Smoke pole champs All those front loaders look blued to be.
What happened to Browning ?
My Thompson/center barrel is browned.
Both were available back then. I'm not too familiar with the history though. Bluing is black oxide. It's a bit harder to produce, because the proces can end up browning the barrel. It is oxygen deficient oxide. Mostly Fe
3O
4. Browning is mostly red oxide, Fe
2O
3. The process produces a dense oxide, rather than the common fluffy rust. Historically it's just a process developed to develope a dense, stable rust. Bluing ends up converting to the brown(red oxide) over time in air and needs to be oiled to prevent(slow) that. Browning, being mostly rust is more forgiving as far as the esthetics of further rusting goes.
The black oxide produced by bluing is harder and looks nice, so that's what I've used.