Refinish S&W 6906

[matsaleh]

I bought a PD trade-in S&W 6906 for $239 a few months ago. Shoots beautifully. Now I want to spruce it up, because the alloy frame shows much finish wear, and the matte stainless slide has some nice scuff marks.

Question 1: I was thinking of redoing the frame using Aluma-Hyde II matte stainless. I hear lots of good reports on this stuff. How should I prep the surface? All I have thought of is sanding the anodizing finish off and cleaning it up as you would any metal surface.

Question 2: How much should I expect to pay to have the slide bead blasted? I think I want to use a local person for this to avoid shipping charges and such.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Erich]

#2 - I paid $15 to have my 940 bead-blasted while I waited. I went to a place that rebuilds starters; the local gun store's smith wanted $50 and wanted me to leave the gun for 5 weeks. It worked fine, although a lot of folks online speculated that I might get grit into the works.

That said, I own a 6946 that's been around the block. The extent of my refurbishing it was to give it a good cleaning and to change out the recoil spring. I wonder if prettying up your gun is really a project worth taking on? Perhaps you'd be better off spending the money on full-cap mags and practice ammo? Your call, of course.

 

[matsaleh]

Hey that's a good idea. I can handle $15, but I'd rather spend the $50 on ammo, etc. Thanks for the info. What made you even think of going to that kind of place? It would not have occurred to me.

 

[Erich]

Someone on one of these forums suggested it. You might run some searches here and on the S&W Forum to see what concerns others had about the bead-blasting (after I did it). Don't know if it would work for you, but it did for me.

If you were going to go this route, you might make sure the guy running the bead-blaster is a "gun guy," so he knows what sort of a result he's shooting for. I would use heavy masking tape on all parts (everything but the outside of the slide) that you don't want blasted - I can't imagine what bead-blasting would do to your slide's rails. Also you might detail-strip the slide before you give it to him (as I recall, there are plastic parts up inside my 6946 slide and I would think they would not handle bead-blasting well).

Anyway, run some searches and read up on folks' concerns before you do anything to your gun. Good luck with it!