Wire wheel doesn’t seem to touch rust beyond the loose flakes, just starts polishing once you get down to that point. flap discs seem to clog up quickly and quit cutting unless you use super coarse grit. The paint and rust stripper discs seem to make short work of paint but I haven’t tried them on heavy rust yet.
I agree with
@Doppleganger take them to a powder coater and have them blasted and coated in one stop.
I’ve gone through 700 pounds of blasting media this year using a cheapo harbor freight pressure pot blaster. Each time we blast we waste a bag of media before the blaster gets tuned and running right, makes a huge mess, and has about worn out the big compressor at the shop.
When I worked at a tire shop as a kid the local dirt track guys would bring me their bent, gouged, and rusty bead rims once they couldn’t get them to hold a bead.
A little clean up with a 3M roloc disc, and some light banging with a hammer followed by a heavy doucheing of Coppercoat head gasket sealer between the bead and wheel lip usually did the trick. They were a real MF to deal with the next time though.