Sixguns: Blued or stainless?

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Bill in Oregon
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Sixguns: Blued or stainless?

Post by Bill in Oregon »

What's your preference? I am getting the hots for a Ruger Bisley flattop in .44 Special, but living in the desert, there's really no need for stainless and it will take more firelapping to smooth up should it have the dreaded Ruger "thread choke." That said, I find SS strangely attractive, if untraditional, and the cylinder bolt drag marks common with Ruger SAs aren't quite so obvious as on blued cylinders. What are your druthers, friends?
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OldWin
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Re: Sixguns: Blued or stainless?

Post by OldWin »

I like stainless too, but all my stainless revolvers are Smith DA's.
For a single action, I will always be a blued/blued & case color fan. I like the look with a nice set of stags or ivory too!
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Re: Sixguns: Blued or stainless?

Post by Pitchy »

I`m with OldWin, :)
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Re: Sixguns: Blued or stainless?

Post by crshelton »

I have both and find the blued easy to remove powder residue, but it seems to be much more obvious on the stainless and much more difficult to remove.
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Re: Sixguns: Blued or stainless?

Post by Bill in Oregon »

Well, boys, I'd love a color-cased frame and ivory grips, too, but barbecue guns are currently well above my pay grade ...

:oops:

Charles, that's a point worth considering.
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Re: Sixguns: Blued or stainless?

Post by OldWin »

Bill in Oregon wrote: Sun Nov 26, 2017 9:28 am Well, boys, I'd love a color-cased frame and ivory grips, too, but barbecue guns are currently well above my pay grade ...

:oops:

Charles, that's a point worth considering.
Trust me, most are above mine too! Some of the repro SAA's are pretty good quality nowadays and some of the imitation grips arent bad either. I have a set of "aged" Tru Ivory grips that look pretty darn good.
Of course, none of the SAA clones will meet the strength of the Ruger.
The .44spec is a great cartridge in a single action.
Ole Pitchy is currently holding the one I covet. :D
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Re: Sixguns: Blued or stainless?

Post by Pete44ru »

.

I prefer blued carbon steel for my handguns, but my SD/HD .44 Bulldog is stainless - go figure ! :)


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Re: Sixguns: Blued or stainless?

Post by jeepnik »

My hands literally attack blued steel. So for practical purposes stainless is the way I go if possible.
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Re: Sixguns: Blued or stainless?

Post by Bearskinner »

Due to the weather here, and always dragging them thru the woods, I’m going all stainless
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Re: Sixguns: Blued or stainless?

Post by Chuck 100 yd »

I like both but my collecTion has about 5 stainless for every blued one. I guess that says something.
Sometimes when I come home from a shoot I just don't feel like cleaning my guns right away and they will lay dirty for some time. Stainless is good for that.
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Re: Sixguns: Blued or stainless?

Post by AJMD429 »

My hands literally attack blued steel. So for practical purposes stainless is the way I go if possible.
I like both but my collecTion has about 5 stainless for every blued one. I guess that says something.
Sometimes when I come home :roll: from a shoot I just don't feel like cleaning my guns right away and they will lay dirty for some time. Stainless is good for that.
Same here on both counts.
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Re: Sixguns: Blued or stainless?

Post by HawkCreek »

Get both i believe is the correct answer!

My favorite will always be blued with case color frame and ivory grips, no question about that. But lately I've been wanting a stainless with bone grips, don't know why but I think that looks pretty slick as well.
Bill in Oregon
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Re: Sixguns: Blued or stainless?

Post by Bill in Oregon »

Well, with blued, I could have the frame color-cased at some future date if I ever came into some extra cabbage. Say, just how hard is it to get a Ruger SA timed to avoid the cylinder bolt drag marks?
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Re: Sixguns: Blued or stainless?

Post by 765x53 »

For what it's worth, my stainless ROA is more rust prone than my blued model.
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Re: Sixguns: Blued or stainless?

Post by Old Savage »

I have Rugers in both. Get both, only way to know.
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Re: Sixguns: Blued or stainless?

Post by Pete44ru »

Bill in Oregon wrote: Sun Nov 26, 2017 12:29 pm
Say, just how hard is it to get a Ruger SA timed to avoid the cylinder bolt drag marks?

