Colt 1917

[machurtado]

I just got a colt 1917 from my wife's grandfather when he passed away and when he had it he had the hammer and cylinder chrome plated and everything else reblued. My question is can i have that chrome stripped and then have the whole gun reblued to match? Since the original finish has already been ruined o just want to get it back to looking as original as possible.

[James K]

Talk to a plating shop; they can usually reverse the plating process to remove it. Things may get tacky if someone removed a lot of metal to allow for the plating, but that should not be too big a problem.

Jim

[Dfariswheel]

A smart move is to pick one of the professional gun re-finishers and have them strip the plating and blue it at the same time.

First, they have to identify WHAT the plating is, since the stripping process needs to match the plating. In other words, they have to figure out if the plating is bright nickel or actually chrome.

Once the plating is identified and stripped, they can blue the gun with whatever level of bluing you want.
Note that these days you can have cheap bluing or you can have good bluing.
Good bluing is expensive because it's almost all hand polishing.
A good blue job keeps all the metal surfaces in factory original shape, no rounding off of edges, no dishing out of holes, and no ripples in the flats.
Nothing looks worse than a nice gun ruined by a ham-handed polisher.

Here's some top professionals who can strip the plating and re-finish to whatever level of polish you want for the blue.
I'd suggest talking to them about what you want.

http://www.apwcogan.com/
Possible the best all around gun finisher.

http://www.fordsguns.com/

http://www.elitecustomguns.com/index1.htm

[Jim Watson]

If you want it back to the rather dull brushed finish of the original Army contract guns, better tell the finisher up front.

Me?
I'd just leave it alone. It doesn't look original GI but it IS original Grandpa.

[machurtado]

Thanks guys you've been a lot of help