Recently accquired 4506-1, can anyone tell me what the ripple is in the pic? It looks almost like paint or something used to cover up a wear mark maybe? When I run my finger over it it's bumpy, the opposite side is completely smooth. Is there any way I can smooth it out? Thanks in advance. Thanks SOAG. See pics below

Looks like an oops with the milling machine when the slide was made and it got by QC.

It looks to me like the gun has been refinished and coated and if that is the case who knows what was done to it.

Thanks SOAG. S&W told me it left the factory in Feb. 1990 so I figured it's been refurbished. Other than the ripple it's clean inside and out, this is the first one I've owned and I'm just kinda getting to know it . I had to go thru hell and back to get this because I'm in Ca and -1 means off roster. One thing I love about the 4506 is the grips, they are one of the few handguns that fit my hand. I'm hoping the ripple can be smoothed out.

I doubt it has been refinished. Many 4506s have some type of imperfection similar to that. It was most probably left by a cutter head that had a blade that wasn't sharpened to the correct sharpness. It gives your gun character....

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Un-Reconstructed Southerner

I had trouble seeing what you were talking about but it could be when they milled the radiused cut the ball nose end mill could have been dull and chattered a bit, is it on both sides? Stainless steel is very tough to mill because of the chrome that is in the material. Jeff

No it's just the one side where I took a close up, it's hard to get a good pic of it because of the light on the stainless and because I'm using a phone camera. The ripples you see on the bottom are all the way across the groove, it almost looks the way paint over spray does and when I run my finger over it it feels bumpy like there's a build up of something there, the opposite side is super smooth

Looks like a tooling mark from a mill...

Thats a good way to look at it I guess, my big concern was that area flaking or getting worse after a couple hundred rounds have been put thru it. Looks like most opinions are that it's not been refinished and that area is a machining or tool mark.

You could polish that area out with Scotchbrite or fine sandpaper, but I would not recommend it nor do that myself.

I don't think you need to worry about flaking. I would shoot it as is and enjoy it. After a while I suspect you will forget about the finish issue.

Thanks for the looks and opinions, they are much appreciated. This S&W really shows how dumb the California Doj "safe handgun roster" is. The roster shows only the 4506 sku#108163 as approved for sale. That means if you want a 4506-1 and it's not already in the state you can't have one shipped in and if you do find one in the state it can't be shipped it, it must be a face to face transaction from a private party, if it's an FFL selling and it's not a consignment you can't buy unless your exempt (LEO). Why in the heck S&W has only the 4506 on the roster is beyond me and why they attach a SKU# to it also makes no sense either since the SKU# is on the box and we're talking about a gun that hasn't been produced since 1999(?), so how likely is it you're gonna get an original box with a matching sku#?. Also in all the searching I did I saw several transitional guns that had all the 4506-1 features but were stamped 4506 so why should the -1 be off roster? I'd like to get a 5906 next and I see that CDNN has bucketloads of them on the cheap but, of course, the 5906 is off roster (but the 5906TSW is on it). Anyways enough about our goofy gun laws here in the "golden state", thanks for the looks.