Meld or Melt

Lately I have been seeing lots of people refer to the smoothing of their pistols for ease of draw and insertion into holster as well as keeping sights low profile as melt, I always thought the correct and originally used term was meld. Is this just an evolution of the the way people refer to this?

A rose by any other name...

Neither term is actually accurate. With the exception of a few cases of grip reshaping on poly frames nothing is really being melted in these modifications and the sights are certainly not literally being melded ("made one") to the slide...

I think the (misuse) of the term "melting" to refer to smoothing and rounding edges actually originated with hot rod builders back in the 50's or 60's...maybe even earlier than that.

The correct terms or phrases are Disrespect and/or Piss Poor Polishing. Meld or melt is just a fancy way to cover over the fact that you polished off half the markings, dished out the screw holes, made straight lines waivy, corners soft and wiggly and in all respects,,,,disrespected the weapon with lack of skill. Hell, even Kimber does it from the factory (with regular kimbers being the seconds and melts being the thirds, heck, seems they make no firsts!)

Really, the ones you see melted are the ones that have always been too big for pocket carry. Meld or melt is worse than gun paint...much as I hate paint on good gun steel, I'd rather see a wad o Durakrap laid down than a melt! But then, I can be a bit opinionated.

Relieving, chamfering, radiusing, easing... It's all the same. Breaking sharp edges that catch on holsters or clothing during a draw. Melding isn't a common term for it though, melting is the latest sales gimmick term.

Any decent gunsmith can do it for most firearms, some, such as Glocks, have a higher risk factor since you're working on the serialized frame for a good part of it. And, for Glock frames, it's actually melted.

Jeff

Actually, the word meld means a blending of tow or more items. TD

Been around handguns for a long time.....never, but never had a gun catch on clothing an need to be fudgepacked nearly to death at every corner and intersection by a buffer in order to get it smoothly in and out of clothing and or holsters.

Most drastic mod I ever had to make for carry was to lightly bob the hammer of a Model 60 so it wouldn't catch the lip when drawing from the looser pocket of dress pants (no snag at all when pulled from snugger bluejeans, go figger). And when done, it wasn't melded/melted at all, just trimmed shorter, checkering still sharp on top, upper and lower raidus of the tail sharp but smooth.....It looks professional, as if there was care in the effort, meld/melt looks sloppy, as if a WeinerBobBoy is justa breakin in his new dremil tool.