Thanks to everyone for this very informative post.

Pardon a bit of thread drift, but has anyone tried blasting a slide or frame without a detail strip? Especially when not bead blasting the entire weapon, is it possible to remove the blasting media with a pressure washing? What about masking parts such as sights?

Seems like a detailed teardown and reassembly is considerably more work than the actual blasting and I wonder if there are any shortcuts.