Plating Handguns

Babalooie

I have an old S&W .32 long hand ejector that I originally bought for the Mother of Pearl grips only. It was in really bad shape; heavily worn (used to be nickel plated) and lots of nasty pitting. I had it checked out and was told it was safe to shoot. Shot a box of ammo through it and it seemed O.K. So, I'm thinking of having this bad boy replated. I smoothed out most of the craters, but some remain. Don't know if I should have it parkerized, chromed, or nickel plated. Any suggestions?

"That which does not kill us makes us stronger."
- Friedrich Nietsche
"Only the strong survive."
- Jerry Butler

Contender Man

If you've polished it out to bare metal, considering the value of these guns I don't think I would put any money in a plating job, in fact what you realy have is a shooter so get yourself some Blue Wonder cleaner and bluing and give it a nice home bluding job. BW is not a hot blue nor is it a cold ... with a hair dryer, heat gun, or propane torch you get the metal warm (125-130 degrees f) and apply the bluing. Does a pretty good job and you can apply additional coats to get the coloring darker.

When you stripped the finish, even in relatively poor condition, you wiped out whatever collector value the revolver may have had. So now with bare metal you need to do something and whatever that is you shouldn't spend much money on it as there is nothing you can do now to really restore or raise the value.



If you only have time to do two things so-so, or one thing well ... do the one thing!

Babalooie

The gun had no collector value before I worked on it. It was really that bad. I'm strictly looking at it from the point that I now have a .32 long revolver in case I want to shoot it. Like I mentioned previously, it was bought for the MOP grips. In fact, I was quite surprised when the gunsmith said it was capable of firing ammo without coming apart. It's a real P.O.S. and nothing more. The Blue Wonder idea is a good one. Thanks.

"That which does not kill us makes us stronger."
- Friedrich Nietsche
"Only the strong survive."
- Jerry Butler

Red223

Look what they did to my rust pitted Remington 742 receiver and bolt carrier....simply amazing:

http://forums.gunbroker.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=104497

www.fordsguns.com

email them with what you want and they will give you an estimate.

Babalooie

Thanks. I can use all the help I can get.

"That which does not kill us makes us stronger."
- Friedrich Nietsche
"Only the strong survive."
- Jerry Butler