Howdy boys, it's mulehide9 again. I really appreciate everyones friendlyness and amazing knowledge on this forum. I have my eye on a victory pistol at a local pawn shop. It has those stupid rubber grips so I didn't look at the serial. I didn"t think at the time to look under the barrel. This gun has the "MIDNIGHT BLACK" finish and is not very good. Whats the story on that type of finish???

Howdy boys, it's mulehide9 again. I really appreciate everyones friendlyness and amazing knowledge on this forum. I have my eye on a victory pistol at a local pawn shop. It has those stupid rubber grips so I didn't look at the serial. I didn"t think at the time to look under the barrel. This gun has the "MIDNIGHT BLACK" finish and is not very good. Whats the story on that type of finish???

The military wanted a dull non reflective finish on the Victory models so S&W came up with their version, which they called Black Magic or Sand Blast Blue. This was because when the started out useing Parkerizing for the finish,they discovered that Parkerizing was a patented product and they would have to pay royalties to use it, so being their usual parsimonious selves, they invented their own dull finish.