Bill, AFAIK:

With a traditional SA (4-clicks/3-screw) all you have to do to take care that your cylinder is never ringed is to never lower the hammer from the half cock notch.

Doing so causes the bolt to rise between the lead(s) and then when the cylinder is turned, the bolt drags on it.

Always draw the hammer all the way back to full cock before lowering it.

With a Ruger New Model SA, it's unavoidable unless the loading gate is opened prior to indexing the cylinder so the next chamber aligns with the bore.

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Re: Sixguns: Blued or stainless?

Post by marlinman93 »

Blued are always my preference!
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Re: Sixguns: Blued or stainless?

Post by stretch »

I think I'm runnin' about half and half - although not by design!

The older designs look better blued to my eye. Big Redhawks look
better in stainless, methinks.

-Stretch
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Re: Sixguns: Blued or stainless?

Post by AJMD429 »

I always thought they may as well just ornament the 'drag line' instead of trying to make it not happen.
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Re: Sixguns: Blued or stainless?

Post by ollogger »

For me I do like them blued, I have a sweet Colt in 44-40 but it is starting to show holster wear as well as any other hand gun I own
so some where over the last 10 years I now have 2 Rugers & a S&W that are SS & I do prefer them over a blued gun as they handle
the wear & tear of a lot of use with out rubbing of all that pretty color



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Re: Sixguns: Blued or stainless?

Post by piller »

I like the look of the blue, but I will gladly use either.
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Re: Sixguns: Blued or stainless?

Post by Richardx »

Late to the thread. Ain't I always..

Like blued own both.

Powered residue on SS cylinders is easily cleaned if you shoot Holy Black after smokeless. When you start your BP cleanup you will be amazed to watch the smokeless residue disappear.
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Re: Sixguns: Blued or stainless?

Post by M. M. Wright »

My "Main Match Guns" are a brace of Colt SAAs, full blue with ivory grips. 4 3/4" 44-40. One 2nd, one 3rd generation. They are NOT case colored as I prefer the full blue. I own some that are nickel too but nothing stainless. I have never liked the "stickiness" of stainless, it's lack of lubricity compared to carbon steel.

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Re: Sixguns: Blued or stainless?

Post by Sixgun »

Probably one person in 1000 "needs" a stainless gun for its corrosion resistant properties.....you know, those cats who live in Alaska.....I'll take blue.---6
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Re: Sixguns: Blued or stainless?

Post by Ji in Hawaii »

Living here in salty humid air Hawai'i where even stainless steel rusts without regular maintenance I will always prefer stainless steel. All my handguns are SS. That being said my dream handgun is a Colt Python in highly polished almost jet black blued.
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Re: Sixguns: Blued or stainless?

Post by JB »

Blue is pretty, but I prefer stainless for a gun I'll actually be using.
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Re: Sixguns: Blued or stainless?

Post by Old Ironsights »

jeepnik wrote: Sun Nov 26, 2017 10:17 am My hands literally attack blued steel. So for practical purposes stainless is the way I go if possible.
Here's a "Me too".

Can't own a blued handgun. They rust both in hand and on belt.

Same with long guns, so they are either Stainless, Phosphate/Parkerized (PTR91), full stock (Garand) or handled/shot only in gloves...

Now, preference in looks?

In the White/matte stainless,
Parkerized,
Tennifer,
Case Colored,
Matte Blue,
Bright Blue,
Polished Nickel/Chrome

In that order.
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Re: Sixguns: Blued or stainless?

Post by piller »

Old Ironsights wrote: Thu Nov 30, 2017 8:21 pm
jeepnik wrote: Sun Nov 26, 2017 10:17 am My hands literally attack blued steel. So for practical purposes stainless is the way I go if possible.
Here's a "Me too".

Can't own a blued handgun. They rust both in hand and on belt.

Same with long guns, so they are either Stainless, Phosphate/Parkerized (PTR91), full stock (Garand) or handled/shot only in gloves...

Now, preference in looks?

