Take a look at my freshly refinished "Royal Blue" Colt 1991A1 Compact Clark Meltdown
OK, it's not real Royal Blue since Colt didn't do it, but it is a very nice high polish blue in the spirit of the infamous Colt finish.
Anyway, my Clark Meltdown 1991A1 Compact was suffering from a very worn finish and I was hemming and hawing on what to do with it when I bought a nice set of Grashorn stag grips for it from a Colt forum member. Those grips looked so nice I immediately decided it had to be a high polish deep blue finish. I took it to my friends at Dietrich Gunsmithy in Otis, ME and left it with them for a couple of months and just got it back today. I had them clean all the roll markings off the slide, hand checker the front strap, install a S&A checkered MSH, bead blast the sights for a matte finish and put a brass bead in the front sight, cut an 11deg crown on the muzzle and polish the barrel and muzzle, then polish out the entire gun and blue it. Robin chose to knock down the points on his checkering to fit with the Meltdown theme and it works really well, I'm going to have him do the same with the MSH and round it a bit more to match the frame. Also, rather than cut the front sight to a partridge style and insert a bead, he notched it and filled it with brass. I like it a lot but he left it matte and it needs a bit of polish, that'll get done with the MSH.
So, here's a couple of before pics and the best of the after pics I took today. Please bear in mind, I'm a crummy photographer and it's a gray cloudy day here and I missed some oil when I wiped it down, so they really don't do the gun justice, it looks far better in person than in the pics. Regardless, let me know what you guys think!
Before-
After-
OK, it's not real Royal Blue since Colt didn't do it, but it is a very nice high polish blue in the spirit of the infamous Colt finish.
Anyway, my Clark Meltdown 1991A1 Compact was suffering from a very worn finish and I was hemming and hawing on what to do with it when I bought a nice set of Grashorn stag grips for it from a Colt forum member. Those grips looked so nice I immediately decided it had to be a high polish deep blue finish. I took it to my friends at Dietrich Gunsmithy in Otis, ME and left it with them for a couple of months and just got it back today. I had them clean all the roll markings off the slide, hand checker the front strap, install a S&A checkered MSH, bead blast the sights for a matte finish and put a brass bead in the front sight, cut an 11deg crown on the muzzle and polish the barrel and muzzle, then polish out the entire gun and blue it. Robin chose to knock down the points on his checkering to fit with the Meltdown theme and it works really well, I'm going to have him do the same with the MSH and round it a bit more to match the frame. Also, rather than cut the front sight to a partridge style and insert a bead, he notched it and filled it with brass. I like it a lot but he left it matte and it needs a bit of polish, that'll get done with the MSH.
So, here's a couple of before pics and the best of the after pics I took today. Please bear in mind, I'm a crummy photographer and it's a gray cloudy day here and I missed some oil when I wiped it down, so they really don't do the gun justice, it looks far better in person than in the pics. Regardless, let me know what you guys think!
Before-
After-
