Light rust pitting on NickleSteel cleaner?

I'm sure Kim replied back to this question of mine yesterday, but I'm kinda new to this site and I can't find her reply.
Anyway, my question was. I have some light rust pitting on my Winchester 94 on the NickleSteel and wanted to know is there a house hold cleaner (or store bought) that I can use to remove it. Or, if I was going to sell it, do I even want to clean that up? I will be unemployed in 7 days and I'm just trying not to spend any money if I don't have to. Thanks - Tom

i did reply to your post on the cleaning method i use,,000 or 0000 steel wool with some light oil should do the trick unless the pitting is deep,,if just surface rust i'd try the steel wool method and it should clean it up nicely,,it's not nessasary to rub hard just enough to remove the rust then follow up with a soft cloth with a good gun oil or houshold oil and you should be good to go
bigcurt

Thank you. Like I said, I am new to this site and I tried searching for the reply post but couldn't find it. Hey, one more question if I may. My old timer neighbor (now gone) once said, if you are going to sell a weapon, it's better to just clean the wood and leave the other metals alone. Any truth to that?

thanks again... -Tom

yes and no ,,if it's a very valuable rifle you don't want to take away any of the character from it ie..patina on the metal or small nicks and scratches in the wood ,,but on the other hand would you buy a car with alot of rust and pay top dollar for it,,light cleaning with the steel wool and oil will only take some of the careless storage problems off of the metal and shouldn't ruin the original finish if any is left ,,i don't recomend scurbbing the finish off but it's amazing what even a good coat of oil and a good cleaning will do to a rifles finish and how much it will attract more intrest than something with alot of small rust freckling..freckling is a very light spotty type rust that is from humidity not really imbedded into the metal basically just surface issues..i wouldn't recommend anything but a good furniture cleaner for the wood because if you try refinishing the wood or the metal it will still have value but unless professionally done and even done right will detract from the originality,,i've cleaned up old military rifles that i thought were really bad and found that with the right cleaning theres a real jewel underneith the old grease and grime and it definattly increased the value from the original look it came with but didn't remove the blueing or scratch the metal..so i guess it's a call shot to clean or not to clean,,i'd give it a try,,if your afraid to ruin it then best leave it alone but i think a light cleaning will do wonders and the person buying your rifle will appreiciate it more if cleaned and oiled,,just my 2 cents worth and hope i've helped ya some
bigcurt

Wow, thanks for all your thoughts, very helpful. I'll try the light cleaning and go from there. Thank you again... - Tom

no problem ..thats what we are here for ,,just remember try not to use anything coarser than 000 steel wool..it gets corser as it goes down..in other words 00 is corser 0 is corser yet and so on,,alot of dollar stores sell packs of steel wool in the sections where they have the dollar tools..good luck with it and let us know how ya did..
bigcurt