Refinishing P85 slide

I recently bought a P85 with a stainless finished slide. The previous owner had attempted to polish the slide with a Dremel and botched the job. All sorts of waves in the finish. I would like to get it back to the satin finish that was original. I also was the one who sold him the gun and always regretted selling it. When he offered to sell it back I was very happy until I seen the polish job. TIA

Wonder if you can find a replacement?

Generally stainless cleans up and copies factory finish pretty well with a scotch-brite pad. But, with the dips and divots …. I'm not sure.

Ask member RoninPA for advice. He finishes a lot of guns.

ponderosa328 said:

I recently bought a P85 with a stainless finished slide. The previous owner had attempted to polish the slide with a Dremel and botched the job. All sorts of waves in the finish. I would like to get it back to the satin finish that was original. I also was the one who sold him the gun and always regretted selling it. When he offered to sell it back I was very happy until I seen the polish job. TIA

Click to expand...

IF (big if) the damage is limited to the flats on the left and right sides of the slide, there is a relatively simple way to smooth out the divots & get a brushed finish:
-Clamp a piece of aluminum angle/bar/square or rectangle tube to a smooth surface (polished stone - not ceramic! - floor tile may be a good option), with a sheet of appropriate type/grit sandpaper between the two.
-Tape down the exposed edges of the sandpaper to keep it from shifting.
-Remove the safety/decocker mechanism from the slide.
-Place the left or right side of the slide flat on the sandpaper, with the bottom (rail side) against the aluminum, and carefully move back and forth using the aluminum as a guide.

You want the motion to be straight back & forth each time. If you just need to remove a few scratches, start with finer grit; if you need to smooth out highs/lows/divots, start with a suitable medium or coarse grit paper, and progress to finer. I've used this method on several slides with what I consider to be excellent results, but it's worth noting that any factory markings on the slide may be affected - not a big deal to me, when salvaging a damaged slide, but obviously YMMV.

As hittman noted, finding a nice used replacement slide (or complete gun parts kit) on GunBroker, ebay or some other site might be an easier way to go!

As always, FWIW, IMHO, etc.

Post pictures and glad you are trying to keep a P-gun alive!!

....draw filing is your friend, and WORKS , but takes time and practice,,,wish I had a nickel for every barrel, or slide I have draw filed over the past 50 years and I learned from some of the best....lot easier to do a stainless slide than any ONE of the hundreds of octagon barrel s I've done, and ALL by hand ! finish up with emery paper ( aluminum oxide) and 3 M Scotchbrite pads.....

as noted in the picture, the use of a "flat" hard ,large or long surface does NOT work well with any slide that has the "step" from front to back, same with cross hatching for slide "grip", gotta recut the grooves or hatch cuts.....it ain't gonna be simple and easy...........

from what we can 'see' in the picture, a flat file with various grades ( grits) should suffice, start coarse and work down to finer grits, go with the grain?? ( front to back) seen slides with much worse, deeper rust spotting in them, we've done over the years..........OR if you have a lot of money or have a relative that knows , or owns a machine shop and has a surface grinder,,,,,too costly ,just to even set it up.....

As noted in a couple of previous posts, buying a nice used replacement slide (or complete gun parts kit) would be easier, and likely cheaper than a professional gunsmith. An added benefit would be spare parts; firing pin, extractor, etc. out of the abused slide, if a replacement slide assembly is purchased, plus frame parts (ejector, mag catch, etc.) if a complete gun parts kit is obtained. Since Ruger apparently doesn't stock most P-series parts anymore, spares are not a bad idea!

IMHO, FWIW, YMMV, etc.

I'd send it to CCR Refinishing in Greenville TN.


I sent a slide in for them to change to Sig's Desert tan and they did a great job:

Edit: they just sent me an email and have a 20% discount until the end of November.



They also did a bead blast on this Sig P230 as well as the magazines:

I was thinking a bead blast finish would probably help hide the damage done.

By Jove, Mike's got it. Bead Blast, no leveling required. Or, were me, shoot the gun and live with it.

That Sig P230 (2nd picture) is the only safe queen I have ... everything else get's shot and will and does get scratches and dings on it.
I got in trouble over on another forum because I posted a picture of my carry pistol, a Sig P239 that has according to the guy I bought it from a CCR refinishing was done on the lower.. either the cera-hide or the CPII, I can't remember... and I posted a picture of the pistol after I had carried it for about two years and some of the coating has come off. Boy, talk about starting a storm. And I was not criticizing at all... just seems to me any coating is likely to start to rub off eventually... now bead blasting is different.

Here's that P239: (coating on the lower, the upper is stainless.)

Honest use. I like it. Tools were meant to be used.

P230 is beautiful...

I have used CCR to do several projects for me. All turned out good. Usually bit of a wait as they are generally behind.