barrel?

[BlenderWizard]

You know what it looks like? Copper solvent! Do you think that would have done it?

[swill269]

:o
now that is a possability. if it was used and had copper in it, would it appear greenish?
:cool:

[BlenderWizard]

I'm not sure what it would look like if it were used, but the stuff on my pistol may not be used.

[zekster76]

its rust!, acids from your hands have gotten into the vallys of the bead blast finish, had the same thing on my stainless springfield 1911A1 just a week ago, it had been sitting in my nightstand for 3 months and had not been cleaned since i last shot it, get a brush (bronze) and some rust remover and scrub it off, i used a stainless brush it left some light swirling on the non bead blasted areas, but no rust!!!

[Metalhead]

You might want to try flitz brand chemically treated cloth for stainless steel cleaning. I used it in the past and had success , doesn't cost that much either... good luck.

[gunrun45]

Let me guess. It was a springfield right? Their stainless guns are known to rust more than other makes due to their high carbon content. Yes stainless rusts too, just usually slower.

[astronomer]

Some like that happen to one of my guns about 5 years ago, I bought a new S+W model 640 spurless 5 shot stainless revolver, the FFL Dealer ordered it from his distributor, After I got it home I looked at it closely an there was A light brownish stain whith A out line around the edge, you can tell more when you took it out in the sun light around the flat part of the frame even the blue Smith+Wesson case looked A little disclored, so I got me some flizs polish an went to work, it would polish out , but after a short time it would reapear but not as much ,it took A long to finily get rid of it , but you have to keep it wiped down . never could figure out what it was to this day.

[BlenderWizard]

You might want to try flitz brand chemically treated cloth for stainless steel cleaning. I used it in the past and had success , doesn't cost that much either... good luck.

Yeah, it's not rust. It's the wrong color, and does not have any kind of texture to it.