I have an action that is blued and I want it stripped so I can case it at a later date. Anyone out there who does this or can it be done at home so to speak and what could I use to do it?



JMH

Soak it in white vinegar and check on it every 3-4 hours. It may take a day or so but will remove the blueing.

Another quick way, is to find some muriatic acid at your local fleet store. Mix about a 10% solution, acid into water, cover your action in the solution and it will be blue free in about 2 minutes. Rinse it really well and then oil real well or you'll have flash rusting very quickly.

Birchwood Casey's Blue and Rust remover works well also.

Another vote for Naval Jelly. I get it at Home Depot and it comes in a plastic bottle. Easy to brush on, and the bluing is gone in less than a minute.

Any weak acid soln will remove bluing.
Hot salt bluing will come off quicker than Rust Bluing. But they both will fade in the soln and eventually the natural steel underneath will show.

Some will very lightly etch the surface of the steel leaving it with a not unpleasant dove gray color. That can be quickly removed by a light polishing with even Scotchbright.

Vinegar works as it is Acidic acid.
Naval Jelley is Phosphoric acid
Tidy Bowl cleaner is Phosphoric Acid in a couple different forms.
Acidic and Phosphoric acids are weak compared to some others and are both decent rust removers


Muriatic acid is Hydrochloric Acid in a less than chem pure form.
Sold in Home Improvement stores as Pool Acid and Masonry cleaner among other uses. 
It works well and I use it all the time for bluing remover and also removing heat scale from welded and hard soldered parts.
BUT, you must use a very weak soln in water as Old-Win states.
You risk pitting the steel with a strong acid % soln.

A weak soln will remove the bluing just fine. I put about a tablespoon of the acid in 1 QT of water. Use room temp.

If you are sending the parts out for color case hardening, then they should be carefully polished as already noted. That will remove any small imperfections in the surfaces that can hide under bluing,,you may be surprised how they look once the bluing is gone and they are 'in the white'.
Plus the colors will generally be better on freshly polished surfaces than if the parts are just stripped and perhaps only lightly scuffed down with scotchbrite or steelwool, and then CCH'd.

If any of the parts had been previously case hardened, they should be annealed and polished before being re-color case hardened.
Probably not the issue here..

Many moons ago a buddy dared me to eat a pickled pig foot.  I accepted the challenge but accidentally spilled a bit of the juice on the barrel of a Ruger #1 that I had purchased new in’75.  Took the blue right off!   

As has been stated, any weak acid will work, but my least favorite is  muriatic.  If you use it inside your shop expect the fumes to cause everything to rust.  It is so bad that I never even bring a capped bottle inside.  Also, if the de- blued part isn’t neutralized thoroughly, it will rust up very quickly.  I much prefer anything to  muriatic.

I vote for any solution that uses phosphoric acid as the primary ingredient.  I’ve also had good luck with Brownell’s blue remover, and my guess is that Birchwood Casey would work just as well.  Vinegar works but is sort of slow.   Naval Jelly is cheap and available in any hardware store, so for a single job it is probably what I would go with.