Stainless Steel 686+, to polish or not to polish?

[Fast Eddie]

Polish it! Just leave the bead blasting in the top of the barrel.

 

[DB is Here]

I'm used to my 442 for daily. It's your 586 a pretty hefty jump from the little J-frame? I'd assume the weight is significant; how is the daily carry with it?

It's a huge weight difference TBH. I don"t EDC my 686+ that often, but when I do I'm Fabulous.

 

[OldBroad44]

My edc is a 686-4 snubby with Crimson Trace grips. Very easy to carry. If you love your 686 6-inch, consider a 686 snubby for edc.

 

[OldBroad44]

By the way, your 686 6-inch can make an excellent home defense gun.

With revolvers with a 6-inch or longer barrel, you can pretty easily teach yourself to point shoot them by lining up the entire gun a bit below your line of sight and essentially using the whole gun as the sight. This is very useful because it's faster than lining up sights, works much better for moving targets, and requires only enough light to see the outline of the gun. And it allows you to focus on the assailant rather than your sight picture, the natural thing to do when holding off a bad guy and watching his hands like crazy for any sudden motion that might represent his going for a weapon. It also works just as well when your eyes age and it's harder to see the sights.

 

[Rudedog]

By the way, your 686 6-inch can make an excellent home defense gun.

With revolvers with a 6-inch or longer barrel, you can pretty easily teach yourself to point shoot them by lining up the entire gun a bit below your line of sight and essentially using the whole gun as the sight. This is very useful because it's faster than lining up sights, works much better for moving targets, and requires only enough light to see the outline of the gun. And it allows you to focus on the assailant rather than your sight picture, the natural thing to do when holding off a bad guy and watching his hands like crazy for any sudden motion that might represent his going for a weapon. It also works just as well when your eyes age and it's harder to see the sights.

The six inch barrel delivers outstanding projectile speed. I have only had a 5.5 inch Ruger Blackhawk. With it I could hit at 110 yards on a hog silhouette. Then I switched to shooting double action with a four inch S&W. At this point I can still hit with it out to 55 yards on D/A freestanding. So that's good enough for me. I am currently practicing with my four inch .38 Special D/A only with fixed sights. So far only 20 yards.

 

[Rudedog]

By the way, your 686 6-inch can make an excellent home defense gun.

With revolvers with a 6-inch or longer barrel, you can pretty easily teach yourself to point shoot them by lining up the entire gun a bit below your line of sight and essentially using the whole gun as the sight. This is very useful because it's faster than lining up sights, works much better for moving targets, and requires only enough light to see the outline of the gun. And it allows you to focus on the assailant rather than your sight picture, the natural thing to do when holding off a bad guy and watching his hands like crazy for any sudden motion that might represent his going for a weapon. It also works just as well when your eyes age and it's harder to see the sights.

Amen to that!

 

[Greenbug]

In my mind polishing it degrades the value and detracts from the overall look. But it is your gun, do what makes you happy.

 

[Kruel J]

I say leave it be. Polishing just makes it too shiny and even harder to maintain.


I do like a good helmet polishing here and there though.

 

[OldBroad44]

Sounds like you're experiencing a desire to modify more to personalize rather than from any necessity. But it's hard to modify a gun this good without doing something counter-productive. I personally wouldn't polish. It would make every tiny scratch or abrasion show. And part of the advantage of stainless steel is they don't show. I'd suggest personalizing through grips.

I have to sympathize with the desire to personalize, though. I once had a firing pin break on a Colt Anaconda .44 mag 6-inch. It was my favorite plinking as well as woods carry gun at the time. However, the firing pin broke while it was under warranty. Since I was sending it back to the factory anyway, I had them do a trigger job as well as Magna Port the barrel. The trigger job was nice. But I turned out to hate the Magna Ported barrel. Yes, of course it reduced felt recoil on any given load. But it blasted more of the sound back at me so the gun was unpleasantly loud even with my wearing full hearing protection. I ended up selling the gun because I hated the Magna Ported barrel so much.

 

[thenameisjack]

I say leave it be. Polishing just makes it too shiny and even harder to maintain.


I do like a good helmet polishing here and there though.

Does it make it harder to clean/maintain?

There is nothing wrong with the piece as it is from the factory, and a large part of me says: they made it this way for a reason.
Another part of me says: shiny is neato, and maybe that is easier to clean?

I really don't know, hence why I ask.

 

[Kruel J]

Does it make it harder to clean/maintain?

