[AlongCameJones]

I'm not worried about scratches at all with satin or bead-blasted finishes. I like crisp numbers and letters on barrels, though. The letters and numbers on my 686 look like they were drawn on beach sand with a stick. Very lame for a wheel gun retailing for $900. Roll stamping displaces metal and pushes it outward and upward causing the surfaces around the letters and numbers to buckle slightly. This is why barrels can bulge when a button forms the grooves of the rifling. Metal is compressed or displaced, not removed. I believe the gunsmiths would dehorn the rough edges on the letters, numbers, cylinder and barrel and frame surface first by machining before blasting on the new satin surface.

Sometimes roll stamped characters look crooked or deformed. They can have uneven depths or uneven impression line thicknesses. It is a cheap marking method lacking precision and neatness.

I would be ashamed in my workmanship as a gunsmith to use roll stamping.