SBH Refinish or Factory?

[KMK-678GC]

My gut tells me this was refinished rather than leaving the factory this way. Its a Oct 1960 Old Model SBH with a high gloss finish as can be seen in picture. I believe this finish would be correct for this vintage of SBH.

I honestly have not handled that many SBH to know if the finish looks correct or a rework. The balance of the roll marks are crisp and clean giving no indication of a reblue on the frame. I have many Rugers, most from mid late 60's, but have not ever seen this kind of defect on any of them from the factory.

The top outer circle on the eagle is missing or polished off. "Southport Conn" looks dull compared to "Sturm Ruger" just above it that is crisp. Ive seen bad refinish jobs and typical the entire roll mark is buggered up, not just a few aspects. In better light there doesn't appear to be any unusual sanding or waves in the finish around the roll mark.

Others with more experience have an opinion?

Thanks

Sorry the pic is not better.

 

[arfmel]

I agree with your gut.

 

[contender]

A common way many of us check a questionable finish on a Ruger SA is to look at one spot.
Pull the cylinder.
Look at the firing pin bushing.
If it's shiny,, the gun most likely has not been refinished.
If it's blued as well, then when the gun was re-blued, MOST places do not remove the firing pin bushing, and reblue over it.
This is due to the issue of how the bushing retention pin is positioned. The bushing pin extends to the exterior of the frame, and if removed, due to the curved end, HARD to re-align.

The rollmark of the eagle,, is often not "complete or uniform" due to rolling the die over the curve of the barrel.

 

[KMK-678GC]

I did check that and the bushing is in the white still. I should have mentioned that previously. Makes it more curious. See pic below. Also has what Id consider typical where consistent with others I have.

Just seems like the barrel address should be crisper, but then this old workhorse who has clearly not been refinished has a duller, shal we say, barrel address than others I own. There is I am sure a variation from die to die and those wear etc creating even greater variation over time.

Thanks for the input!

 

[Bullthrower338]

The barrel die marks do not appeared washed out as is so common with a refinished gun. I love Ruger blackhawks but I'm not a collector as much as an accumulator. I am not against taking a gun to a proper smith and having a nice CCH job and rebuke done. I'm here to enjoy my stuff while the good lord sees fit, a finely finished revolver just makes me happy. I say let my kids be mad that I shot the hell out of that 3 screw 41. Hopefully I raised them good enough to appreciate the fact I loved the gun enough to spend the money to have it dressed to my liking.
Cheers,
Cody

 

[rugerguy]

the only sure way to tell on a 'Super Blackhawk is to actually take apart the grip frame, from the cylinder frame, if it is original ( factory) there will be "white" unblued metal in between the two frames, on the flats, as this gun was blued in ONE piece, the frames screwed together, so it did NOT cover in this area,,,when many of us in the bluing business did a reblue, restore, restoration, the parts are blued separately,,,,,thus, completely, BUT knowing how this was done, we could replicate the operation,,,the hard part was in that time frame the factory really tried hard, and at times over did it as to the polishing ( prep) they were trying to compete with the S&W or Colt "presentation" guns.....today NON of the factories know how to replicate this high polish and some like Fords, tend to over polish.....back in the day the factories polishing guys were top notch, state of the art, at S&W and Colt, Ruger "tried".........

....remember too the formulation of todays bluing salts is NOT the same as back in the hey days........