Whlgun & 1911 fan said:
onenut58 thanks, I rubbed oil on the area but have not tried the 0000 steel wool.
You have to be careful when using steel wool... it releases tiny whiskers that are difficult to see on a blued gun when trying to remove them all.
They have a nasty habit of working their way into places unnoticed and cause more rust. In fact... don't risk using it.
A common technique for dealing with rust freckles is spray on a generous amount of a rust penetrating oil, such as Breakfree CLP, Corrosion-X or WD-40 and let it marinate overnight to really soften up the rust spots. Then use a bronze bore cleaning brush to scour the softened rust until it breaks apart you don't feel the bristles dragging. Instead of a brush, an age old trick is to run the raised edge of a real copper penny (made prior to 1982) over the softened rust to "scrape" it away. The soft copper will not remove bluing, but it is still hard enough to break up the rust. It leaves copper smears on the surface that are easily removed with more oil.
Wipe clean, re-oil and leave it that way, don't bother trying to retouch with a cold blue, it will not match the factory bluing and will be more noticeable than just leaving things as they are.
The cylinder and barrel muzzle on this gun had rust freckles from being stored in a leather holster when I bought it. Except for some minor discoloration in a couple of places, it came out pretty good: