Anyone tried to polish their stainless steel firearm like revolvers to a high shine? What did you use and did you do it by hand or tool like a dremel? How did it come out?



In this case what would you do? How would you get rid of the small machine lines? Would you wet sand it or just send it out for a professional job?

Buy a mini grinder/buffer from Harbor Freight $29.95. buy thier rogue while your at it. The wheel is 1" wide so it polishes big surfaces faster. dremels take too long and hard to be consitant on large surfaces.

If you have an old gun check the value before you polish it.  you might kill the value

If still get lines / scratches they need to be polished out with more abrasive grit first?  I don't think red rouge is going to do it if really deep or would take a very long time and then run the risk of making the finish wavy.  Practice on other things first would be best advice for DIY, then GL!

Did a quick polish of my ruger mkii comp target with a buff ball and mothers mag polish.  Plently more to go but she shines.  It does bring out all the factory flaws in the metal which need more attention than I have time right now.

I sand everything with 10000 grit sandpaper before polishing.

Contact surfkook for the best deals on sandpaper

I have not polished a firearm, yet...  I have polished many other things from aluminum, stainless, magnesium and brass parts for my VW and sportbike hobbies.  I have been told to use 400, 800 and 1200 grit wet sandpaper and final polish with Mothers mag polish.  I was not happy to end up with a "cloudy" mirror finish.  IMO for best results, one has to start with a wet sanding paper rough enough to get rid of the tool marks and eventually using the finer and finer grit of wet sandpaper.  I may start with the 320, then work the 400, 600, 800, 1000, 1200, 1500 then stop at 2000 grit wet sandpaper.  Then off to the bench model buffer.  I start buffing with the red rouge, clean the buffers and finally buff with the white rouge.  Then for the final polish with Never-Dull.  In the end one ends up with a mirror like finish.

In the past, I have always wanted to stop wet sanding once I hit the 400 grit and stick with the brushed look.  I have also stopped and considered media blasting.  But in the end, I usually suck it up and go through with it. 

I would think, doing a firearm will be similar.  A Dremel would work, or pneumatic grinders with various felt bobs and various buffing compounds.  In the end it is all up to the one doing the job.  What does one consider polished?  Is shiny enough or does one want to see him/herself in the object in hand?