Star BM: Thoughts on refinishing...

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mainegrw

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I picked up a very cheap Star BM in my travels this weekend. It is a CAI imported gun, supposedly surplus from the Spanish police forces. The gun was labeled as good by CAI, however the former owner I'm told used it as an EDC and it really did in the finish.

Because it's really rough and has the CAI marking down the right side, as well as milling Mark's where the Spanish Police Mark's were removed, I'm thinking that it would be a good candidate for a refinishing job. My first inclination was to use something like British Black to give it that semigloss Suncorite look, but I'm not sure.

As someone who has little experience refinishing firearms I'm wondering if anyone has some suggestions to get this thing looking nice without spending too much money to do so. Thoughts?

Sent from my SM-N976V using Tapatalk
 
Mine shows some wear, but not bad enough to tempt me to try to refinish it. Even with the best of refinishing, there's still that import manuscript on the slide that no refinishing is going to make looking better.

For me, it is what it is, a cheap, reliable 9mm. I realize this doesn't address your question, but I've never had much luck with self-applied bluing. Takes a lot of polishing and work to get marginal results. I have touched up with Brownell's Oxypho blue, which is pretty good for touching up.
 
I agree about not spending too much money. They were good little guns, but finding parts can be problematic if anything breaks. You could try Brownells Oxpho-Blue. It does a decent cold blue job. If it were mine and I just wanted to play around, I might try one of the home Parkerizing methods.
 
Not really any collector value, so I say refinish it however you desire. Cheap would be Oxpho-Blue or, if you want to invest the time and effort, rust blue can look very nice. Home parkerizing can be done, but can be dangerous. You can also consider a spray and bake finish. KG Gunkote over a layer of their KG K-phos is a very durable home refinishing system. Moving to the professional finishes, listed in order of increasing cost:
Parkerized
Satin/bead blasted blue
Polished blue
Nickel plated
Hard chrome plated


The most durable finish would be hard chrome, but you may not be looking to spend a few hundred dollars on a Star BM.
 
I rebuilt a parts 1911A1 a couple years ago and had it cerakoted (sp?0) and really liked the results. Cost was around $60, but well worth it. Many colors to choose from, I went with a black. As for my Star BM, I think it will stay the way I received it, although not bad for wear anyway. If I ever do change it, I will repeat the process as with the 1911.
 
I did lots of medium temp (185 degrees F)Parkerizing. The different contents of the steel alloy effect the color. I'm not sure the frame and slide are the same alloy! This would apply to bluing also! The percent of Iron (Fe) is the factor, Chromium, Nickel and Melodeum will lighten things up.

I would stick with the cold blue unless you already own all the buffing equipment and the bluing tanks!

Ivan
 
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A friend of mine just ceracoated his Star last month. He did it in a grey/blue about the color of an original VZ58. It turned out very nice, I wish I had a picture of it.
 
If you don't mind experimenting there is a fair method of re-finish that uses heat(not too much!!) a good browning solution and Oxpho blue that looks pretty good.Go to YouTube and look for a video on the Best "cold blue" .This works if you are careful and follow directions with the chemicals.
 
Duracoat. It's a basically spraypaint mixed with epoxy. Inexpensive, easy to do yourself, and assuming you patiently follow the instructions, comes out looking excellent. (Durablue or Glossy Black would likely be the colors you're looking for by the way.)

I doubt that there are or ever will be hardcore Star collectors out there, and even if there are, I doubt that they're the sort who would be interested in import-marked Stars, as most collectors seem to absolutely despise import marks of any kind save for those of historical significance.
So yeah, I would refinish it without a second thought.
 
Thanks for the advice all! So I've narrowed down my options to two I think: Duracoat or one of the DIY hot bluing solutions available. The Duracoat seems like the easier of the two options and I probably will give it a go. If that fails, I can always strip it and go for a hot blue.

Sent from my SM-N976V using Tapatalk
 
I got this one YEARS ago...before all the ones came in a year or two ago. I got it for $120, which I thought was a good deal at the time. It had one mag. Spares were very difficult to find and I think I paid $70 for a spare.

It was in fine mechanical condition, but had significant finish issues as you can see.

DSCN1188.jpg


It was my first effort at refinishing and I cold blued the little pieces and sprayed the rest with Aluma-Hyde. Found some nice grips from Turkey, and it is truly one of my favorite guns to shoot. Of course, then all these nice ones came in for reasonable prices and I kick myself.

DSCN1704.jpg
 
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Nice looking job you did there! Mine was in a little better shape but I paid more for it. Still a bargain and a pistol I'll keep because it's handy and I doubt I could sell it with all the imports now available even if I wanted to. I got two mags with mine, one of which was bad, got it replaced by the importer with a phone call, no charge, IIRC. The bad mag had a piece of green tape on the bottom, which might have been a signal to the original user that it was bad. Also got a cleaning rod and the box like yours with a manual in Spanish.

It's a dandy little gun, a bit on the heavy side. I will disable the mag safety (easy) when I get around to it which should improve the trigger pull.
 
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Last night, I removed the mag safety and it improved the trigger pull by quite a bit. I got my BM last year, paid for the premium, and got a pistol with a pretty good finish. Worth the $25 to me.




 
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Well, I went against my own advice and put grips on my BM 9. Now, instead of a $200 pistol, I've got a $25 more expense into a pistol that's still worth $200. Oh, well.

 
Refinishing a Star BM would be a labor of love (nothing wrong with that), because you will not get your money out of it. J&G sales is selling Star BMs for $179.95 and have various parts for sale including frames, barrels and grips. They have magazines for $29.95 which is about half price. I have no interest, just passing the word.
 

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Gene L said:
Well, I went against my own advice and put grips on my BM 9. Now, instead of a $200 pistol, I've got a $25 more expense into a pistol that's still worth $200. Oh, well.

Click to expand...

I dunno, that might be a $235 pistol now! It looks a whole lot better with checkered wood stocks.
 
I ceracoated the one I had for $60. It looked good and was a good shooter. I sold it to a friend who liked it enough for $250. I broke even on it but carried it as a truck gun for two years and put a couple thousand rounds through it.
 
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