I recently had an early 32-20 M&P original nickel revolver refinished by a local guy. I have seen his blueing applied to a few firearms and felt he was competent. This old 32-20 looked rough, had alot of serious pitting and nickel loss, had a nice lock-up, decent barrel, shot well and looking back of course I should have left good enough alone but I was in the mood to mess around with something and this was a candidate. He felt that he could remove the plating and then reblue it in a satin blue. I did not ask if he ever done this type of work before and he seemed confident. Over the next few months I would call to see how he was doing, he seemed to be having a very difficult time removing the plating, first off he complained about some grease that contaminated his tanks, etc. I am a patient guy which sometimes works to my advantage and other times does not. I was more than patient and nearly a full year after dropping off the pistol he calls me and tells me its done. He was apologetic and not happy with the way it turned out. He was not prepared for the amount of rustification that had taken place under the heavily pitted nickel but continued to soldier on at which point I probably would have put a stop to the entire process and called for some kind of truce. In the end the piece is nicely satin blued, functional, but certainly not as tight as original...to say it is worse than when I dropped it off would not be fair, it looks better but is nowhere near as crisp as it was. Live and Learn is a good way to look at it...I would be very hesitant to ever try that stunt again with anything that looked that rough, especially with nickel hiding rust lurking underneath its shiney surface. I would imagine that nickel that is just worn would not be a problem, but if there were any dark spots showing I would be very hesitant, from what I've learned.

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