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blue it first


infinity

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Depending on the smith, it's true that you'll need some break-in. Since chrome is really hard to remove, the smith probably wants to make sure everything is working well first too. Blue is almost free if your smith is set up to do it.

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L2S,

unfortunately i'm not from the US so as much as i want tripp or robar to do my finish I just...can't... :P but i'd love either of the 2 companies to do it since i've seen in the internet how great their job is.

Shred,

well, the'smith just told me that it'll be smoother if i blue it first then chrome after a few thousand rounds.

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"smoother" likely means "broken-in"...as shred said.

Listen to your gunsmith...he knows what works with the guns that he builds.

You have a few easy options for the break-in period:

- shoot it without a finish added (in the white...as L2S mentioned). This is a viable option for most everybody

- blue it (if your smith blues and it is cheap)

- parkerize it...cheap...better protection than the other two...and you can do it yourself (on the stove) if you feel up to it

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i usually suggest bluing the pistol first. since i do my own bluing, i never send a pistol out in the white, at least with the bluing it has some level of protection against rust developing on the unprotected surfaces. some customers want it chromed right away, which is not a problem but usually requires a bit more break in time since the addition of the chrome makes the gun a little tighter. if the gun is too tight after the chroming is done, you can carefully lap the parts together again to smooth out any real tight spots in the chrome. to do this i use a mixture of heavy tapping oil ( yes tapping not lapping ) and #800 lapping compound. make sure when you are done to thoroughly clean all the lapping compound off the parts.

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let true weight the dealer of sti do the smithing. they will cut to very tight tolerances to fit your gun.

mine when i got it i could not pull the slide back. i have to push the barrel from the muzzle for it to unlock.

it jams on the first hunded rounds but after that it fires without a hitch. it was chromed immediately and sand blasted.

after a thousand or so rounds you will be able to pull the slide back by pulling on it.

now after 16000 plus rounds and 1 year it is still very tight and very accurate.

just tell them to fit it as tight as they can

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Blue it first. I built my current limited gun very tight, I then shot it about 15k rounds. I had it hard chromed and I still had to do some refitting. Hard chrome is very thin but it DOES have thickness so if the gun is tight shoot the slobber out of it before you have it chromed. The happy ending of this story is that the gun has about 70k on it now and is still tighter than most custom blasters out of the box.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Cold blue is generally not as resistant to wear as hot blue. You also don't get quite the depth of finish color with cold blues. The biggest problem with some cold blues is that some gun solvents will take them right off.

Cold blue is better than bare steel...barely. Not all cold blues are created equal. I have played with the Novum Solutions Blue Wonder cold blue and it is pretty interesting stuff. Tried it on some scrap high carbon steel and was pretty impressed.

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I don't want to speak for Benny Hill, but I asked him about breaking in my Fat Free first before hardchrome. He recommended to me not to do it. Although my frame was off the blowed up gun.....He's a straight up guy and will give good sensible reasoning.

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