Nickel Finish

[Digger]

Hi All,

I have my heart set on getting a Colt .45.  I'm strongly considering getting a nickel finish, mainly because I don't have a gun with a nickel finish.  There's just one catch.  I actually shoot my guns.  I've always said I'm not going to have a toy that cost that much that I can't play with.  I've heard that a nickel finish won't take much shooting without discoloring, or chipping and flaking, and I was wondering if anybody here could tell me if that's true or not.

Thanks,
Digger

[St. George]

Modern nickel-plating is about as durable as you'd want, and there are thousands and thousands of plated weapons still giving excellent service that were plated a very long time ago.

I don't know who's saying anything about discoloring - I've never seen it - and any peeling plating that I've seen was on the old 'Suicide Specials' and early low-cost pocket revolvers that were plated over a bare metal finish with no underlying sub-strate of copper.

They fixed that problem way before WWII...

You can de-plate it 'if' you let the weapon sit overnight in a bath of Hoppe's #9 - but no one does that, with the modern solvents available.

If you treat the piece with the reasonable, normal care given to a blued weapon - you'll enjoy the finish for a very long time.

Vaya,

Scouts Out!