There is nothing wrong with the piece as it is from the factory, and a large part of me says: they made it this way for a reason.
Another part of me says: shiny is neato, and maybe that is easier to clean?

I really don't know, hence why I ask.

It will just show so much more wear after the polishing. Every little tiny scratch or rub mark acquired after the polish job will stand out.

 

[gunnails]

If you do decide to polish, it is possible to restore the brushed finish with a Scotch Brite.
Just have to use the Scotch Brite following the grain so to speak.

 

[s1xty7]

Not a 686, but a 586 no dash nickel 4". Don't shoot it much. Too pretty.



I hand polished this SP101 all the way down to 2000 grit and finished it with mother's mag polish. It looks like a mirror but you can still see minor grain marks in it. I've heard the secret is Renaissance wax to help keep finger prints and smudges off. Sure is pretty. Don't polish the top of the revolver because it can cause glare that will impact your sight picture. So very much work. Dozens of hours. My elbows hurt after every session.



For my more regular shooters, I stick to brushed stainless. It wears much better. No fingerprints. Don't feel the need to polish it after every time I pick it up. Less obvious if you were to carry them.

Stainless is sexy. I don't think you can go wrong with whatever you choose.

 

[Certaindeaf]

I hunt with my handguns so I'd leave it alone.. you can still pimp slap stuff when it's dead though.
Also, cleaning the discoloration from the cylinder face is the mark of a wasted life.

 

[titsonritz]

If you like pimp guns go for it.

 

[uberguy]

"Every little tiny scratch or rub mark acquired after the polish job will stand out."

THIS posted earlier. IMO, better to leave as-is and later as you acquire scratches, consider polishing those out. Also, polishing over time wears away the logo and caliber imprinted information, making it less desirable to some.

I polished a Colt 1911 slide after acquiring scratches and now while it is nice and shinny, you can barely make out the factory logo/model info.

 

[Fast Eddie]

"Every little tiny scratch or rub mark acquired after the polish job will stand out."

THIS posted earlier. IMO, better to leave as-is and later as you acquire scratches, consider polishing those out. Also, polishing over time wears away the logo and caliber imprinted information, making it less desirable to some.

I polished a Colt 1911 slide after acquiring scratches and now while it is nice and shinny, you can barely make out the factory logo/model info.

This is true of etched logos and calibers, most stamps like the ones on your 686 will not fade with hand polishing.

 

[BSG 75]

There is nothing wrong with the piece as it is from the factory, and a large part of me says: they made it this way for a reason.

You're right, there is a reason: polishing is labor intensive = costly. Companies rarely do it anymore because it affects their bottom line (profits).

Back in the day, machines were expensive and labor was cheap. A lot of tasks like fine polishing were performed by relatively inexpensive human labor.



Nowadays, machines are cheap (compare the cost and capabilities of an IBM mainframe computer from the 1950s to the computer on your desktop right now) and labor is expensive. Go to the supermarket and human checkers are being replaced by automated self-checkout. Even McDonald's is replacing human order takers with machines. Few firearm companies want to pay the labor cost of making a firearm that has the hand-polished finish quality of an old Colt or Smith & Wesson.

(web photos, not my guns)



(I do own these two)



That's why Colt isn't going to make Pythons again, because even if they charged twice as much they wouldn't be as good. The humans who knew how to polish firearms like that are retired or dead, and the skills and knowledge that used to be handed down from master to apprentice have been lost.

That's why many of us like old guns: they literally don't can't make them like they used to. Everything is plastic polymer and matte finish or Cerakote now. Sure, modern guns have their advantages but they don't have the finish quality of old guns, unless you are willing to pay thousands for a custom 1911 or such. Most people nowadays just want something inexpensive that will shoot. In the old days you could get something that would shoot and was beautiful.

 

[spreezeye]

I use lead away cloth on front of cylinder, simichrome polish. the paste will turn
black, but keep polishing with the black paste.

 

[Dan Adams]

I was also going to suggest Simichrome polish, though I haven't been able to locate a source for it near me (south of Seattle). I first used it when I was a kid building HO scale dragsters and wanted to make the aluminum rails look like they were chromed, and it does a fantastic job. That said, when I dropped into a nearby auto parts store, a fellow gun nut (and Vietnam vet) steered me to some 2000 and 3000 grit polishing "paper" that has a spongy backing on it. I used it to polish a 1911 feed ramp to mirrorlike smoothness, so I think it's probably equivalent to the Simichrome polishing compound (which throws grit all over the place when polishing with my Dremel tool). That grit is used to polish fine lacquer finishes and clearcoats.