Look into DLC as an alternative

 

Lack nitride is about $400 from Nighthawk.
A really nice blueing job is between $350 and 600 depending on vendor.
DLC is 700-ish for the whole gun.
you can pay less and get crap

 

Thx. So "smoke" nitride is just an extra manual step after the black is infused into the steel?

 

Black nitride is essentially blued without polishing.

 

No.
Black nitride is Melonite, Tennifer, QPQ, etc.
A very different finish than a hot salt blue.

 

90% of your finish is the prep. Irregardless of what you choose to go with. So how you want the gun to appear finished prep it accordingly. The more picky you are with prep the better the finish.

 

exactly this! Don’t skimp & frankly I’d not prep the parts myself if I didn’t have experience- send it to someone reputable to prep & have it refinished like nighthawk

 

I stand corrected. Mea Culpa.

 

I would go with the best finish money can buy if you want it to the be lasting. DLC arguably the best option for longevity. PVD (DLC based coating) opens up some options color wise depending on what you want to accomplish.

as others have said above your prep work is what goes into the final product more than anything.

 

Is the gun built and fitted yet or still just random parts? If not, get all that done first, the last thing you do is the bluing/finish.

Check with Dietrich Gunsmithy Dietrich Gunsmithy - Home
They still do their own bluing and they've done lots of work for me. They're a small shop and may not have the same wait time as better known outfits.

 

It's just a collection of parts for now; I've dry fitted the slide/barrel/frame and it seems good, but needs some tweaking. The slide also needs some attention to sharp edges/corners. Thx for the recommendations!

 

Don’t do any prep until you’ve chosen the shop to do the finish and know what they require of you and what they’ll do themselves. Even some places that literally only do finishing and require you to ship a fully disassembled gun will still do their own surface prep.

Also, yeah, as mentioned above, don’t finish it until all other work is already done.

I don’t like sharing quoted prices publicly, but I just sent a gun to Aquilla Custom Gun Works in NC for full DLC and his quote was well below $700. Same goes for some other smiths who list their finishing prices online. Obviously we have Integrity Arms and Evolution Gun Works as members here and both are highly regarded DLC sources. You can also send the stripped gun to someone like DNA or Jarvis, but I think by the time you factor in the work a gunsmith will do for you that isn’t much of a cost savings.

Depending on where you are, it may be much easier to find a blueing source local enough to drive to, which is convenient. Shipping handguns is a pain now that FedEx and UPS don’t accept guns from non-FFLs anymore.

If you’re talking about doing your own prep, presumably you have a blasting cabinet or will be setting one up. At that point, it’s really easy to just add the parkerizing kit from Brownells, and then you have at least one DIY finish option for everything - sand blast only for stainless steel and aluminum, and prep and parkerize for carbon steel.

 

Thanks, great suggestions! I will definitely complete the fitting (and range testing) before doing any prep work.

 

Look up APW Cogan good prices and fast turn around he blued a gun for me and also hard chrome. I sent him the whole gun so I did not have to take it all apart.

 

www.evolutionarmory.com
Check it out...

 

they sell bluing kits on amazon.you went that far go the rest of the way