does anyone know what will happen if i pollish the out side of the barrell on my .380? the web site says it is made of SAE 4140 ordnance steel, heat treated to 48 HRC. will it rust if i buff it down to a shine? Is there a coating on it from the factory? I'm planning on doing my M&P 40c also, but it has a stainless barrell so i'm not worried about that one.
Well it may end up looking like this; This is a P40 barrel but my P3 looked just as shiney when I was done with it. No coating. Polishing it may close some of the little holes in the surface. This will make it not hold as much oil in the surface. That being siad I've had no problems with rust on any of mine. Just keep it well lubed. Another pic;
I don't know how Rat does it but I just use a Dremel with the felt tips and the jewlers rouge. If they have problem areas (as some old guns will) I sometimes start out with fine sand papers gradually working my way up the grit scale and then I hit them with the Dremel stuff. ;-)
I polished mine starting with 600 grit paper, then 1000 and 1200 grit, followed by a dremel with felt tips and jeweler's rouge as well. I actually was having problems with extraction, where the case would hang up before it left the chamber. So I repeated the process for the chamber, and it was night and day in terms of performance. I am now at 150 trouble free rounds, where I would have a failure every 15 before.
Like Ape said, sand paper then felt on dremel. I start the dremel work with the rouge that came with the dremel & follow up with white auto polish. +1 on polishing the chamber. At a MINIMIUM I polish the feed ramp & chamber on all of my guns.
I've asked this before, but should I buff my parkerized barrel? I know that this finish helps prevent rust, but since I've been having all my extraction problems, I'm ready to try just about anything to help.
I would not polish the exterior. I WOULD polish the beejeesus out of the chamber & feed ramp. Start with some 400 or 600 grit wet/dry paper wrapped around a round object. Pen dowel rod etc. Use an in & out motion. If you start with a dremel bullet you will end up polishing concentric rings in the chamber. After you have it smooth with the paper finish it off with the dremel. I use a little felt cylinder with the dremel held at right angles to the barrel to do the ramp. I then finish off the chamber with the felt tip & polish.
