Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns New take on an old RIA

Finally got my Rock all done.

Problem started when I got Hoppes #9 on it. It stained the finish and started taking it off, esepcially under the finger groove section of the Hogue wrap grips. So......

First, I stripped it completely down and had the electroplate matte nickel removed. Also took the opportunity to re-contour the thumb safeties and do a light dehorn job on all the parts. Bead blasted all the parts and had them blued.

As for the frame and slide, I flat-topped it, did a French border with a 1/16" ball mill, did the ball cuts on the spring tunnel, and beveled the lower slide edge. The frame got a stippled front strap, and both got a general dehorn job.

Finally, the frame and slide were blasted and electroless nickel plated, and a EGW MSH/magwell as well as a set of Davidson Horned Lizards were added.

Before pic:



After:

Nice! I too like the Horned Lizards on stainless or silver finished guns.

yeah. me,too......

That came out great.

Very nice, indeed.

Looks very good. Who did the electroless nickel?

We have a local shop that does some of the parts we make. I had them do it. They stripped the old plating off as well.

Thanks for the compliments, I really like how it turned out.

I like it a lot. Hoppe's #9 has always been bad news on nickel plated guns. I wonder how many finishes have been ruined by it over the years.

Unless it's a black powder gun, most of my gun cleaning is just done with RemOil.

I�ve never understood the electroless nickel thing with Hoppes; I don�t understand what it is that messes up the nickel. Electroless nickel is some serious industrial grade tough-chit. It will resist rust better than most anything known to man or alien. It�s extremely wear resistant and if kept well, it looks very nice. But for some reason Hoppes will stain the crap out of it and make it look like crap. I�ve always used Break Free CLP with electrless nickel guns and it works very well. For electroplate nickel, hopes seems to have absolutely no issues at all; it can bathe in the stuff.

Well, getting Hoppes on it was an accident, but it ruined the electroplating that was on it before, so I'm not sure about all electroplated nickel not being susceptible to it.

I was under the impression that electroless was the one that wasn't hurt by Hoppes. May need to look further into that. Either way, I'm keeping it away from this one.

Most all Nickel finishes have a copper layer under the nickel for adhesion,Hopps will work on it PDQ,seen a few ruined Colts back in day from it...bad juju

Must be something to the old Colt�s electoless nickel, but only the matte electroless. I�ve had a Mk III Trooper with the bright electroless finish and Hoppes didn�t really affect it. But the matte eletroless on their 1911�s will look downright ugly if you hit it with Hoppes. I had a S&W 442 I picked up cheap after someone trashed the electoless finish on it, and while it looked bad, it wasn�t nearly as bad as the Colt�s electroless guns.

I'm not taking chances this time. Frame and slide will be far away when I use Hoppes on the barrel. Nothing but CLP anywhere else.

I like it!

Looks great!