Hmmm... The give away is your comment that the barrel exterior was bead blasted. How about the trigger and hammer?

I purchased a 5946 from CDNN that was categorized as VG - EX. Someone had bead blasted it, put on new Novak sights and put on new grips. However, there was significant gouging, as though the gun had been dropped, on the front of the slide, the bushing and the beavertail. The ENTIRE gun had been bead blasted with 800 grit media - barrel, trigger, hammer, internals, you name it. Whoever did it did a good job, but it was obvious that the gun had suffered some abuse before being refinished. I would recommend you give it a good look over for signs of deep scratching, rounded edges and scrapes that couldn't be removed by bead blasting.

Now, this is not to say that a refinished 3rd Generation is not a good buy. I've bought several 'basket case' guns that I stripped, had bead blasted (though not the barrels!) and put back together with new springs and they shoot like champs!

Edited to add: I re-read your post and noted the comment about the safety being hard to manipulate. This could indicate that the manual safety plunger was installed backwards (easy to do), a situation that is easy to remedy if you know how to get the safety body out. I guarantee the plunger didn't go in backwards at the factory, so my guess is that someone has had the gun apart to refinish it and put it back together wrong.

Is the price good? I don't think so. It's been refinished, someone has had it apart and put it back together wrong, and CDNN sells 'VG - EX' grade 4006s all day for $300 plus shipping. The dealer would have to come off the price at least $60 to get my attention.