Henry Rifle Forums

A couple of years ago, my fiancee' gave me her deceased husband's Buck 110 knife. I came to find out it is an iconic knife. It has one dot on the left side and two dots on the right side which means it was manufactured in 1981-'82. The knife had been sitting in a nightstand, untouched since her husband passed away a year and a half before I contacted her after almost sixty years since we lost contact with one another.
The knife had started to turn green in many spots, so I got some brass cleaner and cleaned it up. I found a nice leather sheath for it and now keep it in my nightstand. I wipe it off periodically, but have noticed in those hard to get at places, it still turns green. I use Q-Tips to clean there.
My query is, why brass was used in the first place for Henry Rifles if they required so much attention to keep clean. I don't know anything about metallurgy, so I was just curious why another metal(s) were not used for the frame and why brass is still used today.

I don't know much about metallurgy either, but, I do remember reading that Henry uses a special formulated brass wirh a high tensil strength for their rifles. Guessing that formulation has something to do about those receivers not going green like the knife you have. I know the green you mention, as I've seen it on leather sling buckles.

if you clean the brass and wax it would it seal the brass to keep it from corroding?

My Buck 110, which according to Buck's site was made in 72 or 73 and has seen plenty of use shows no signs of green. Have never used any cleaner on it, brass or otherwise. Even the inside where the blade folds into shows no green. I used it for just about anything until I got my first Leatherman, since then it's pretty much just stayed in it's sheath. Maybe they changed the brass composition on the later years?