I am new to collecting Smiths. I have always heard that the older guns had beautiful deeper blueing than the newer guns. Is this true and if so, when did this change take place? Any help you could give would be greatly appreciated.
The old process that S&W used was a dry (oven) process called Carbona bluing. It was phased out between 1976 - 1978 for the chemical hot bluing process.
I've read that S&W discontinued the Carbona bluing because of the increasing difficulty in obtaining the quality and particular bone meal that was the key to their results.
Last edited by Gunhacker; 03-07-2010 at 01:49 AM.
Reason: spelling