Should be easy. 85's have fixed sights, don't they?
If you wanted to be lazy about it, you could just pull the grips off, but leave the gun assembled. Then, get creative with duct tape or good masking tape, and a sharp exacto knife and mask off all the openings to the moving parts 'n internals. This is the trickiest part of the whole equasion, so be willing to spend a little time being neat and getting the tape pressed down REALLY well. Trim it off neatly where neccessary, and keep lines straight. It'll be pretty easy to run tape-edges out to corners and trim flush, like on the grip-panel flats, fer'instance.
Stop by the local machine shop and they oughta be able to blast the thing to as-new matte finish in just a few minutes. Should be cheap, as you did the tricky part. Blow it off good before you leave the shop.
Take it home, carefully pull of the tape, and give it a thorough cleaning. Lots of liquid! You could use HOT soapy water, even. Rinse with enough hot water to get the gun too hot to touch, and it'll bake itself dry. Blow it off, also, if it's handily possible. Otherwise just set it down, opened, in front of a desk fan, say, to get a good flow of air through the internals and let it bake itself out.
Replace the grips, lube it up nice and thoroughly, but not overmuch. Maybe black-out the front sight? and take it for a test run. Hopefully it won't feel gritty.
But if it does, you'll just have to take it apart and clean it better, a not-impossible task. Remove the sideplate by removing all the scroos, and tapping on the frame
next to the sideplate with a piece of hardwood, while you hold the gun flat in your hand, sideplate up. Inertia will pop it right off with just a few light taps. If it doesn't want to move right off, hit it MORE before you hit it HARDER.
Hopefully, that'll get you where you want to go.
And since it's a Taurus, and you're going to look at it really closely,
could you do me this little favor? The more the better.
And since you find stainless ugly, I present for your further amusement:
Practical Snobbery, The Case Against Stainless. Opinions Welcome!
Thanks.
