Crosman 2100 Barrel Surface Rust

[flagger]

I neighbor gave me a Crosman 2100 Classic. The outside of the barrel has very bad surface rust and pitting.
My goal is to make this as presentable as possible.
An old timer once told me to clean rust off a classic car bumper was to use bunched up tin foil and WD 40 as a lube and rub that on the bumper to remove the rust.
Has anyone tried this on the outside of a barrel?
What other methods are you using to remove outside barrel rust? As stated, it is pitted so not expecting much here, just presentable.
THANKS

 

[Treefrog]

I use 000-grade steel wool, elbow grease, and WD-40. It takes a while but it works. The pitting is there to stay, but if the rifle shoots, that doesn't matter much.

Cheers,

J~

 

[nervoustrig]

If it’s a real basket case, look into electrolysis rust removal. The nice thing about it is it will remove all rust, including in the pitted areas, and the reaction ceases when the rust is gone (will not remove good steel). Therefore it is okay to submerge the entire barrel but if that scares you, plug the bore first or cap the ends.

Surprisingly easy to set up and probably less than $20 in materials if you already have an old computer power supply or 12V power adapter lying around.

 

[marflow 777]

so, yet assume you have nothing to work on the rifle
your supplies will cost X amount and then you get it all cleaned up and now what, well cold blue and that will cost most and some good gun protector like Break Free
now you want the project but at what point would a nice barrel off Ebay be a better bet and there are some
now you will have to understand that there were several models of this and the barrels could be different and that would be found at Crosman manuals page
i would buy a new used barrel if the cost was a push