[25/20]

i bought an m1 receiver a few weeks ago, it is stainless, but it has no type of finish on it yet, what can i do to it as far as different methods go?

[AZ Jeff]

Do you mean M-1, as in Garand rifle, or M-1, as in Carbine?

Neither of these long guns have ever been made with stainless steel recievers, to the best of my knowledge. Certainly no government production ever used SS for the recievers, and I don't know of an commercial copies in SS.

What makes you think the reciever is SS? Maybe it's nickle plated, or even more likely, raw steel..............

[25/20]

truthfully, i have no idea, thats just what ive been told, i just know its yellow in color and that THAT doesnt look like any type of finish. btw, its a garand, and its a cai receiver

[AZ Jeff]

A yellowish hue to the surface color is common on electroless nickle plated firearms.

Based on that description from you, and the fact that it's a CAI receiver, I would bet it's been nickle plated.

[25/20]

if it has been nickle plated, how would i finish the job and make it look halfway normal?

[AZ Jeff]

If we have determined the finish is nickle, and you want the whole gun to be the same finish, here is what I would do:

Get the following parts electrolessly nickle plated: barrel, trigger housing, trigger guard, bolt, and associated bolt components.

Bead blast the gas cylinder, gas cylinder lock, and gas cylinder lock screw. These three parts are stainless steel anyhow, so the bead blast should match the nickle pretty well.

Parkerize all other parts to standard mil-spec gray/black color. This would include all stock hardware, the front and rear sight assemblies, the internal trigger and lockwork parts, and the clip latch.

Now when you are done, you have a two-tone rifle, with the small parts being dark in color, and the big ones being a dull silver. I guess that would look OK, but I really prefer my Garands to be gray-black, overall.......
;)