In the White/matte stainless,
Parkerized,
Tennifer,
Case Colored,
Matte Blue,
Bright Blue,
Polished Nickel/Chrome

In that order.
It just has everything to do with your body chemistry. Probably more salt, more acid, and maybe even a volt or two more than normal. Most humans produce less than 1 volt across their skin under normal conditions, but a few go up to 5 volts. Rare, but not unheard of. Add salt, acid, and electricity, and you have a solution which will dissolve most steel in a hurry. More electricity and the reaction speeds up. One Uncle of mine had to buy watches with all stainless steel on the outside of the watch, including the pins holding the strap on. Anything other than stainless and it would be showing etching in a few days. He couldn't carry a carbon steel pocket knife in warm weather without rusting the blades beyond use in less than a month. Oiling the blade every day did not stop it.
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Re: Sixguns: Blued or stainless?

Post by Rusty »

Stainless with stag grips makes for a fine looking piece in my opinion.
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Re: Sixguns: Blued or stainless?

Post by Old Ironsights »

When I was a grunt in FRG, I bought a pair of CZ 75 pistols from the Darmstadt Polezi.

Stupid accurate even with milled fixed sights.

The Polezi were disposing of them after transitioning to 9mm.

I loved these guns. Eyeball Accurate at all combat ranges.

But I flash rusted them. They went from gorgeous blue to reddish bleah in a couple of days IWB... Even after a reblue.

So I sold them and soon got my Noisy Cricket NAA Guardian .32. Not as accurate, but smaller and rust proof... Even when swimming in the toxic Gary IN Lake Michigan coast.

But man, those CZs made me shoot like Sean Connery in a Bond flick.
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Re: Sixguns: Blued or stainless?

Post by Malamute »

I am huge fan of blued pistols, regardless of application, though I own a stainless one or two. Yes, they are practical, but I just really dont care for how they look. Some that are highly polished to look like nickel are OK, but thats not the norm. The weird color of stainless is part of what bothers me about them. Nickel looks far better to me, and blue, even badly worn, rust stained and spotted, looks vastly better to me than stainless.

I can only shake my head at the angst about turn lines. They never bothered me in the least. On any blued gun I carried much, the turn line was the very least part of any finish wear. On all the Colt SAs Ive had, I lowered the hammer down from the loading notch, never had any problems, other than the turn line may have been slightly longer. BTW, Colts manuals say to lower the hammer from half cock. Ive heard some claim it can damage them, but its never happened to me or anyone Ive heard of.

So, for me, blued, in nearly any condition, trailed somewhat by nickel, and far far down, stainless. Ive sold guns simply because they were stainless and I preferred a blued version of the same thing, or simply passed by guns for sale I may have otherwise been interested in because they were ugly, I mean stainless.

I knew a guy in Az years ago. H loved the Smith 24s, but couldnt find one for a carry gun. He showed me his gun once, it was black, with a worn through layer of yellow, then silver below that. He could only find a stainless 24 (624) so he used rustoleum spray paint with its correct yellow primer to paint it and make it the natural color of a revolver. Thats about how I feel about stainless also, Id rather spray paint a gun black than look at it in its normal state. Simpler to just avoid stainless whenever possible. :)

Can hardly see the turn line.
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Re: Sixguns: Blued or stainless?

Post by Griff »

Blued, period. I have ONE stainless gun... a S&W mdl 65. It was on special at the LGS at a time when I needed a .38 Special revolver. I couldn't find a mdl 10 or 13... and I wanted something that didn't have adjustable sights. The mdl 65 came home with a big oversize set of Pachmyer black rubber grips. In my duty holster you can only see the grip and trigger guard. My dept armorer took a CCH trigger & hammer from outta his parts box... and swapped 'em out... I wanted the larger spur on the hammer and serrated trigger.

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That gun ain't been fired since 2005. As soon as I could, I went to my blued CC.
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Re: Sixguns: Blued or stainless?

Post by Old Savage »

Have both, like both, don't get the angst one way or the other.
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Re: Sixguns: Blued or stainless?

Post by gundownunder »

I had a Ruger single six in stainless, and a Ruger security six in blue.
I liked them both, and my only prejudice is that the blue needs to be oiled religiously to stop rust.
I guess depending on your eyes the stainless could be an issue with regard to glare, I didn't have that problem.
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