polished barrel: home job

[xd_john]

Originally Posted by Raptor1956

The only concern I have with polishing is if it removed enough material that things got a bit slopy and accuracy sufferred. Any idea how much difference in fit before and after?


Thanks,

Brian

I can't imagine that any calipers I own could tell any difference between before and after measurements.

[g29cc]

Originally posted by XXXXXX:
Personally, I'd stay away from anything that can risk change of dimension. If a chemical finish strip can change the tolerance (ask me how), I'd stay clear off the way mechanical means (polishing). You cannot convince me that those rounded edges in those pictures do not affect critical dimensions. Bluing is a chemical process. If you polish enough to take the barrel bluing off, you've gone pretty far.

Since you're a machinist...ever mic'd before and after polishing? You can say all you want, but without before/after measurement.....what you say don't really mean much.

Yep sure have mic'ed before and after and well within tolerance of a factory part that is by spec in some areas not dimensionally concentric , or parallel either.

So here is an example.

EFK and Sig barrel outside width of flats

.657 sig factory
.648 EFK factory

EFK and Sig barrel outside width of OD barrel

.550 Sig factory
.547 EFK factory

Here are some pictures of a barrel I just ran out and half polished an area to show the Caliper in picture , NO DIFFERENCE IN MEASUREMENT !!!

Lower area outside barrel od of polished surface

.5325


Upper area outside barrel od of unpolished BLUED surface

.5325


Polished area was .5325 before polishing as well.

Does it remove metal in some case yes it will remove .0003-.0008 and possibly on a high side .001. But even in that range, look at the difference between the EFK barrel and a Sig factory barrel dimension. Those are measurement from my own 229 barrel and a customer's EFK barrel in front of me. Why do I bother to measure things and write them down. Just pure curiosity to what machine tolerances are between companies and what not. Or if someone asks me why I think a certain company is better then another, I ll tell them, with all the barrels I ve done from XX company, they were all within .001 of each other, or they were all way out .008 from each other or from side to side.

So basically in a nut shell , STOP FIRING YOUR GUN RIGHT NOW. Your unevenly machining your surfaces every time you pull the trigger !! LOL Seriously though,with every trigger pull you cause friction , which in turn will remove material over time. In essence again, a well broken in gun shoots smoother , has less malfunctions then a new gun ( well we know Sigs dont malfunction ). Race guns are fit and polished to a very fine degree. They are not extremely loose such as service guns. If a service gun was super tight, there would be problems ( ahem... M16 vs AK 47 )

So while polishing may remove a inSIGnificant amount of material, its nothing that will hurt performance , and in 99.9 % of all cases improves greatly the performance.

Removing a surface such as blueing is so small that the factory doesnt even take in account for this in their tolerances for machining. If the factory had to take this into account and the tolerances were that tight to begin with, your gun would cost 4 times what it does now.

So again, yep I am a machinist and here is your pics of before and after as you requested. I ll further back up anything else I do as well with more hard facts and pictures if you would like.

And dont worry everyone I dont take offense to questions like this. I would rather have everyone understand the workings behind what is being done. If I can educate you in the process of what I am doing to further make you feel confident in what your having done, then please feel free to ask. I am super busy and might not get a chance to email or respond quickly , but will do my best.

[Rotty37]

Good info Todd!!

[HntnFsh]

Thanks for sharing.Very informative

[g29cc]

Not a problem.

As far as a beauty enhancement ( the polishing ) it greatly smoothes out the action and clean up is a breeze. So there is more then one advantage to it.

Just use grease type lubes instead of oils.

Thanks
Todd

[Bill in San Jose]

I took the brass brush and a dremel to mine today, and then used the dremel wheel and the polishing material. After about 30 minutes it's pretty shiny, I need to go get some Flitz or Mothers tomorrow to finish the job.

The only problem, is I keep looking at the slide now......

[Reno82]

Has anybody try using or putting the bbl in the tumbler?? It polishes the brass... I'm thinking of plugging up the bbl with paper on both ends and then putting in the tumbler. Any have any other suggestions about using the tumbler?

[xd_john]

Originally Posted by Reno82

Has anybody try using or putting the bbl in the tumbler?? It polishes the brass... I'm thinking of plugging up the bbl with paper on both ends and then putting in the tumbler. Any have any other suggestions about using the tumbler?

this sounds like a really, really bad idea.

[GimmieBoost]

I polished my barrel about six months ago and no signs of rust. I even let it sit dry and dirty for a couple months. Everything just wiped right off and it looked good as new again. I used a polishing wheel from Lowes that attaches to a bench grinder. They have some sticks of polishing compound that work great too. I didn't use any sandpaper so it took FOREVER to get the finish off. I was amazed at how tough melonite is. I think polishing it actually made the gun feel smoother and definitely looks better.

-Jesse

[xd_john]

Originally Posted by GimmieBoost

I polished my barrel about six months ago and no signs of rust. I even let it sit dry and dirty for a couple months. Everything just wiped right off and it looked good as new again. I used a polishing wheel from Lowes that attaches to a bench grinder. They have some sticks of polishing compound that work great too. I didn't use any sandpaper so it took FOREVER to get the finish off. I was amazed at how tough melonite is. I think polishing it actually made the gun feel smoother and definitely looks better.

-Jesse

yeah -- i didn't use any sandpaper either, nothing but a wheel and some polishing compounds. still though, it went from stock to mirrored in probably 30 minutes? maybe 35, but some of that time was spent letting it cool off so you could touch it.