Re-blue locally?

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I have my eyes on a few 15-2's such as this one on gunbroker in similar wear. I was wondering if there are currently any places that re-blue local to the north shore area, and at what cost. Also was wondering how effective it is and any other issues other's have frequently come across when purchasing a non well kept revolver such as this.
 
I bought a model 10 police trade in once. Turns out it was a pd in a foreign country. External wear, but everything else was fine. Has become a fun little plinker.
 
call Smith and Wesson and ask them about refinishing it, I know they used to do that.
 
I had gone through this just recently. Went through Great Road firearms as the middle man to RustBluing in Natick. Sergey Lyalko i believe was the person behind it. Took about a month or so but I was not in a rush. A bit expensive at 300 bucks for my older K22 but it was a nice job. Wasnt perfect as I can see some of the lighter and darker areas but the roll marks were not ground down and the edges and corners are still pretty sharp.
 
I would ask why you want to get a revolver with moderate wear and then re-blue it?

As a general rule, you will not save money, or get a great finish, by refinishing a well worn revolver. Getting a revolver refinshed at a quality that is anything close to factory original is not cheap, and is also not easy to find a place that will do a good job. If the goal is just to have a good looking revolver, I would suggest to save up and shop around until you are able to buy something that is in the condition you want.

The revolver you have linked to has what I would consider moderate wear. I would be happy to have it as a shooter in its current condition. I thought the asking price is a bit high, but the basic condition of the revolver is acceptable to me for a working gun. It has much more finish than some guns I see that really need refinishing.

You also occasionally see guns in very poor surface shape that lend themselves to a different sort of project. These guns may have some pitting, and nearly all of the original finish is gone. Usually, they are still priced to high. But if the price is right, they can be a candidate for sandblast and ceracote. This does not result in a pretty re-blued finish, but it can be acceptable for a working gun. And even here, the total price may be too high unless you can do a bunch of the refinish work yourself.
 
I had gone through this just recently. Went through Great Road firearms as the middle man to RustBluing in Natick. Sergey Lyalko i believe was the person behind it. Took about a month or so but I was not in a rush. A bit expensive at 300 bucks for my older K22 but it was a nice job. Wasnt perfect as I can see some of the lighter and darker areas but the roll marks were not ground down and the edges and corners are still pretty sharp.

I dealt with rust blue directly on rebuling an AH fox SxS. He did a great job it was on the pricey side but he didn’t ask for a dime until he was done.
 
I would ask why you want to get a revolver with moderate wear and then re-blue it?

As a general rule, you will not save money, or get a great finish, by refinishing a well worn revolver. Getting a revolver refinshed at a quality that is anything close to factory original is not cheap, and is also not easy to find a place that will do a good job. If the goal is just to have a good looking revolver, I would suggest to save up and shop around until you are able to buy something that is in the condition you want.

The revolver you have linked to has what I would consider moderate wear. I would be happy to have it as a shooter in its current condition. I thought the asking price is a bit high, but the basic condition of the revolver is acceptable to me for a working gun. It has much more finish than some guns I see that really need refinishing.

You also occasionally see guns in very poor surface shape that lend themselves to a different sort of project. These guns may have some pitting, and nearly all of the original finish is gone. Usually, they are still priced to high. But if the price is right, they can be a candidate for sandblast and ceracote. This does not result in a pretty re-blued finish, but it can be acceptable for a working gun. And even here, the total price may be too high unless you can do a bunch of the refinish work yourself.

Thanks for this reply, you make a good point that I definitely can't argue with. The goal is to have a good looking revolver but I'll certainly be putting rounds down at the range with it. I've found another 15-2 for $549 at a local shop and haven't checked it out yet. Apparently the condition is very good and for that price I figured if it wasn't anything spectacular what's $200-250 to have it re-blued.
 
Buy it, take it apart, clean it up with some 0000 fine steel wool if it needs it, maybe polish it up a little by hand, degrease it, dip the pieces in a tupperware container of oxpho blue, rinse them off, oil it, put it back together, and shoot it. Oxpho blue from Brownells is good stuff, just wear gloves and don't sniff it.
 
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Thanks for this reply, you make a good point that I definitely can't argue with. The goal is to have a good looking revolver but I'll certainly be putting rounds down at the range with it. I've found another 15-2 for $549 at a local shop and haven't checked it out yet. Apparently the condition is very good and for that price I figured if it wasn't anything spectacular what's $200-250 to have it re-blued.

Most police guns are carried a lot and shot once or twice a year at qualification. They usually are in great mechanical shape.
 
Most police guns are carried a lot and shot once or twice a year at qualification. They usually are in great mechanical shape.

Well......I'm sure that applies for guns in today's police force....... but that's not going to apply to guns that were issued 60+ years ago...than unserviced (or w/e the term is) and than sold to everyday consumers...But yeah, I'd imagine (hopefully) most of them are still fine internally...
 
Any pitting is going to take some good work to get looking right, then polished up nicely and hot blued....alot of work, for the extra money your going to spend you can find a nice in the box mint one ?
plus there are some that collect police issued revolvers and you would most likely benefit come time to resell if its in its original condition
 
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