I am looking at a nickel plated Smith.

Is there any special care required to keep the finish up on a nickel plated firearm?

A nickel finish is very tough unless its been dinged hard enough to chip it.One of my favorite beaters is nickel.

I have heard that some cleaning solvents, Hoppe's in particular, can damage nickel if left on the finish for any length of time. I don't know if this is true but I've always been careful when using it on nickle guns.

Plus one for not letting bore solvents lay on the nickel. Use what you want to clean but wipe it off when done. If the nickel gets hazy a light polish with Flitz does the trick, just don't use a power tool such as a Dremil!

__________________
Stay safe people!

Read the ingredients and stay away from all cleaners and solvents with ammonia....including Hoppes #9 and others.

__________________
Ret. LE, FA Instr, S&W Armorer

Let's not go there any more. This story about Hoppe's damaging Nickel keeps coming up again and again. There is NOTHING in Hoppes which will harm nickel. Period. And S&W does not underplate Nickel with copper. You can clean nickel plating with anything you want. Bore cleaner, mineral spirist, light oil, Windex, whatever is handy. Flitz is good for polishing. Another oft-repeated falsehood is that Flitz is abrasive. It is not.

I wiped down a nickeled H&R snake charmer with Birchwood Casey's Barricade. Took it out of the safe a couple of months later and the nickel finish on the receiver would wipe right off. Normally I had used CLP and never had a problem in several years. Anyway, big mistake on my part! Sold it cheap to a friend.

I soaked a Colt D.S. Cylinder in Hoppes #9 over a weekend and the nickel was completely gone. I had to have it re-nickeled. The ammonia is what attacks the copper under the nickel.

__________________
NRA Patron Member
Semper Fi

Yep, Colt uses copper under the nickel plating from what I've read, which is why it attacked your cylinder. S&W doesn't do it, also from what I've read.

I have a nickel Model 27-2 that is going on 41 years in my possession and 95% of the time it has been cleaned with Hoppes #9. I do have 2 spots where the bore cleaner has messed with the nickel and they are right next to each other under where the Pachmayr grip covered the frame. Evidently I got very sloppy one or more times cleaning and some dripped under the grip and stayed. The rest of the nickel finish is in fine shape except for some fine usage scratches you can barely see. So as long as you are careful not to let it drip under your grip and have it set there for months, an ammoniated cleaner such as Hoppes #9 can be used without harming your nickel finish on a Smith & Wesson.

Here is the information.....straight from the Hoppe's 9 bottle (and, yes, I did soak one once prior to reading the instructions - fortunately it was an old H&R top break!).

Attached Images

IMG_4413[1].jpg (116.3 KB, 79 views)

I have several nickel Smiths and I use a bit of Flitz on them. It not only shines them up, it makes them much easier to clean.

Copper substrate under the nickel, Colt yes, S&W no.

__________________
Stay safe people!

MSDS information on the Hoppe's web site.......lists Hoppe's #9 as containing "ammonium hydroxide".

http://www.hoppes.com/Hoppes/media/F...orecleaner.pdf

Ammonia, and ammonia compounds will damage nickel plating if left on the surface too long. I've been using Hoppe's #9 as a bore solvent for years. After reading warnings on the bottle, doing some research, and seeing the damage first hand as an armorer over the last 30 years, I don't use it on nickel plated surfaces.

Attached Images

IMG_0264.jpg (86.7 KB, 8 views)

__________________
Ret. LE, FA Instr, S&W Armorer