Polishing a ruger mark 3 (Alloy steel vs stainless)

Fishnutz · Mar 9, 2012

I have a standard model ruger mk3. It has the ruger blued finish on it. Ruger's website says these are made of alloy steel while they say the target, hunter, and competition models are made of stainless steel. My question is can I polish up my alloy steel frame/barrel and not have to worry about it like stainless?

Can i turn this

into this?

speedtriple · Mar 9, 2012

Alloy steel will rust without a finish on it. Just the acid from your skin oils will rust it, let alone the Northwest weather.

Fishnutz · Mar 9, 2012

speedtriple said:
Alloy steel will rust without a finish on it. Just the acid from your skin oils will rust it, let alone the Northwest weather.

Thanks for the quick answer. Any suggestions on a type of clear cera/dura/coat I might be able to spray after polishing? I'd really like a stainless-looking tapered barrel with out tracking one down. Ruger made the one in the picture for a special distributors run, it is stainless steel.

speedtriple · Mar 9, 2012

Best way would be to sell/trade for a stainless model.

Most any paint like coating needs something to bond to. Highly polished metal does not have much to hook to. Personally, I could not recommend anything. I also thing you will have one HECK of a time getting all the bluing off your gun. It would be one thing to polish a satin finished stainless gun, but getting a high shine everywhere and not having bluing show in the corners and low spots will take a LOT of work. You might contact a gun finisher, and see if they have a high gloss cera/dura coat that will get you close to what you want.